Consultor Eletrônico

How to setup up UIB to work with images and icons

DRAFT COPY - Currently under review and edit.

INTRODUCTION:
=============
Customers who use UIB generated procedures and work with images may
experience a problem that references to image files are hardcoded with
an absolute path.

WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS:
===========================
An absolute path may cause a problem during development and deployment
When a file is loaded into UIB on a different machine an error like
is displayed:

The file (<dir>\<name>) for LOAD-IMAGE-UP on the BUTTON widget is
invalid in the current system. (206)

After depoying the code, customers may see:
Unable to find image file for <widget>. (2289)

PROCEDURAL APPROACH:
====================
It's possible to set up UIB to use a relative path to reference images

The problem with an absolute path occurs only if a Browse... button is
used in a Choose Image Files dialog, or an entry contains a full path.

By default only adeicon subdirectory of %DLC%/gui is available in the
Choose Image Files dialog. If you want to have different directories
available, use Edith Path... button and type a directory path you want
The entered path is concatenated with entries in PROPATH and it's
verified that the directory exists. Do not use a full path!

Example: Images are in D:\appl\images directory
1) modify PROPATH to contain an entry D:\appl
2) from Choose image files dialog select "Edith Path..." button and
type images, !!! do not use full path like d:\appl\images!!!
3) select the directory from a Directory combo-box - you should see
bmp and ico files from this directory.

If you select an image, only a relative path like "images\myimage.bmp"
is used. You can check the result from UIB -> Compile -> Code Preview

To access Choose Image Files dialog, double-click on an image, button
etc widgets to open Property sheet and click on Image button(s) there


Do not modify .w files outside UIB.

VZA (18 Jan 98)