The Development Environment |
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The Development Environment |
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The Development Environment |
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The Development Environment |
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User's Guide - Chapter 3: The Development Environment
This chapter will take you on a tour of Visual Patch’s development environment. You’ll learn how to use the features of the interface that allow you to create a comfortable and productive work environment, customized for the way you want to use the program. You’ll also learn how to take advantage of Visual Patch’s self-help resources, which are designed to answer any questions you might have while working with Visual Patch as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Now that you have started visual patch and created a new project, either through the Project Wizard or from scratch, it’s time to get comfortable with the program interface itself.
The Visual Patch program window is divided into a number of different parts. At the top of the window, just under the title bar, is the program menu. You can click on this program menu to access various commands, settings and tools.
Below the program menu are a number of toolbars. The buttons on these toolbars give you easy access to many of the commands that are available in the program menu.
Most of the program window is taken up by the file list, which is where all the files in your project are listed. There is one tabbed list for each version of your software.
At the very bottom of the window, a status bar reflects your interaction with the program and offers a number of informative readouts.
The rest of the program window is made up of individual sub-windows known as panes. Each pane can be docked, tabbed, pinned, resized, dragged, and even made to float on top of the design environment. As well, panes remember their positions even after you unpin them. If you unpin a pane, and then pin it again, it will return to the position it had when it was pinned.
Tip: When you’re dragging panes, it’s the position of the mouse cursor that determines where the outline snaps into place. For example, to dock a pane below another one, drag the pane so the cursor is near the bottom edge of that pane. To "tab" one pane with another, drag the pane so the cursor is on top of the other pane’s title bar.
Toolbars in Visual Patch provide quick access to many of the more commonly used features. There are four toolbars available – Standard, Versions, Common, Filters – with the first three displayed by default.
All four toolbars can be shown or hidden in the design environment. To show or hide a toolbar, simply right click on any toolbar, and click on the one you wish to change.
If the default toolbar configurations are not fulfilling your needs, you can customize them. To customize the toolbars, right click on any toolbar and choose ‘customize’. Doing this opens the Customize dialog, where you can show or hide existing toolbars, create new toolbars, add or remove individual toolbar buttons, create keyboard shortcuts, change the toolbar themes, and adjust various other options.
The tall pane on the left is the task pane. The task pane provides easy access to the parts of Visual Patch you will use the most. It provides an alternative to the program menu for accessing the various parts of the Visual Patch design environment.
In Visual Patch, your application’s various versions are represented by version tabs on the project window. In a nutshell, every version of your software loaded into your Visual Patch project will have its own version tab.
Note: For more information about versions, files, and other related concepts see Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.
Each version tab is linked to a separate file list. File lists contain all of the files and folder references associated with that particular version of your software, and provide you with a central location to manage its contents.
From this file list, you can change the properties of one or many files or folder references; you can change the source folders, destination folders, whether or not certain files are key files, and under what condition a file will be patched.
The file list is divided into many columns, allowing you to quickly locate relevant information. You can decide which columns are displayed by selecting View > Columns. From the same dialog, you can change their display order.
You can use the displayed columns to sort your file list; by clicking on a column header, you can sort your entire file list by the information contained in that column. For example, by clicking on the filename column, all files and folder references will be sorted by their filename.
The filters toolbar allows you to apply both default and custom filters to the file list. Filters display files in the file list matching certain criteria, and hide those that don’t. By default Visual Patch is configured with three filters: All executables, all key files, and all missing files. You can create custom filters based on any available column in Visual Patch. Note that the column used in the filter does not need to be visible in the design environment, and that only one filter can be applied at a time.
A quick way to change many settings within your Visual Patch project is to use the various right-click context menus available. For example, right clicking on a version tab will allow you to add a version, remove the selected version, rename the selected version, or organize all available versions. Right clicking on the file list brings up various options for working with existing files in the list, and allows you to add new files and folder references to your project.
There are a number of preferences that you can configure to adjust the Visual Patch design environment. To access the Preferences dialog, choose Edit > Preferences from the file menu.
The preferences are arranged into categories listed on the left side of the dialog. When you click on a category, the corresponding preferences appear on the right side of the dialog.
The first category contains the build preferences. Here you can specify whether or not the publish wizard should be used, as well as how Visual Patch behaves before and after the build. You can also specify where the log files should be saved to, or even disable the log files.
The Document preferences allow you to change settings that affect the project file. For example, you can configure the auto-save feature that automatically saves your project file as you’re working on it to avoid any accidental loss of data. You can also configure the number of undo/redo levels, and choose whether to use the project wizard to create new projects or to simply start with a new, blank project.
Tip: It can be helpful to set the number of undo levels to a larger value, like 25 or 50. That way you can undo even more "steps" back if you change your mind while you’re working on a project.
The Environment category allows you to customize the design environment, and the Environment > Folders category allows you to specify the locations of various folders that are used by the project.
There are many other preferences that you can set, such as what to do when the design environment is started (in the Startup category) and what happens when you add files to the project (in the Document > Adding Files category). Take some time to look through the categories and familiarize yourself with the different options that are available.
As with any application, Visual Patch will from time to time be updated to include bug fixes and possibly new features. In order to ensure you have the most current version of Visual Patch installed, you can check for updates by choosing Help > Check for Update from the program menu.
Note: Visual Patch will automatically prompt you to check for updates every 30 days by default. You can modify this value at any time through the Preferences dialog (Help > Preferences).
Tip: To include this type of update functionality in your software application, check out TrueUpdate (www.trueupdate.com) today!
If you still have questions after reading the user’s guide, there are many self-help resources at your disposal.
The online help is only a key press away! Visual Patch comes with an extensive online program reference with information on every action and feature in the program.
In fact, whenever possible, pressing F1 will actually bring you directly to the appropriate topic in the online help. This context-sensitive help is an excellent way to answer any questions you may have about a specific dialog or object.
Note: You can also access the online help system by choosing Help > Visual Patch Help.
There are three ways to navigate the online help system: you can find the appropriate topic using the table of contents, with the help of the keyword index, or by searching through the entire help system for a specific word or phrase.
Visual Patch is used by developers all over the world. Many users enjoy sharing ideas and tips with other users. The online forums can be an excellent resource when you need help with a project or run into a problem that other users may have encountered.
Choosing Help > User Forums opens your default web browser directly to the online user forums at the Indigo Rose website.
Choosing Help > Technical Support allows you to either check out the various support options available to you or to contact Indigo Rose’s technical support department.
Choosing Support Options takes you to the Visual Patch web site, where a variety of online technical support resources are available to you, including a knowledge base with answers to common questions. This is also where you can find information about ordering one of our premium support packages and submitting a support request.
Choosing Contact Support takes you directly to the support ticket submission web page within Visual Patch’s support website.
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