Thread: Method of placing child window controls

Do you have a method? Pretty much what Petzold does is just use some ingenius multipliers to place then (with using something like the system font height/width).

What do you do when creating the window and specifying placement? Anything better? Thanks...

--Garfield

Not exactly sure what you are asking.

I calculate where my controls should be, and their size, based on the screen size and client area of the parent window. I use hash defined percentages usually. Depends on how many and what type.

If they are text ctrls, ie statics. I tend to use HDC's as these give me more formatting control. I use GetTextExtentPoint32() [on each string to be printed] to set position and ensure the size of the ctrl is big enough.

>> I use hash defined percentages usually. Depends on how many and what type. <<

How do you do this? I (from Petzold) am just using calculations based on screen size too. I'm just curious if there is another way. Thanks...

novacain, can you give me an example of how you would set your controls on your client? I am still using numerical (like 1, 2, 3 -- not vars or anything) to set it. It is pretty much trial and error. I don't think it should be like this. Thanks, novacain...

It is mainly trial and error.

If I wanted a listbox ctrl to take up half the dialog I would

#define LB_WIDTH 0.5
#define LB_HEIGHT 0.5

then find the client rect and do the math

iLBWidth=(ClientRect.right-ClientRect.left)*LB_WIDTH;
iLBMargin=(int)((ClientRect.right-ClientRect.left)-iLBWidth)/2;

ect.