Creating tools

The tool bar usually does not have widgets as children. Instead, it has specialized children called tools (EwTool). Tools are user interface elements that look like widgets but do not actually use all of the platform resources required by a widget. Tools collaborate with the parent tool bar to display themselves and handle user events. You add widgets as children of a tool bar by associating a widget with a widget tool.

Tools are created by sending one of the following messages to a tool bar:

createGroup:argBlock:

Creates a group tool inside the tool bar. The first argument is the name for the new tool; the second is its argument block. A group is a tool that contains other tools.

createLabelTool:argBlock:

Creates a label tool inside the tool bar.

createProgressBarTool:argBlock:

Creates a progress bar tool inside the tool bar.

createPushButtonTool:argBlock:

Creates a push button tool inside the tool bar.

createRadioButtonTool:argBlock:

Creates a radio button tool inside the tool bar.

createSeparatorTool:argBlock:

Creates a separator tool inside the tool bar.

createSimpleGroup:argBlock:

Creates a simple group inside the tool bar. A simple group is a tool that contains only buttons. It provides protocol for specifying collections of images to be displayed in the group as buttons.

createToggleButtonTool:argBlock:

Creates a toggle button tool inside the tool bar.

createWidgetTool:name:argBlock:

Creates a widget and adds it as a tool to the tool bar. The first argument is the class of widget to be created; the second is its name; the third is its argument block.

Tools are lighter weight than widgets and minimize platform resources. However, they do not always look like a platform widget. Using widgets and widget tools on the tool bar ensures that the tools look exactly like their widget counterparts on a particular platform. This platform look and feel, though, comes at the expense of using platform resources.