CoolBand Object

Parents, Children, Properties, Methods, Events

Purpose: The CoolBand object represents an area in a CoolBar that contains a child window.

Description

The CoolBand object is a container object that represents a band in a CoolBar.

A CoolBand can have any combination of a gripper bar, a bitmap, a text label, and a single child object.

A CoolBand may not contain more than one child object, but that child object may itself be a container such as a ToolControl or a SubForm.

The Caption property specifies a text string to be displayed to the left of the CoolBand. The colour of the text is specified by the FCol property.

The ImageIndex property specifies an optional picture which is to be displayed alongside the Caption. If specified, ImageIndex is an index into an ImageList whose name is referenced via the ImageListObj property of the parent CoolBar.

The background in a CoolBand may be specified using its BCol or Picture properties. Although typically, the visible background area is small, it is visible through a transparent ToolControl.

The ChildEdge property specifies whether or not the CoolBand leaves space above and below its child window.

The GripperMode property specifies whether or not the CoolBand has a gripper bar which is used to reposition and resize the CoolBand within its parent CoolBar. GripperMode may be 'Always'(the default), 'Never' or 'Auto'.

The position of a Cool Band within a CoolBar is determined by its Index and NewLine properties, and by the position and size of preceding CoolBand objects in the same CoolBar. For a CoolBand, Posn is a read-only property that reports its position but Posn may not be used to set it.

The Index property specifies the position of a CoolBand within its parent CoolBar, relative to other CoolBands and is ⎕IO dependent. Initially, the value of Index is determined by the order in which the CoolBands are created. You may re-order the CoolBands within a CoolBar, under program control, by changing Index with ⎕WS.

The NewLine property specifies whether or not the CoolBand occupies the same row as an existing CoolBand, or is displayed on a new line within its CoolBar parent. The value of NewLine in the first CoolBand in a CoolBar is always 1, even if you specify it to be 0. You may move a CoolBand to the previous or next row by changing its NewLine property (using ⎕WS) from 1 to 0, or from 0 to 1 respectively.

The 2^nd element of the Size property determines the width of the CoolBand; the value of the 1^st element is read-only.

Size may only be specified by ⎕WC. However, when you create a CoolBand, it will automatically occupy all the available space in the current row, to the right of any preceding CoolBands. Only when you create another CoolBand in the same row, will the Size of the first CoolBand be honoured. The rightmost CoolBand will always extend to the right edge of the CoolBar, whatever its Size.

If you create two or more CoolBands in the same row and you do not specify Size, the first CoolBand will be maximised, and the others minimised.

When the user drags a CoolBand to a different row its Index and NewLine properties may change, as may the Index and NewLine properties of any another CoolBand that is affected by the operation.

If you wish to remember the user's chosen layout when your application terminates, you must store the values of Index, Size and NewLine for each of the CoolBands. When your application is next started, you must re-create the CoolBands with the same values of these properties.