Layout management in a rapid application development tool

摘要

The present application discloses systems, computer-readable media, and methods for aligning widgets and groups of widgets, and defining relationships between the widgets and groups of widgets. In a first case, a most significant sub-component border determination may be made for each widget. Then, a grouping relationship determined between each of a plurality of the widgets. Finally, for each widget in each determined group, the widgets may be aligned based on the determined most significant sub-component border of each widget in the group. In a second case, connections between widgets, groups of widgets, and/or edges of a page are determined, and an algorithm applied to infer whether a relationship exists, and if it does, to determine whether the relationship is one of a fixed-distance relationship and a proportional-distance relationship.

主权项

1. A computer implemented method of aligning widgets on a page, the method comprising:
providing, via a computing device, a graphical development environment, the graphical development environment depicting a representation of a page and a plurality of user-selectable data-capable widgets, each widget comprising one or more graphical display sub-components and a computer-executable functional characteristic; determining for each widget, via the computing device, a respective most significant graphical display sub-component from among the graphical display sub-components included in the widget, said respective most significant graphical display sub-component being a reference for relative alignment of other widgets with respect to said each widget within the page; determining, for each widget, via the computing device, a respective relative alignment border of the reference for relative alignment, the respective relative alignment border being selected from one of a top, left, right, bottom, and center of the respective for relative alignment; determining, via the computing device, a grouping relationship between each of the plurality of widgets, wherein at least one widget in the determined group has a respective relative alignment border that is different from the respective relative alignment border of at least one other widget within the determined group; and for each widget in each determined group, aligning, via the computing device, the widgets with the respective relative alignment border of each widget in the group based on an alignment selected from the group consisting of a horizontal alignment, a vertical alignment, and a centered alignment such that the selected alignment is applied to each of said respective relative alignment borders in order to align each widget with respect to the other widgets in the determined group within the page.