Hide an entire group possible?

[telmob]

I've searched the forums, and the closest i found remoted to 2008, so... i'm asking if there's a younger alternative.

How can i hide a group and everything inside it?

Could i use something like this?

$groupgroup1=$Grup1, $Combo1, $Label1, $Combo2, $Label2, $Date1, $Label3, $Combo3
GuiCtrlSetState($groupgroup1,$GUI_HIDE)

I know this specific code doesn't work, but is there an alternative?

[Melba23]

telmob,

First, you need to understand how the ControlIDs are allocated. AutoIt has an internal array which holds the data for all the controls created by the native (GUICtrlCreate*) functions. The ControlID returned by these functions is actually the index of this array in which the details of the control are stored. AutoIt always looks for the first empty element of this array to use for the next created control.

Now to your question. If you create the controls $Grup1, $Combo1, $Label1, $Combo2, $Label2, $Date1, $Label3, $Combo3 in IMMEDIATE SUCCESSION, and no controls created earlier have been deleted, the ControlIDs of these controls should be in a single block. So you can use something like this to hide them:

For $i = $Grup1 To $Combo3
    GUICtrlSetState($i, $GUI_HIDE)
Next

Be aware that this is a trick - there is no guarantee that it will always be true in future releases - although I believe it will be because a lot of us depend on it! And it will only be true if no controls created earlier have been deleted (unless you recreate the same number of controls immediately).

I hope that is clear - please ask if not.

M23

Edit: Typnig!

Edited July 10, 2011 by Melba23

[telmob]

WOW! This is actually much better than i expected.

This way i can put other controls on top of these, and hide them to show these again and so on.

Amazing trick!

Thank you Melba23! You're the GUI master!

[Melba23]

telmob,

This way i can put other controls on top of these, and hide them to show these again and so on

Always a good idea to create all the controls initially if you want to use this trick - that way there are no holes in the array!

M23

[telmob]

I just connected 3 different GUIs and hid the 2nd and 3rd part of the gui, until i press a button to show the 2nd gui and another button to show the 3rd gui, works just perfect.

I'm loving AutoIt.

[taietel]

Melba23, THANKS!!! I didn't thought it was that simple!

[Melba23]

taietel,

My pleasure - as always!

And I have some ground to make up after the tab thread the other day!

M23

[MrBeatnik]

I thought I would just chime in on this... To avoid the issue noted above where you may delete controls before these ones, you can create your controls in an array instead. This can also solve the issue where your controls may be created on the fly (or not in order).

Dim $userArray[5]

$userArray[0] = GUICtrlCreateGroup("User Info", 264, 8, 233, 281)
$userArray[1] = GUICtrlCreateLabel("User Name", 280, 40, 63, 17)
$userArray[2] = GUICtrlCreateInput("John", 360, 40, 121, 21)
$userArray[3] = GUICtrlCreateLabel("User Age", 280, 104, 66, 17)
$userArray[4] = GUICtrlCreateInput("42", 360, 104, 121, 21)
GUICtrlCreateGroup("", -99, -99, 1, 1)

For $i = 0 To UBound($roomGroupArray)-1
  GUICtrlSetState ( $roomGroupArray[$i], $GUI_HIDE )
Next

I don't know if there are any issues with this method (I haven't noted them) - I'd appreciate a reply if anyone knows of any such problems.

The only thing is you lose logical naming of the controls - i.e. instead of a control called "$lblUserName", it's called "$userArray[1]"

[martin]

I thought I would just chime in on this... To avoid the issue noted above where you may delete controls before these ones, you can create your controls in an array instead. This can also solve the issue where your controls may be created on the fly (or not in order).

Dim $userArray[5]

$userArray[0] = GUICtrlCreateGroup("User Info", 264, 8, 233, 281)
$userArray[1] = GUICtrlCreateLabel("User Name", 280, 40, 63, 17)
$userArray[2] = GUICtrlCreateInput("John", 360, 40, 121, 21)
$userArray[3] = GUICtrlCreateLabel("User Age", 280, 104, 66, 17)
$userArray[4] = GUICtrlCreateInput("42", 360, 104, 121, 21)
GUICtrlCreateGroup("", -99, -99, 1, 1)

For $i = 0 To UBound($roomGroupArray)-1
  GUICtrlSetState ( $roomGroupArray[$i], $GUI_HIDE )
Next

I don't know if there are any issues with this method (I haven't noted them) - I'd appreciate a reply if anyone knows of any such problems.

The only thing is you lose logical naming of the controls - i.e. instead of a control called "$lblUserName", it's called "$userArray[1]"

The method is fine IMO. If there is an issue with the names as you suggest then there is no reason why you can't have both

$BtnQuit = GuiCtrlCreateButton(...

$Actrl[0] = $BtnQuit

then when you want to refer to an individual control and make it obvious what you're doing use BtnQuit, and when you need to group them use the array.

My prefered method is

$grp1Start = 0
enum $Grp1 $BtnQuit=0 $ChkNever,..,$Ed1,$grp2Start
enum $Grp2 $BtnSave=$grp2Start, $BtnNext,...., $grp3Start
etc

Global $aCtrls[20]

;create the ctrls in any order you want.
;if you need another control in an existing group just add it in the enum list somewhere.
$aCtrls[$BtnNext] = GuiCtrlCreate.....

;then to deal with a group
for $n = $grp2Start to $Grp3Start - 1
 something($aCtrls{$n])
next

which gives the understanding and flexibility, though it needs more planning. It doesn't work so well if you are using Koda though.

Edited July 28, 2011 by martin