!!!!! NOT YET FINISHED !!!!!
0. Introduction
----------------
+===============
This note describes the file format used for storing XRC resources that are
used by wxXmlResource class. It is probably only useful for those implementing
If you only want to use the resources, you can choose from a number of editors:
a) wxDesigner (http://www.roebling.de)
b) XRCed (wxPython/tools)
- c) wxWorkshop (http://wxworkshop.sf.net)
- b) wxrcedit (contrib/utils/wxrcedit)
+ c) DialogBlocks (wxPython/tools)
+
+and others listed on the Resources section of the wxWidgets web
+site.
The XRC format is based on XML 1.0 (please consult W3C's specification). There
is no DTD available since it is not possible to fully describe the format with
the limited expressive power of DTDs.
+
+Note: see also http://ldaptool.sourceforge.net/XRCGuide/XRCGuideSingle/
+
+
+
1. Terminology
---------------
+==============
-The usual XML terminology applies. In particular, we shall use the terms
-"node", "property" and "value" in the XML sense:
+The usual XML terminology applies. In particular, we shall use the terms
+NODE, PROPERTY and VALUE in the XML sense:
<node property1="value1" property2="value2">...</node>
-The term "attribute" is specific to XRC and refers to a property-less subnode
-of an <object> or <object_ref> node. In the example bellow, <pos>, <label> and
-<style> are attributes, while neither <resource> nor either of <object>s is:
+The term ATTRIBUTE is specific to XRC and refers to a subnode
+of an <object> or <object_ref> node that is itself not <object> or <object_ref>.
+In the example below, <pos>, <label> and <style> are attributes, while neither
+<resource> nor either of <object>s is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8">
- <resource version="2.3.0.1">
+ <resource xmlns="http://www.wxwidgets.org/wxxrc" version="2.5.3.0">
<object class="wxPanel">
- <style>wxSUNKEN_BORDER</style>
+ <style>wxSUNKEN_BORDER</style> <!-- attr -->
<object class="wxStaticText">
- <label>A label</label>
- <pos>10,10</pos>
+ <label>A label</label> <!-- attr -->
+ <pos>10,10</pos> <!-- attr -->
</object>
</object>
</resource>
+ATTRIBUTE VALUE is the content of all text elements within attribute tag. In the
+above example, "wxSUNKEN_BORDER", "A label" and "10,10" are attribute values.
+ATTRIBUTE TYPE defines what attribute values are valid for given attribute (you
+can think of it as attribute value syntax definition).
+
+
+
2. Elementary description
--------------------------
+=========================
-XRC resource file is a well-formed XML 1.0 document.
+XRC resource file is a well-formed XML 1.0 document. All elements of XRC file
+are from the http://www.wxwidgets.org/wxxrc namespace.
-The root node of XRC document must be <resource>. The <resource> node has
-optional "version" property. Default version (in absence of the version
-property) is "0.0.0.0". The version consists of four integers separated by
-periods. Version of XRC format changes only if there was an incompatible
-change introduced (i.e. either the library cannot understand old resource
+The root node of XRC document must be <resource>. The <resource> node has
+optional "version" property. Default version (in absence of the version
+property) is "0.0.0.0". The version consists of four integers separated by
+periods. Version of XRC format changes only if there was an incompatible
+change introduced (i.e. either the library cannot understand old resource
files or older versions of the library wouldn't understand the new format).
-The first three integers are major, minor and release number of the wxWindows
-release when the change was introduced, the last one is revision number and
-is 0 for the first incompatible change in given wxWindows release, 1 for
+The first three integers are major, minor and release number of the wxWidgets
+release when the change was introduced, the last one is revision number and
+is 0 for the first incompatible change in given wxWidgets release, 1 for
the second etc.
Differences between versions are described within this document in paragraphs
-entitled "Version Note".
+entitled "Version Note".
+
+The <resource> node contains namespace declaration, too:
+
+ <resource xmlns="http://www.wxwidgets.org/wxxrc" version="2.5.3.0">
The <resource> node is only allowed to have <object> and <object_ref>
subnodes, all of which must have the "name" property.
