TextPane Gadgets

Software Customisation Guide

Gadget Set : TextPane Gadgets

A textpane gadget provides a box on a form into which a user may type and edit multiple lines of text or cut and paste text from elsewhere on the screen.

The contents of the textpane can be set and queried by the users PML code. Optionally the text contents can be made non-editable.

The users must specify the initial shape of the gadget. Optionally the user may also supply a form position and a tag to be displayed to the top-left of the gadget.

textpane  .text  'Text:'  AT . . .  width 10  height 20

textpane  .text  'Text:'  AT . . . height 20  aspect 0.5

The value of a textpane is its current contents as an array of strings, where each element of the array corresponds to a line of text in the gadget.

To make the textpane’s contents read-only, use the seteditable method:

!This.text.seteditable(FALSE)

To clear the current contents of a textpane gadget:

!This.text.clear()

To move the keyboard focus to this textpane gadget:

!This.text.setfocus()

To enquire how many lines of text a textpane gadget currently contains, use the count method:

!Nlines = !This.text.count

To set line 21 in a textpane gadget to 'Hello World':

!This.text.setline( 21, 'Hello World' )

To read the current contents of line 21 as a string variable:

!Line = !This.text.line(21)

To set the entire contents of the textpane gadget to an array of strings:

!Lines[1] = 'Hello World'

!Lines[2] = ' '

!Lines[3] = 'Goodbye World'

!This.text.val = !Lines

To read the entire contents of the textpane gadget as an array of strings:

!LinesArray = !This.text.val

To set the current cursor position within a textpane gadget to line 21, character 15 the user can use:

!This.text.setcurpos(21, 15)

!ArrayRowColumn[1] = 21

!ArrayRowColumn[2] = 15

!This.text.SetCurPos( !ArrayRowColumn )

To read current cursor position within a textpane gadget:

!ArrayRowColumn = !This.text.CurPos()