Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

220 Day 7
NOTE
Most components can be sized. You can place a component on a form and then size it, or you
can size the component at the same time you place it on the form. To size while placing the
component, click on the form where you want the top-left corner to be placed and then drag
with the mouse until the component is the desired size. When you release the mouse button,
the component will be placed with the size you specified.
TIP
Not all components will allow sizing in this manner. Nonvisual components,
for instance, are represented on the form by an icon. Although you
can click-and-drag to place a nonvisual component, the drag size will be
ignored. Another example is a single-line edit component. The edit
component can be placed by dragging, but only the drag width will be
used. The drag height will be ignored because a single-line edit
component’s height defaults to the height of a single-line edit control.
If you change your mind while placing the control via the dragging
method, you can press the Esc key on the keyboard before you release
the mouse button to cancel the operation. The component’s button
will still be pressed on the Component Palette, however, so you may
need to click the Arrow button to return to component-selection mode.
Placing components is simple enough that we don’t need to spend a lot of time on the subject.
You had some experience with placing components yesterday, so let’s move on to other
things.
The Form Designer Grid
The Form Designer has a built-in grid that aids in designing forms. By default, C++Builder
shows the grid. The grid size is initially set to 8 pixels horizontally and 8 pixels vertically.
When the Form Designer is set to display the grid, a dot is placed at the intersection of each
grid point. Components placed on a form will snap to the nearest grid point. By snap to I mean
that the component’s top-left corner will automatically jump to the nearest grid point. This
is an advantage because you frequently want a group of controls to be aligned either on their
left, right, top, or bottom edges. When the Snap to Grid option is on, you can simply get close
enough to the correct location and the Form Designer will automatically place your
component at the nearest grid point. This saves you time by saving you from tweaking the
individual component’s size or position on the form.