-<object> - TODO (name, class, subclass)
+The <object> node represents a single object (GUI element) and it usually maps
+directly to a wxWidgets class instance. It has the properties: "name", "class"
+and "subclass". "class" must always be present, it tells XRC what wxWidgets
+object should be created in this place. The other two are optional. "name" is
+ID used to identify the object. It is the value passed to the XRCID() macro and
+is also used to construct wxWindow's id and name attributes and must be unique
+among all children of the nearest container object (wxDialog, wxFrame,
+wxPanel, wxNotebook) upside from the object in XML nodes hierarchy (two distinct
+containers may contain objects with same "name", though). "subclass" is
+optional name of class whose constructor will be called instead of the
+constructor for "class". Subclass must be available in the program that loads
+the resource, must be derived from "class" and must be registered within
+wxWidgets' RTTI system.
+
+Finally, an optional "insert_at" property may be present. Currently only the
+values "begin" and "end" are supported, meaning to insert the object in the
+beginning of the parent node objects list or to append it at the end (which is
+the default if this property is absent).
+
+Example:
+
+ <object name="MyList1" class="wxListCtrl" subclass="MyListCtrlClass">
+ ...
+ </object>
+
+<object> node may have arbitrary child nodes. What child nodes and their
+semantics are class-dependent and are defined later in this document. The user
+is allowed to register new object handlers within XRC and extend it to accept
+new <object> classes (and therefore different <object>'s child nodes).
+
+<object_ref> node is identical to <object>, except that it does _not_ have
+"class" property and has additional required property "ref". Its concept is
+similar to Unix symlinks: value of the "ref" property is equal to the value of
+"name" property of some existing node (called referred node) in the resources
+(not necessary top-level). Referred node's "class" property and all subnodes
+are copied in place of the referee <object_ref> node which is then processed as
+regular <object> node. If the <object_ref> node itself has child nodes, then
+these nodes _override_ any nodes from the referred node.
+
+Example:
+
+ <object name="foo" class="wxTextCtrl">
+ <value>hello</value>
+ <size>100,-1d</size>
+ </object>
+ <object_ref name="bar" ref="foo">
+ <value>bar</value> <!-- override! -->
+ </object_ref>
+
+is identical to:
+
+ <object name="foo" class="wxTextCtrl">
+ <value>hello</value>
+ <size>100,-1d</size>
+ </object>
+ <object name="bar" class="wxTextCtrl">
+ <value>bar</value>
+ <size>100,-1d</size>
+ </object>
+
+
+
+3. Common attribute types
+=========================
+
+There are several attribute types (see section 1. Terminology) that are common
+to many attributes of different classes:
+
+String
+------
+Any text. Some characters have special interpretation and are translated
+by XRC parser according to this table:
+ "_" -> "&" ('&' is used to underline e.g. menu items in wxWidgets)
+ "__" -> "_"
+ "\n" -> line break (C character '\n')
+ "\r" -> carriage return (C character '\r')
+ "\t" -> tab (C character '\t')
+ "\\" -> "\"
+ (introduced in version 2.5.3.0, not done in earlier versions)
+
+Version Note:
+ '$' was used instead of '_' prior to version 2.3.0.1.
+
-<object_ref> - TODO (name, ref, subclass)
+I18nString
+----------
+Like String, but the value is translated to native language using wxLocale
+at runtime (unless it was disabled by not passing wxXRC_USE_LOCALE flag to
+wxXmlResource constructor). Used for strings that are "visible" in the GUI.
-3. Common attributes
---------------------
+UnsignedInteger
+---------------
+This is obvious. Only digits 0-9 may be present and there must be at least
+one digit.
+
+
+Integer
+-------
+Like UnsignedInteger but may be prefixed with '-' (ints less than zero).
+
+
+Position
+--------
+Specifies (window's) position in 2D space. Syntax is <integer>,<integer>[d]
+where <integer> is valid value of Integer type.
+
+
+Size
+----
+Syntax is same as Position's syntax, but the values are interpreted as window
+size (wxSize type) and not position (wxPosition type).
+
+
+Style[wxSomeClass]
+------------------
+List of style flags that can be passed to wxSomeClass' constructor. Flags are
+written in same way as in C++ code (e.g. "wxSUNKEN_BORDER",
+"wxHW_SCROLLBAR_NEVER") and are delimited with any combination of whitespaces
+and '|'. Possible flags are class-dependent and are not described in this
+technote. Please refer to wxWidgets manual for all styles that given class can
+accept; if XRC does not accept a flag listed in wxWidgets documentation, it is
+a bug.
