textFieldGrp issue with formLayout

[NaughtyNathan]

All the Grp controls are actually rowLayout parents with standard children, so even when you use one in a formLayout, you still have to set all of it's own -columnXXX flags to organize and align it's parts correctly.

:nathaN

[JakeLV426]

Nathan, could you elaborate a little on the "set all of it's own -columnXXX flags" part?

[Diamant]

Hey Jake.. take a look at this to help.. you also have some things in your code that you dont need which i took out such as columnLayout -adj 1 mainCol; .. no need to do that if you are using a form layout.. unless you didn't put the code in that uses it.. also i'm not sure why you are doing this.. windowPref -remove awUI; .. can be dangerous if its not there to begin with.. it will just error out.. if you are trying to get the window to be the same size each time you start it, just manually edit the size before or after you show the window..

-Rich


//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
global proc arcWelder()
{
if (`window -exists awUI`)
deleteUI awUI;

window
-title "Jake's ArcWelder"
-wh 125 175
-mxb off
-mnb off
-resizeToFitChildren 1
-sizeable 1
awUI;

formLayout arcWeldForm;

//START formLayout Content

button -l "Mirror and Weld" -c arcWeldX mirrorWeldButton;
button -l "Mirror Only" -c arcMirrorX mirrorOnlyButton;
textFieldGrp -l "Search:" -cw2 50 100 searchTextField;
textFieldGrp -l "Replace:" replaceTextField;

formLayout -e


-af mirrorWeldButton top 5
-af mirrorWeldButton left 0
-af mirrorWeldButton right 0

-ac mirrorOnlyButton top 5 mirrorWeldButton
-af mirrorOnlyButton left 0
-af mirrorOnlyButton right 0

-ac searchTextField top 5 mirrorOnlyButton
-af searchTextField left 0
-af searchTextField right 0

-ac replaceTextField top 5 searchTextField
-af replaceTextField left 0
-af replaceTextField right 0

arcWeldForm;

showWindow awUI;
window -e -w 125 -h 200 awUI;
}

[NaughtyNathan]

Nathan, could you elaborate a little on the "set all of it's own -columnXXX flags" part?

yeah, all the Grp controls have a lot of flags that start with -column, i.e. -columnWidth, -columnOffset, etc... you need to use at least some of these (see how Rich has done in his example)

:nathaN

[JakeLV426]

Hey Rich, good to hear from you again. I think I was working on this same script when I was taking your class back when...thanks for the help. I Finally had some time to start getting back into scripting...and starting where I left off seemed logical. How's ND life?

For this: windowPref -remove awUI;
I think I was a little confused by some of the info in the UI building Sticky on this forum, a couply of guys mentioned that there was something regarding resetting the windowPref every time you create a window? I added it because even though I was defining the -wh 125 175, Maya didn't seem to give a damn how big I wanted my window...I think I misread something. Anyway, I'll stay away from that one. I can see that the -cw2 flag was the key to getting my textFieldGrp items to stick to the left side of the formLayout, I checked out the Maya help and saw all the columnXXX flags you mentioned, makes sense now.

One question I still have though, is that if I turn on sizeable, why doesn't the textFieldGrp stick to the right side of the formLayout, since i've added -af replaceTextField right 0 ? It seemed to do what it was supposed to on my buttons, stretching them to the edge of the form.
Thanks Nate and Rich for being so helpful with my noob stankin code :beer:

[NaughtyNathan]

I can't be certain as I don't have your updated code Jake, but I'm guessing you need to designate one of your textFieldGrp columns as being -adjustable.

:nathaN

[ewerybody]

jep its -adjustableColumn or -adj with the index. In your case 2:textFieldGrp -l "Search:" -cw 1 60 -adj 2 searchTextField;
textFieldGrp -l "Replace:" -cw 1 60 -adj 2 replaceTextField;

[JakeLV426]

-adj 2 was the magic flag! Thanks ewery!

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