Painter is used to design and construct screen interfaces, with which your user interacts with your deployed application. It allows you to add simple graphical objects, such as lines and images as well as add graphical objects, such as edit boxes and radio buttons, which are bound to an attribute as its data source.
Any named element can have a form created for it when its PresentationType property is set to a value other than None, with the exception of a model or folder.
A form grid provides horizontal and vertical guidelines to help you align objects on your form.
To select the default form grid settings, perform the following:
From the Tools Menu, select Options.
Navigate to the Windows Forms Designer, General folder in the Options dialog box.
If it is not already expanded, click the plus (+) symbol next to the Grid Setting.
If it is not already expanded, click the plus (+) symbol next to the Grid Size enter the appropriate values.
Width– Sets the distance between horizontal grid lines. By default, the value is 8 pixels with a setting in the range of 2 to 200.
Height – Sets the distance between vertical grid lines. By default, the value is 8 pixels with a setting in the range of 2 to 200.
Set Showgrid to True, so that by default when a form is opened the grid is displayed, unless the form has been saved with a different setting.
Set Snap to grid to True so that snap to grid is enabled by default when a form is opened, unless the form has been saved with a different setting.
Or
WPF Designer
WPF Designer is used to design user interfaces for the WPF Client applications by using the AB Suite Access Layer. It allows you to add attributes and graphical object, such as text boxes, combo boxes, and list boxes from the Data Source window and WPF toolbox onto the WPF Designer. An automatic binding is established between the control and the attribute in the ViewModel. The binding mechanism in WPF allows data to be exchanged automatically between a control in the user interface and the corresponding attribute in the ViewModel.
You can also modify the generated XAML code manually in the XAML view to manipulate the behavior of the graphical controls according to your requirements.
Reports and Teach Screens
The painter is also used to create teach screens or reports. In these cases there are limitations on the type of graphical objects and font’s types, which can be used on these types of forms.
To set the default font for reports, perform the following:
From the Tools menu, select Options.
Navigate to the Environment, Fonts and Colors folder in the Options dialog box.
From the Show Settings for: drop-down list box, select System Modeler Report Painter.
From the Display Items: list box, select Text.
Select the Font type, size, and foreground color.
Note: The font type in reports is restricted to fixed width, if any other font is selected a warning is given so that you can select the correct type, otherwise the last valid selection is retained.
A similar restriction exists for the font foreground color which can only be Black (Automatic), White, Blue, Yellow, Red, Cyan, Green or Magenta. If you select any other color a warning will be given and the last valid color selection will be retained.
Refer to the Defining User Interfaces for more information on Painter.