Tutorial EzLang Sizing

Now we'll learn about the different ways to size widgets and layouts.

The width and height of a widget are controlled separately through their 'width' and 'height' properties. The default settings for all layouts and widgets is to use size hints for sizing. Therefore, make sure you read the size hint page coming up to understand this behavior, so you can use it to your advantage, or disable it when needed. There are four ways to size widgets and layouts:

• Size relative to parent layout - size hints (default);
• Auto scale to content;
• Absolute size - Manual;
• Absolute size - Maths.

Which one you use in each situation depends entirely on the situation.

If you need your widget or layout to only be as large as it needs to be to display content, then auto scale sizing is the best choice.

If you want to divide a parent layout into multiple widgets (e.g. one widget will be 25% width of the parent layout, the other 75%) then size hints are your best bet, as their ratios will be kept intact even when the window resizes.

If you need more control than size hints allow, the next best choice is using maths; for example, you can auto scale the width of 'widget_one', and then set the width of 'widget_two' to "parent.width - widget_one.width"; that way widget_two will always be the width that remains in the parent layout.

Finally, if you need your widget to always be an exact size, then manual sizing is the way to go. However, keep in mind that this is entirely static, even when the window resizes.

Let's look at size hints first now.

Continue

The general tutorial continues with: EzLang Size hints.