DesktopX 2.4 Developer’s Guide
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Page 11
Object Controller
Objects can interact with other objects and this is a way to carry out some of the most common
of these interactions.
An individual object or groups of objects can be defined as 'popups', which means that they can
be shown on screen only when they are required. We will define how to do this later, but at the
moment it is enough to know that you can select one of the first 2 options here to show or hide
the object.
You can also choose to 'Destroy' an object. This might seem somewhat destructive, but is
sometimes useful. For example, when a theme is loaded you may want to display a welcome
message to the user. You don't want this after it has been read though, so you may set it so it
destroys itself when clicked.
Obviously these commands mean nothing without specifying which object is the target of this
action. You do this by selecting the object from the 'Target object' dropdown list.
Taskbar
The 'Taskbar' object offers some immediate functionality. This transforms the object into a
display of the applications running on your machine.
Obviously there are a few configuration options to adjust how you want the taskbar to look.
You can choose whether the taskbar runs horizontally or vertically, and at which end of the
taskbar new items are added, and the size of the icons used to represent the items on the taskbar.
If you want, you can add labels which display the name of the application, and choose the color
of the text used dependant of whether the item is selected or not.
The final 4 items really define the structure of the taskbar. The first item lets you define how
much space the maximum size of each item on the taskbar. Essentially this defines how wide (in
pixels) each item will be where 'Use labels' is selected.
You also need to specify how much space there is between items. The final option allows you to
vertically offset the contents of the taskbar. This may be important depending on the graphic
used in your object. The graphic is defined like any other except you get a customized
'Advanced' option which you need to make good use of to customize the object. We will get onto
this in the appropriate section.
Normally, the taskbar just grows and shrinks depending on the number of items in it, but the
final option is a check box that allows you to lock the size of the taskbar. When this option is set
the size is defined by the height or width option on the Object Properties 'Summary' tab
(depending on the taskbar orientation). This value can be an absolute number of pixels (e.g. 400),
or a percentage relative to the screen width (e.g. 80%).
