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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>System Classes by category</TITLE> <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="APL language help page: System Classes by category"> <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="⎕WI,objects,system classes,classes,controls,apl,aplx,apl help"> <!-- %%COMMON_HEAD%% --> <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://www.microapl.com/styles_apl_help.css"> <!-- %%END%%--> </HEAD> <body> <table> <tr> <td width="800" valign="top" colspan="2"> <center>Topic: <A HREF="ch.htm"><code>APLX Help</code></A> : <A HREF="ch_030.htm"><code>System Classes</code></A> : <A HREF="ch_030_011.htm"><code>System Classes by category</code></A> </center> <center> [ <A HREF="ch_030_010.htm">Previous</A> | <A HREF="ch_030_012.htm">Next</A> | <A HREF="ch.htm">Contents</A> | <A HREF="help_index.htm">Index</A> | <A HREF="http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/index.html">APL Home</A> ]</center> <br></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120"> <a href="http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/index.html"><img height="68" border="0" width="119" src="MicroAPL_logo.gif" alt="www.microapl.co.uk"></a> </td> <td align="left" valign="bottom"> <h1>System Classes by category</h1> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="800" valign="top" colspan="2"> <hr> <H2>Windows and Menus</H2> <p>To create a top-level window on which other controls will be placed, you normally use the <A HREF="ch_030_020_120.htm">Window</A> or <A HREF="ch_030_020_120.htm">Form</A> class. The <A HREF="ch_030_020_090.htm">Dialog</A> class is similar, but is automatically preset with the default appearance and behavior suitable for a dialog box. You can add menus to your windows using the <A HREF="ch_030_020_180.htm">Menu</A> class.</p> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_100.htm">Document</A> class is a convenience class which comprises a window with a built-in text-edit capability.</p> <H2>Buttons, Combos, and List Boxes</H2> <p>Simple controls which you will use on many dialogs include the <A HREF="ch_030_020_030.htm">Button</A> class for standard action buttons, the <A HREF="ch_030_020_040.htm">Check</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_260.htm">Radio</A> buttons which allow users to select options, and the <A HREF="ch_030_020_080.htm">Combo</A> box. The <A HREF="ch_030_020_170.htm">List</A> class implements standard List boxes, for selecting one or more items from a list.</p> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_365.htm">ToolButton</A> class can be used as an alternative to Buttons, Check boxes and Radio buttons. It allows you to specify an image to be displayed on the button, and is particularly suitable for implementing a toolbar.</p> <H2>Displaying and inputting text</H2> <p>You can use the <A HREF="ch_030_020_150.htm">Label</A> class to place static text on your windows. For editable text, use the <A HREF="ch_030_020_110.htm">Edit</A> class; this can handle both single-line and multi-line text input and editing.</p> <p>For more sophisticated text display and editing, with full control over formatting, you can use the powerful <A HREF="ch_030_020_280.htm">RichEdit</A> class.</p> <p>(See also the <A HREF="ch_030_040_0136.htm">Draw</A> method, which provides an alternative way of placing text on windows).</p> <H2>Selecting or displaying a numeric value or position</H2> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_330.htm">Spinner</A> class allows the user to select a numeric value using a pair of up-down or left-right arrows. The <A HREF="ch_030_020_370.htm">Trackbar</A> class displays a slider, which the user can move to select a value. The <A HREF="ch_030_020_310.htm">Scroll</A> class implements a scroll bar.</p> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_250.htm">Progress</A> class implements a progress bar; it is typically used to show the progress of a long operation.</p> <H2>Trees and Grids</H2> <p>Two of APLX's built-in classes provide more complex user-interface functionality, although they are still easy to use. These are the <A HREF="ch_030_020_380.htm">Tree</A> object class, for displaying and manipulating hierarchical tree-views of data, and the <A HREF="ch_030_020_135.htm">Grid</A> class, which provides a spreadsheet-like interface for handling arrays of data.</p> <H2>Shapes and Icons</H2> <p>These controls provide simple decorative elements for your dialogs. They include the <A HREF="ch_030_020_160.htm">Line</A>, <A HREF="ch_030_020_270.htm">Rectangle</A>, <A HREF="ch_030_020_290.htm">RoundRect</A>, <A HREF="ch_030_020_010.htm">Arc</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_140.htm">Icon</A> classes. (You can also use the <A HREF="ch_030_040_0136.htm">Draw</A> method for more sophisticated geometric drawing.)