The page “Application” contains the general settings of the active wxGlade project.

Figure 5.6. Project Properties - Application settings

The page “Settings” contains the language specific settings of the active wxGlade project.

Figure 5.7. Project Properties - Language settings

The first tab contains the common properties that apply to all widgets. As shown in Figure 5.8, “Common Properties” the common properties are related to name, class, size, colors, fonts and tooltip.

Figure 5.8. Common Properties

The property name is a mangled version of the wxWidgets property name. The property input field is disabled by default. wxGlade won't use disabled properties for code generation. wxWidgets defaults are used instead.

Enable the property in the wxGlade GUI to set non-default values (see Figure 5.9, “Changing Common Properties”).

Figure 5.9. Changing Common Properties

The second tab is related to layout properties that control position and resizing within the sizer.

Figure 5.13. Layout Properties

These properties apply to any widget. You can check or uncheck any option related to the placement in the sizer. Many widgets may have a default value of 3 in the “Border” property in the Preferences Dialog (see the section called “Preferences Dialog”). If you let a widget have a default border, the wxAll option is also checked.

The third tab, named “Widget” is different for each widget, and lets you edit properties for the specific element you have selected.

Figure 5.14. Widget Properties

The set of options may also be quite complex in the case of widgets that have a great deal of methods and properties (such as grids and tree views). In this case, wxGlade greatly simplifies the process of designing forms.

“Store as attribute” stores the widget as an attribute of the top-level class.

Select “Don't generate code for this class” to prevent generating code for subwidgets of wxNotebook, wxPanel and wxSplitterWindow.

Figure 5.15. Widget Properties - Don't generate code for this class

You can use this feature to:

Some widgets have an “Apply” button onhe “Widget” tabs. Click on the “Apply” button to consolidate your changes. Otherwise they will lost.

The most of the styles as shown in the the section called “Layout Properties” and the section called “Properties Window” have a tooltip with additional information about the style.

The tooltips show a short description as well as additional information.

Figure 5.16. Widget Properties - Styles Tooltip

The style details will be used also to compute the styles in the generated source code.

The fourth tab, named “Events” lists the widgets events. wxGlade generates an event handler stub and binds the event for each added handler name.

Figure 5.17. Events Properties

Figure 5.18. Events Properties - Event handler name added

class MyFrame(wx.Frame):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwds):
        # begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__init__
        kwds["style"] = wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, *args, **kwds)
        self.text_ctrl_1 = wx.TextCtrl(self, -1, "")
        self.__set_properties()
        self.__do_layout()
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_TEXT, self.myEVTTEXT, self.text_ctrl_1)
        # end wxGlade

    def myEVTTEXT(self, event):  # wxGlade: MyFrame.<event_handler>
        print "Event handler `myEVTTEXT' not implemented!"
        event.Skip()

The fifth and last tab is named “Code” and has two parts.

Figure 5.19. Code Properties - Extra code and extra properties

wxGlade never declares or assigns variable or function names or import for non-default base classes and custom widgets.

If you use non-default base classes, var: or code: statements, you have to manually assign the variables, declare used functions as well as to include resp. to import of additional code need by your widget in “Extra code for this widget”. This “Extra code” will be added to the context of the source file and not to the context of the class.

The lower part simplifies setting of additional widget properties. Add the property name to the “Property” field and not the name of the setter function. For instance add “MaxLength” and not “SetMaxLength”. The “Value” field is just a text field. You can enter e.g. a simple number only as well as a complex statement e.g. 0, 0, "1" or a function call. But be carefully! Your entered sequence will be inserted in the source without any changes - one to one.

Figure 5.20. Code Properties - Set extra property

class MyFrame(wx.Frame):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwds):
        # begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__init__
        kwds["style"] = wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, *args, **kwds)
        self.text_ctrl_1 = wx.TextCtrl(self, -1, "")
        self.__set_properties()
        self.__do_layout()
        # end wxGlade

    def __set_properties(self):
        # begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__set_properties
        self.SetTitle("frame_1")
        self.text_ctrl_1.SetMaxLength(10)
        # end wxGlade