The User Interface of CADability

CADability brings a user interface that you are free to use as it is, modify it or replace it by your own user interface.

The most important task of the user interface is to show the geometric entities of a model in a "view" (a System.Windows.Forms.Control derived class) and to provide the user with a set of tools to create and manipulate those geometric entities.

On top of the hierarchy of objects is the SingleDocumentFrame. This is accompanied by the ControlCenter (a "property grid" or "object browser"), which is the text based acces to all CADability data. In the ControlCenter the user can enter data when constructing (drawing) geometric entities, can view the data of selected geometric entities, can modify all kinds of project properties and a lot more.

There are also classes that implement menus and toolbars (MenuResource, CommandHandlingToolBar) that you are free to use.

The most important class for user interaction is Action or ConstructAction (which is derived from Action). There is always one Action object "active", which means that this Action object receives the mouse input and controls the input of the "Action" page in the control center. Typical instances of Action classes is the SelectObjectsAction (which enables the user to klick on geometric entities to select them) or any ConstructAction derived class (which for example enables the user to construct a line by specifying a start point and an end point). You may also derive your own classes from Action or ConstructAction to enable the user to do all kinds of manipulation of CADability data. How to build your own Action.