VCL form designer

The form designer displays a visual representation of a VCL resource. Properties of components can be edited in the Properties Inspector. As you do editing, Radialix 2 automatically updates data saved to a resource.

Inherited components declared in an ancestor class have an icon in the upper-left corner. Наследованные компоненты (компоненты, объявленные в классе-предке) в левом верхнем углу содержат иконку .

Unknown controls are displayed as shaded rectangles: . The name of class is shown inside a control. Unknown controls that have been assigned an ancestor class are displayed in red frames: . Unknown components are marked with a question: . You can change an ancestor class of a selected object by using the Ancestor option in the context menu of the designer. The Classes option allows you to view the hierarchy of classes .

The designer resizes and snaps controls to guide lines and grid automatically. To enable these options, you can use the context menu, keyboard shortcuts, or toolbars: Form Designer - Alignment and Form Designer - Coordinates. If these panels are not displayed, you can enable them in the main menu. Go View>Toolbars.

The Form Designer - Alignment panel can configure the mutual alignment of controls.

The Form Designer - Coordinates panel enables quick access to the settings related to position and size of controls. On this panel, you can also change the display mode – screen pixels (Pix), or dialog size units (DLU). This switch is not available for VCL resources. Screen pixels are always used.

As you edit VCL resources, you need to remember the following:
1. VCL does not save to a resource file properties, whose values are the same as values, specified by default, or blocked by the stored property:
property Left: TMarginSize read FLeft write SetMargin default 3;
property Caption: TCaption read GetText write SetText stored IsCaptionStored;
This is why the designer adds these properties to a resource automatically as you do editing. The added elements are labeled as Added (A).

2. VCL does not save to a resource file properties of the inserted frame and its controls if their properties are the same as properties in a frame resource. The designer also inserts these properties and sets their status to Added (if all this is necessary).
Added properties can be deleted in the resource editor. These properties are also deleted when the user selects the Untranslate and Restore Original options.