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Getting started

XRCed interface contains these components:

XML tree
a tree representing the structure of the resource file.
Attribute panel
a panel with the information about the currently selected tree item. Class and object name is shown in the upper part and a notebook with a number of pages is shown below for editing object's attributes.
Pull-down menu
is shown when a used right-clicks inside the tree control. Is is used for creating new elements and basic operations such as copy/paste.
Component panel
is a graphical menu for creating new elements by clicking on icons or by dragging them on the test window.
Test window
can be shown for an already existing part of the resource tree to see the resulting appearance of the interface.
Using XRCed is easy once you understand some basic principles. First of all, it is using a structure-oriented tree-based editing technique, versus point-and-click method used in most GUI builders. The tree is actually almost a direct respresentation of the hierarchy of object nodes in XRC file. More precisely, only the nodes corresponding to visible interface elements are shown. An example of an object node which is not an interface element is the sizeritem node.

XRCed tries hard to make accessible the full information contained in XRC file, so even the nodes which are not shown in the tree must be represented. This is done by adding their property pages to the attribute panel.

Secondly, creating new elements is context-dependent. The new elements are inserted in the tree relative to the current selection (except for drag-and-drop mode when the place is determined dynamically). Sometimes there is an ambiguity on the exact position, because some elements are containers which can have children, but it may be needed to create the new element as a sibling node instead of a child. Sibling mode can be forced by holding Ctrl key on wxGTK/wxMSW or Alt key on wxMac when inserting a new element. Similarly, a new element can be inserted as the first child of a container by holding Shift key (default is to append it as the last child).