</p> <H2>Pictures, Images and Movies</H2> <p>You can display pictures, such as JPEG and BMP files, using a <A HREF="ch_030_020_230.htm">Picture</A> object. This can also be used to display APL arrays of pixel values. </p> <p>For more sophisticated image handling, APLX provides an interface to the ImageMagick package, encapsulated as the <A HREF="ch_030_020_144.htm">Image</A> class. This provides the capability for loading and saving graphics images in a very wide range of formats, as well as providing facilities for scaling, transformation, color adjustment, and image enhancement. It can also be used in conjunction with the <A HREF="ch_030_040_0136.htm">Draw</A> method for creating or adding graphics elements to images.</p> <p>Movies can be played using the <A HREF="ch_030_020_190.htm">Movie</A> class.</p> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_145.htm">ImageList</A> class is a special non-visual class which holds images displayed in menus and other controls. It is not available under MacOS.</p> <H2>Charts</H2> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_035.htm">Chart</A> object class, together with the related <A HREF="ch_030_020_326.htm">Series</A> class, makes it very easy to add business and scientific graphs to your APLX applications. It can display Line, Area, Scatter, Stair, High-Low-Open-Close, Candlestick, Bar, Stacked Bar, and Pie charts.</p> <H2>Geometry management and tabs</H2> <p>The <A HREF="ch_030_020_020.htm">Bevel</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_130.htm">Frame</A> classes allow you to group controls together visually. For complex dialogs, you can use a <A HREF="ch_030_020_340.htm">Splitter</A> control to allow the user to expand or contract regions of the dialog. You can also use the <A HREF="ch_030_020_320.htm">Selector</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_220.htm">Page</A> classes to implement tabbed dialogs.</p> <H2>Pre-defined dialogs</H2> <P>APLX includes a number of pre-defined dialogs, which encapsulate all of the necessary functionality for common tasks such as displaying message boxes (<A HREF="ch_030_020_200.htm">MsgBox</A>), selecting files and directories (<A HREF="ch_030_020_210.htm">OpenFile</A>, <A HREF="ch_030_020_300.htm">SaveFile</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_060.htm">ChooseDir</A>), selecting colors (<A HREF="ch_030_020_050.htm">ChooseColor</A>), and (under Windows and Linux only), selecting fonts (<A HREF="ch_030_020_070.htm">ChooseFont</A>). These are top-level objects, which should not be created as a child of a window, but can be used directly.</P> <H2>Non-visual classes</H2> <P>A few special classes do not represent visible controls or windows. These include the <A HREF="ch_030_020_350.htm">System</A> class (which is created automatically as the parent of all top-level objects, and which can be used to return information about the system APLX is running on and for accessing the Clipboard), the <A HREF="ch_030_020_360.htm">Timer</A> class (which runs APL callbacks at specified intervals), and the <A HREF="ch_030_020_240.htm">Printer</A> class (for printing text and graphics).</P> <H2>Networking classes</H2> <p>Another set of non-visual classes allows your APLX applications to exchange data over a local-area network or the Internet. These include classes for sending and retrieving e-mails (<A HREF="ch_030_020_324.htm">SendMail</A> and <A HREF="ch_030_020_132.htm">GetMail</A>), for retrieving web pages and other documents using the HTTP protocol (<A HREF="ch_030_020_142.htm">HTTPClient</A>), and the low-level <A HREF="ch_030_020_328.htm">Socket</A> class.</p> <H2>OCX/ActiveX (COM) classes</H2> <P>Under Windows, as well as using the APLX built-in classes such as Button and MsgBox, you can also use external OCX/ActiveX controls (also known as COM controls). You can also embed or link to documents belonging to other applications in an <A HREF="ch_030_020_205.htm">OLEContainer</A> control, or invoke a separate application such as Microsoft Excel and exchange data with it. See the section on <A HREF="ch_030_080.htm">OCX/ActiveX Controls and OLE Automation</A> for more information.</P> <H2>Multi-tasking</H2> <p>Using the <A HREF="ch_030_020_005.htm">APL</A> class, your applications can create and communicate with new APL child tasks. These can either be background tasks, or have their own Session windows.</p> <hr> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="800" valign="top" colspan="2"> <center>Topic: <A HREF="ch.htm"><code>APLX Help</code></A> : <A HREF="ch_030.htm"><code>System Classes</code></A> : <A HREF="ch_030_011.htm"><code>System Classes by category</code></A> </center> <center> [ <A HREF="ch_030_010.htm">Previous</A> | <A HREF="ch_030_012.htm">Next</A> | <A HREF="ch.htm">Contents</A> | <A HREF="help_index.htm">Index</A> | <A HREF="http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/index.html">APL Home</A> ]</center> <br></td> </tr> </table> <!-- %%COMMON_BODY_TAIL%% --> <p class="copyright">Copyright © 1996-2010 MicroAPL Ltd</p> <!-- %%END%% --> </body> </html>