Design View
When you declare buttons for the control center, you can set their
location, height, width, text color, background color, and a hotkey for
them. You can do this from within the PowerHome Explorer, but it's
far easier from within the Control Center Design View. Anytime you
declare a button or make a change to a button from the PowerHome Explorer,
those changes will not be visible until you close and reopen the Control
Center (if windowed. If the Control Center is set in preferences as
a background you must either restart PowerHome or Reinitialize from the
file menu). When you declare buttons in the PowerHome Explorer, they
will all default to the same location and same size. Its difficult
to design your Control Center layouts from here, so just let everything go
to default. Once you are done defining buttons, close and reopen the
Control Center so that the newly defined buttons will appear. Next
go into Design View by right-clicking on the Control Center whose tab you
wish to edit and select Open Design View from the pop-up menu. You
will only get the popup menu if buttons have been defined to appear on the
tab. An empty tab cannot be designed upon. A new window will
open with a copy of the Control Center tab displayed within it. The
Design View window will show you approximate screen resolution bars.
This design view window also has a toolbar associated with it. There
are a number of functions on this toolbar allowing you to design your
button layouts graphically.
Design View Toolbar
a. Reselect F1
Reselects the last group of buttons which were
selected.
b. Deselect F2
Deselects any buttons which are currently selected.
c. Select Shift-F8
Selects all buttons.
d. Set XY F3
Allows you to set the X and Y coordinates to a specific
value or adjust them by an offset for all currently selected buttons.
e. Set HW F4
Allows you to set the Height and Width to a specific
value or adjust them by an offset for all currently selected buttons.
f. Align L F5
Align all selected buttons so that their left hand
edges are in line. The first selected button is the edge all other
buttons will align to.
g. Align VC F6
Align all selected buttons so that their vertical
centers are in line. The first selected button is the vertical
center all other buttons will align to.
h. Align R F7
Align all selected buttons so that their right hand
edges are in line. The first selected button is the edge all other
buttons will align to.
i. Align T F8
Align all selected buttons so that their top edges are
in line. The first selected button is the edge all other buttons
will align to.
j. Align HC F9
Align all selected buttons so that their horizontal
centers are in line. The first selected button is the horizontal
center all other buttons will align to.
k. Align B F10
Align all selected buttons so that their bottom edges
are in line. The first selected button is the edge all other buttons
will align to.
l. Size V Shift-F1
Size all selected buttons so that they are the same
height. The first selected button is the height all other buttons
will size to.
m. Size H Shift-F2
Size all selected buttons so that they are the same
width. The first selected button is the width all other buttons will
size to.
n. Size B Shift-F3
Size all selected buttons so that both their height and
width are the same. The first selected button is the height and
width all other buttons will size to.
o. Spce V Shift-F4
Space all selected buttons equidistant
vertically. The distance between the first selected button and the
second selected button is the distance that is used for all buttons.
p. Spce H Shift-F5
Space all selected buttons equidistant
horizontally. The distance between the first selected button and
second selected button is the distance that is used for all buttons.
q. T Color F11
Allows you to select the text color for all selected
buttons.
r. B Color F12
Allows you to select the background color for all
selected buttons.
s. Default Shift-F11
Takes all buttons and sizes them to a default size and
then spaces them out in a grid format so that they can be easily
manipulated. Useful for when you’ve just added a number of buttons
to a blank tab and they are all default stacked one on top of
another. You can only choose this option if no buttons are selected.
t. D / D Shift-F10
Enables Drag and Drop mode. Any selected buttons
will be deselected and you can size or move a single button at a time by
clicking and dragging.
u. Save Shift-F12
Save any design changes made to the database.
When working within Design View, you can select a button by clicking upon
it. The button will display as selected by appearing
depressed. Multiple buttons may be selected so that toolbar
operations can be performed on all selected buttons. Some toolbar
items are only available when two or more buttons are selected (the size
functions) and some toolbar items are only available when three or more
buttons are selected (the space functions). Whenever a toolbar
operation is performed, all selected buttons will be deselected. You
can quickly re-select the buttons by pressing the Reselect toolbar item or
pressing the F1 key. When buttons are selected, they can also be
manipulated by pressing the arrow keys to nudge all selected buttons in a
specific direction. If you press the Shift key along with an arrow
key, you will adjust the size of all selected buttons. You can also
right-click on an area in the Design View and relocate all selected
buttons to where you right-clicked. The buttons will be moved in the
same layout that they currently are with the first selected button’s upper
left hand corner moving to the spot that was right clicked and all other
buttons moving relative to it.
After saving any changes and closing the Design View window, close and
reopen the Control Center (or reinitialize if running in background mode)
so that the new design changes will be visible.