fdesign - Forms Library User Interface Designer
fdesign [-xformoptions] [-options] [files]
fdesign is a GUI builder that helps in the construction of
graphical user interface in a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you
get") way by allowing the user to directly manipulate various objects,
such as buttons, sliders and menus etc. Once a satisfactory UI is
constructed, the user can save the composed interface into a set of external
files. Files with the extension '.fd' contain all information about the
objects and can be read in again by fdesign. The files with C code
and header files when compiled and linked against the Forms Library,
generate code that at run-time constructs the exact same interface as the
ones seen within fdesign.
A variety of output languages is possible via external filters. As
of this writing, C, perl, ada95, Fortran, pascal, and PostScript output
filters are known to exist.
fdesign accepts all standard Forms Library command
line options as well as the following:
- -help
- Prints a brief summary of all command line options. This option does not
require a connection to the X server.
- -version
- Prints the current version of fdesign and exits.
- -geometry
geom
- Specifies the prefered size and location of main working area in which the
UI is to be constructed.
- -convert
fdfile-list
- This option prevents fdesign from attempting to make a connection
to the X server. The file list following this flag is converted to C code
directly.
- -dir
destdir
- output any converted files in destdir.
- -unit
pixel|point|mm|cp|cmm
- selects the unit of measure for object geometries. For non-pixel unit, the
interface created is screen resolution independent and may be desirable
for many applications. Note that for typical screens, point (about
1/72 inch) and mm may be too coarse and subject to round-off
errors. Use cp (centi-point, 100th of a point) and cmm
(centi-mm) instead.
- -altformat
- selects an alternative format for the generated C code where global
variables are used for the UI components.
- -main
- requests the output of main program template.
- -callback
- requests the output of callback function template.
- -compensate
- requests the emission of font/server resolution variation compensation
code.
- -I headerfile
- uses an alternative header file instead of the default forms.h in the
output C code.
- -lax
- requests relaxed C syntax checking.
- -ps
- This option specifies that instead of emitting the c code for the user
interface, PostScript code should be emitted.
- -ada
- This option requests ada95 code output
- -perl
- This option requests perl code output.
- -fortran
- This option requests Fortran code output.
- -pascal
- This option requests pascal code output.
- -nocode
- suppresses the output of UI code. Only the .fd file is written.
The most useful Forms Library command line options are
- -display
host:dpy
- This option specifies the X server to connect.
- -flversion
- This option prints the version string of the Forms Library, with
which fdesign was build.
- -name
appname
- This option specifies the application name under which resources are to be
obtained, instead of the executable name. appname should not
contain . or *. fdesign.
Copyright (c) 1996-2002 T.C. Zhao <tc_zhao@yahoo.com> and
Mark Overmars <markov@cs.ruu.nl>
Since 2002: GNU Lesser General Public License
Maintainers: Jean-Marc Lasgouttes, Angus Leeming and Jens Thoms Toerring
<jt@toerring.de>
http://xforms-toolkit.org
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/xforms/