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Difference between revisions of "PDE/Incubator/Picasso"
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=== System Properties === | === System Properties === | ||
− | The behavior of Picasso can be controlled via the following System properties. Notice that the property keys exactly match | + | The behavior of Picasso can be controlled via the following System properties. Notice that the property keys exactly match the tracing options: |
* <code>-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint=true</code> | * <code>-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint=true</code> | ||
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* <code>-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint/toolTip=true</code> | * <code>-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint/toolTip=true</code> | ||
− | Using these System properties make it possible to control the behavior of Picasso without having to understand how to use and configure | + | Using these System properties make it possible to control the behavior of Picasso without having to understand how to use and configure tracing options at runtime. |
Revision as of 22:39, 11 May 2008
Work Area
The goal of Picasso is to provide a utility to help UI debugging. Picasso does this by painting the workbench in a way to aid debugging.
Developers
- Chris Aniszczyk
- Simon Archer
Plug-ins
Painting with Picasso
To use Picasso, simply check it out of CVS and then launch with the tracing options enabled:
-
paint
- Check this option to enable Picasso. When checked Picasso will paint the workbench. -
paint/extraCompositeMargin
- The value of this option is used to pad everyComposite
object's margin width and height. Typically the default value of0
is what you want, but a value of5
or10
is helpful to explode a view to reveal the child/parent widget relationships. -
paint/toolTip
- Check this option to enable custom tool tips that describe the layout of each widget. While useful, it can be helpful to disable tool tips since they are sometimes large and distracting, especially when all you care about is the way the layout looks.
Tips
By painting the workbench with Picasso you can easily spot layout issues such as:
- Unnecessary margin padding on
Composite
widgets. This is typically caused by usingGridLayout
and not setting themarginWidth
andmarginHeight
fields to0
. - Radio buttons and checkboxes that stretch to consume all available horzontal whitespace. This results in the whitespace to the right of the label being clickable. Doing this can result in the user accidentally selecting a radio button or toggling a checkbox by simply giving focus to the UI. As with push buttons, radio buttons and checkboxes (they're buttons too) should generally not stretch.
- Inappropriate stretching and whitespace consumption.
System Properties
The behavior of Picasso can be controlled via the following System properties. Notice that the property keys exactly match the tracing options:
-
-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint=true
-
-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint/extraCompositeMargin=0
-
-Dorg.eclipse.pde.picasso/paint/toolTip=true
Using these System properties make it possible to control the behavior of Picasso without having to understand how to use and configure tracing options at runtime.