+
+
+Bitmap
+------
+Attribute value is interpreted as filename (either absolute or relative to
+the location of XRC resource file). In addition, attribute node may have
+"stock_id" and "stock_client" properties. Their values may be any of wxArtID (or
+wxArtClient respectively) values as used by wxArtProvider (because the user may
+define own constants, effectively any string is legal here). Examples are
+"wxART_FILE_OPEN" (id) or "wxART_MENU" (client).
+
+Any of "stock_id" or "stock_client" properties or the filename may be omitted.
+XRC determines the bitmap to use according to this algorithm:
+ 1. If there is non-empty "stock_id" property, query wxArtProvider for the
+ bitmap (if there is no "stock_client", use default one, which is usually
+ wxART_OTHER; exceptions are noted in class-specific sections below). If
+ the query fails, continue to 2.
+ 2. Load the bitmap from the file in attribute value.
+
+
+Boolean
+-------
+Boolean value, either "0" (false) or "1" (true).
+
+
+Font
+----
+Font value. A font can be described either in terms of its elementary
+properties, or it can be derived from one of system fonts. The font node
+may contain following subnodes (the table lists subnode name on the left and
+variable type as per the definitions above on the right side):
+
+size UnsignedInteger
+style normal | italic | slant
+weight normal | bold | light
+family roman | script | decorative | swiss | modern | teletype
+underlined Boolean
+face comma-separated list of faces
+encoding charset of the font (meaningless in Unicode build), as string
+sysfont symbolic name of system standard font
+ (one of wxSYS_*_FONT constants)
+relativesize Float, font size relative to choosen system font's size;
+ can only be used when 'sysfont' is used and when 'size' is not
+ used
+
+All of them are optional, if they are missing, wxFont default is used.
+
+Examples:
+
+ <font>
+ <face>arial,helvetica</face>
+ <size>12</size>
+ </font>
+
+ <font>
+ <sysfont>wxSYS_DEFAULT_GUI_FONT</sysfont>
+ <weight>bold</weight>
+ <relativesize>1.5</relativesize>
+ </font>
+
+
+Colour
+------
+A colour value is either explicit RGB value in the standard #rrggbb format
+where rr, gg and bb are hexadecimal case-insensitive values in the 00..FF
+range, or a symbolic name. Symbolic names are wxSYS_COLOUR_* constants defined
+by wxWidgets, written as strings.
+
+Example:
+
+ <bg>wxSYS_COLOUR_SCROLLBAR</bg>
+ <fg>#FF0000</fg>
+
-TODO
4. Supported classes
---------------------
+====================
+
+Attributes are listed in tables in the following format:
+attribute name attribute type default value, if any
+ [(optional remarks....................
+ ...................................)]
+
+Common attributes
+-----------------
+These attributes are supported by all windows:
+
+exstyle Int
+bg Colour
+fg Colour
+enabled Boolean true
+focused Boolean false
+hidden Boolean false
+tooltip I18nString
+font Font
+help I18nString
+
+wxBitmap
+--------
+This is a special case, because it does not create a wxWindow instance but
+creates wxBitmap instead. Another exceptional thing is that it does not have
+any attributes. Instead, the node itself is interpreted as if it were attribute
+of type Bitmap.
+
+Example: <object class="wxBitmap">bitmaps/foo.gif</object>
+
+
+wxIcon
+------
+Identical to wxBitmap class, except that it creates wxIcon instead of wxBitmap.
+
+
+wxButton
+--------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxButton]
+
+label I18nString
+default Boolean false
+ (Is the button default button?)
+
+
+wxCalendarCtrl
+--------------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxCalendarCtrl]
+
+
+wxCheckBox
+----------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxCheckBox]
+checked Boolean false
+
+
+wxCheckList
+-----------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxCheckList]
+content (see below) (empty)
+
+Optional "content" attribute does not have attribute value. Instead,
+arbitrary number of <item> nodes may be rooted under it (the control
+is filled with strings contained in these nodes). Each <item>
+node must contain I18nString value and may have "checked" property
+with possible values "0" or "1" indicating the the item is initially
+checked.
