Form Designer

The Form Designer presents the design-time view of your form. By default, the Form Designer occupies the central area of the Form Editor window.

The Form Designer displays the form's top visual component, which represents the whole form. The display can be changed to view any other sub-container by double-clicking the sub-container's node in the Component Inspector. Switching the view allows you to design visual container from the Other Components category, which are normally not visible in the form's main visual hierarchy.

The white area around the form represents the components under the Other Components node in the Component Inspector. You can add components to the Other Components node by clicking in the white region. When you right-click in this area, the contextual menu applies to the Other Components node.

You can use the light blue borders of the form to resize the area available for designing the form. The form can be resized down or to the right using the mouse. The form's size can also be set by double-clicking the form's borders and specifying the size in the dialog box that appears. Making the form larger provides you more space for designing large forms.

Tip The size of the form in the Form Designer does not correspond to the actual size of the form when it is executed. The real size is determined by the layout manager used in the form. Click the Test Form button Image of the Test Form 
button located in the Component Palette to quickly test how your form will be displayed when it is compiled and run.
See also
Form Editor
Component Inspector
Component Palette
Setting the Form Size
Working With Components
Designing Containers
Testing a Form

Legal Notices