Positioning and Aligning Controls

Once you have added controls to your screen, you can use arrow-key shortcut combinations, the Align menu, or the Align toolbar to fine-tune the size and position of those controls.

You can use the following keystrokes to position and resize controls:

When you use most of the Align commands, a group of selected controls is repositioned in relation to the last control selected, known as reference control. The reference control is marked by the small, dark blue boxes (handles) on the control frame. (The handles on other selected controls are white, with a blue border.)

The Align commands that adjust controls in relation to one another include:

The Align commands that can be used to position either a single control or multiple controls include:

By default, when you work in the Screen Designer, a grid of dots appears on the screen form to help you to position your controls. The size of each square in this grid corresponds to the screen's CELL SIZE property (by default, 10 pixels by 10 pixels). You can toggle whether or not this grid is visible with the View Grid command, accessed through the Align menu or toolbar. To help you place items on this grid, you can enable a set of control positioning guides with the Toggle Guide command. These positioning guides become visible when you click a control on the screen form, or click to draw a control on the screen.