NetAlive Documentation

NetAlive Palette

The NetAlive design tool has a palette of building blocks for constructing new applications or modifying old ones. This document describes how to create and manage palettes.

A palette is just a NetAlive application displayed in a different way. Specifically, each task in the application becomes an entry in the palette (the links get ignored).Thus, the application-editing features in the NetAlive design tool can be applied to palette files.

The order of tasks in the design space controls the layout of the palette. Specifically, an application's tasks get put into a linear order based on their top-to-bottom, left-to-right position in the Intertask. The resulting linear sequence of tasks gets loaded into the palette in a left-to-right then top-to-bottom order. NetAlive creates a geometry for the palette (number of entries high and wide) to assure the palette fits on the screen and has an aesthetic shape.

There is a special Widget called a "palette heading." A palette heading creates a vertical division in the palette with a textual heading. A palette heading Widget should not be executed.

Applications can have different palettes. Each NetAlive application has a "Palette file" attribute (accessible through Options -- Program Attributes) that names the palette for that document. NetAlive loads the palette file specified in the active document when the user enables the palette with View -- Palette. NetAlive sets the "Palette file" attribute to "palette.net" in new documents.

Palette entries can be created "from scratch" or by modifying an existing task. tasks can be created from scratch by control-left-mouse-click in the Intertask's design space. Alternatively, tasks can be moved between documents with drag-and-drop. Once a task is in a palette file, it can be modified by the task definitions dialog.

Example

Create a new NetAlive application with File -- New.

Display the default palette with View -- Palette (palette.net is the palette file for new documents).

Display the default palette as a NetAlive application by clicking on the hyperlink palette.net. (Ignore the warning that "the file contains errors.") (If you have changed the palette.net file manually, you will need load the modified palette from your hard disk with File -- Open instead.)

Switch to Task definitions view with View -- Task Definitions. The "Category" selector fills with the tasks in the linear order used to construct the palette. The captions in the category selector correspond to the captions in the palette when read in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The icons in the category selector accompany their captions except for palette headings.

Switch to Intertask view with View -- Intertask. The tasks appear in a regular array. The task in the upper-left of the design space is the first palette heading. The tasks under the first heading appear in the first column or two. The next palette heading gets defined by a task at the top of the next column, etc.

[NetAlive Documentation Home Page][NetAlive Home Page]