DesktopX 2.4 Developer’s Guide
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The Object Navigator will show you all your objects, relationships they have with other objects,
position and size, z-order and images used. It is not designed to tell you everything, but rather a
summary reference that you can use to identify and tweak objects. There are certain elements of
an object’s properties that you can edit directly via the Object Navigator for speed; the object
position, width, height and comments.
You can select objects using this interface by clicking on them. Use the SHIFT and CTRL keys
to select multiple objects. You can also right click an object to access its properties, just as you
would by right clicking the actual object on screen.
The row selections on the Object Navigator are synchronized with the actual object selections on
screen. This means that at any time you an clearly see which object you are working on.
Image the chaos if you didn't use the Object ID property and all the objects were called
<unassigned>!
Another useful thing to remember is that when an object is selected you can move it by using the
cursor keys to fine tune its position. In order to do this, hold down the CTRL key and click the
object(s) you wish to move to select. Keep the CTRL key held down and use the cursor keys to
move the object. If you hold down the SHIFT key at the same time then the object will move by
10 pixels at a time in the direction specified.
You should also be aware that as you move an object near a screen border, the object will
attempt to “stick” to that border. This is the most commonly required behavior, but if you want
to precisely position the object close to, but no on, the edge the above keyboard shortcuts will be
the best way to do this.
Alignment
In the summary tab, by default you align an object to the left and top of coordinates specified at
the top of the ‘Appearance’ section. You can however choose to centrally or right/bottom align
to these coordinates by clicking the ‘Align’ buttons and specifying the alignment that you want
to use. This applies to System Tray and Taskbar type objects as well as regular image and text
objects.