+
+Example:
+<object class="wxCheckList">
+ <content>
+ <item>One</item>
+ <item checked="1">Two</item>
+ <item checked="1">Three</item>
+ <item>Four</item>
+ </content>
+</object>
+
+
+wxDatePickerCtrl
+----------------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxDatePickerCtrl]
+
+
+wxDialog
+--------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxDialog] wxDEFAULT_DIALOG_STYLE
+title I18nString ""
+icon Bitmap (empty)
+centered Boolean false
+
+wxDialog may have children objects.
+
+
+wxFrame
+--------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxDialog] wxDEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE
+title I18nString ""
+icon Bitmap (empty)
+centered Boolean false
+
+wxFrame may have children objects. There can be at most one wxToolBar,
+wxMenuBar and wxStatusBar children; objects of these types are automatically
+set as frame's tool-, menu- and statusbar respectively.
+
+
+wxMDIParentFrame
+----------------
+
+Supports same attributes and children nodes as wxFrame. Additionally, children
+may be of the wxMDIChildFrame type.
+
+
+wxMDIChildFrame
+---------------
+
+Supports same attributes and children nodes as wxFrame.
+
+
+wxRadioBox
+----------
+
+This control may have "dimension" (major dimension) and (initial) "selection"
+Integer subelements and a composite "content" element similar to wxCheckList.
+The only difference is that the "item" subelements can have an optional
+"tooltip=I18nString" and "helptext=I18nString" attributes to specify
+the per-item tooltip and helptext.
+
+
+wxScrolledWindow
+----------------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxScrolledWindow] wxHSCROLL | wxVSCROLL
+
+wxScolledWindow may have children objects.
+
+
+wxSplitterWindow
+----------------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxSplitterWindow] wxSP_3D
+sashpos Integer 0
+ (Initial sash position)
+minsize Integer -1
+ (Minimal panel size)
+orientation "horizontal"|"vertical" horizontal
+
+wxSplitterWindow must have at least one and at most two children objects.
+If there's only one child object, it is passed to wxSplitterWindow::Initialize
+and the splitter is created unsplit. If there are two children, the
+splitter is created split, either horizontally or vertically depending
+on the value of "orientation" attribute.
+
+
+wxStatusBar
+-----------
+fields Integer number of fields
+widths Width1, Width2, Width3, ...
+
+
+wxToolBar
+---------
+pos Position -1,-1
+size Size -1,-1
+style Style[wxToolBar] wxNO_BORDER|wxTB_HORIZONTAL
+bitmapsize Size -1,-1
+ (Size of contained bitmaps)
+margins Size -1,-1
+packing Integer -1
+separation Integer -1
+bg Background colour None
+dontattachtoframe Boolean False
+
+wxToolBar node may have children <object> and <object_ref> nodes. Their class
+may be either "tool", "separator" or any wxWidgets class derived from
+wxControl. "tool" and "separator" are special pseudo-classes that may only
+appear within wxToolBar node. Their attributes are as follows:
+
+ separator
+ ---------
+ (doesn't have any attributes)
+
+ tool
+ ----
+ bitmap Bitmap
+ bitmap2 Bitmap wxNullBitmap
+ toggle Boolean 0
+ radio Boolean 0
+ disabled Boolean 0
+ label I18nString ""
+ tooltip I18nString ""
+ longhelp I18nString ""
+ pos Position -1,-1
+
+ Constraints:
+ At most one of "toggle" and "radio" attributes may be 1.
+ Attribute "pos" may not appear if "label" or "radio" attributes
+ are used or if parent wxToolBar's style contains wxTB_TEXT.
+
+ Note:
+ Use of "pos" attribute is strongly discouraged, it is deprecated
+ usage of wxToolBar and it is not supported by MSW and GTK
+ implementations.
+
+Children objects are added to the toolbar using AddTool for "tool" class,
+AddSeparator for "separator" and AddControl for other classes.
+
+
+
+5. More features
+================
+
+FIXME -- "platform" property handling
-TODO
=== EOF ===
projects / wxWidgets.git / blobdiff