PilrcEdit Tutorial

Basics

• Start PilrcEdit. A blank form should appear in the Form window and the details of this form in the Properties window.
• Edit the contents of the title field. Notice how the title of the form changes as you type.
• Click on the Frame property that says 'False'. It will change to true and the form will have a frame. Click it again and the frame will disappear again.
• Right click in the middle of the frame. A popup menu will appear. Choose New|Button. A button should appear with a red dot in it's top right corner. This dot means that this is the currently selected control and it's details are in the Properties window.
• Start typing a label for the button (like 'Cancel'). Notice that focus switches to the 'Label' field in the properties window. You should also see that the width of the button changes with what is typed. This is because it's width is set to 'AUTO'.
• Choose a new Font from the Font dropdown property.
• Change the frame type by clicking on the Frame property.
• Move the mouse over the top of the button. The cursor will change depending on what you can do. In the middle you will get a move cursor and on the edges you will get resize cursors. When you have a move cursor, click and drag to move the button around. The position will be updated in the Left and Top fields in the Properties window.
• Try dragging the button to the middle of the form horizontally. When you get there you should notice that the red dot jumps from the top left to the top center of the button and the Left field is changed to 'CENTER'. If you now change the Label text or resize it horizontally it will stay centered.
• Now right click on the button and choose Duplicate from the menu. A new identical button will appear underneath the old one. Notice that it's left and top coordinates are PREVLEFT and PREVTOP+1. The red dot will have moved to the new button and the old button will have a blue dot. This means that the position and/or size of the currently selected control (red dot) is dependent on the control with the blue dot.
• Click and drag the original button to move it. Notice that the new button follows it.
• Adjust the relative position of the new button by moving it. You can break the connection by moving it a certain distance away from it's dependent or choosing Disconnect from the right click menu. To reconnect, just move it close to a control that doesn't already have a dependent.
• Make sure the new button is dependent and Duplicate it. The new button will be the same distance away from it as it is from the first one.
• Move one of the buttons to the left of the form, then move another one next to it. In the Width property of the second one type '140-PREVWIDTH'. Now click on the right side of the first button and drag to the left and right. The two buttons should take up the same width, with one getting smaller as the other gets larger. I don't know how useful it is but I think it's pretty cool :)

Alerts

• Choose the Alert|New Alert menu item. A new alert will appear.
• Double click on the Text field in the Properties window. A new box should appear with the words 'Message Text' in it. Change this text to whatever you like and notice that it changes on the screen too.
• Close the Text Editor window by clicking on the X.
• Look at the Buttons field in the properties. It should say 'Ok,Cancel'. Try editing this to add more buttons. If you need a comma in one of your buttons, write it like this: '\,' You can also double click on the field to bring up a window with each button on it's own line. Here you can write commas normally.

Bitmaps

• Start a new Form.
• Right-click and choose New|Form Bitmap. A square with a cross through it will appear and the "Icons and Bitmaps" Frame will pop up. You can also get to this frame through the Others|Icons and Bitmaps menu or double clicking on an existing Form Bitmap.
• Type an ID for your new Bitmap. (eg "bitmapPalm") The text will be red until you press Enter to add it to the constant file (.h)
• Add the image filenames for as many of the four image types as you want by either typing or using the Browse buttons.
• The image corresponding to the currently selected field will appear at the bottom of the dialog, scaled to fit the available space. If you want to see it at normal scale, click on it.
• If you enter a Color bitmap, you can specify a Transparency value. You can enter either an index like "255" or a RGB triple like "255,0,0".
• You can create another new bitmap by clicking the "New" button at the bottom.
• To select the current bitmap, use the dropdown in the top left. The first two items will always be "Icon" and "SmallIcon". These are special bitmaps that determine the image shown in the launcher for this application and do not need an ID.