The 'aquaadjust' property

Boolean scalar

Valid for: System, Window, Form, Dialog, Button, Check, Radio

The new look-and-feel (known as 'Aqua') which Apple introduced in MacOS X can sometimes require controls to be slightly larger than they were in the 'classic' MacOS environment. For example, Buttons have a more rounded look, which for some dialogs can mean that text which used to fit in the button is now partially obscured. This can be a problem if you have existing APLX or APL.68000 code which you want to move to MacOS X. Obviously, you can go through your code and adjust the sizes of the controls on each dialog, but this can be very time-consuming. The aquaadjust property provides a quick method of performing the adjustment automatically. If you set the aquaadjust property for the System object to 1, all subsequent Buttons, Radio buttons and Check boxes which are created will be adjusted in size slightly. The current value of this property is inherited at creation time by window objects, as well as the individual controls, so you can set it on or off individually for particular dialogs or controls.

The exact effect of setting aquaadjust to 1 is that Check and Radio controls will be sized to a minimum of 18 by 18 pixels, and Buttons will be increased in size by 12 pixels. The property must be set before you set the size or where property. Note that reading back the size or where property will return the actual size after the adjustment.

You may still have to do some manual adjustment even when aquaadjust is set, but it should reduce the work considerably.

The aquaadjust property is ignored under Windows and Linux.