INTRODUCTION
GENERAL CONCEPTS
REFERENCE MANUAL


GENERAL CONCEPTS

OBJECTS

The Win32::GUI package contains a series of subclasses, that represent all the 
kind of objects that you can play with. These objects include graphical
resources (bitmaps, fonts, etc.), controls (menus, buttons, text fields, 
etc.), and windows and window classes. This is the hierarchy chart of the
available objects:

    - Resources:
        Win32::GUI::Font
        Win32::GUI::Bitmap
        Win32::GUI::Icon
        Win32::GUI::Cursor

	- Windowing elements:
		Win32::GUI::Window
		Win32::GUI::Menu
		Win32::GUI::MenuButton
		Win32::GUI::MenuItem
		Win32::GUI::Label
		Win32::GUI::Button
		Win32::GUI::Checkbox
		Win32::GUI::RadioButton
		Win32::GUI::Textfield
		Win32::GUI::

Keep in mind, however, that all these classes are derived from the Win32::GUI
class, which contains a series of methods common to all classes, as well as
non object-specific methods (functions that you can call without instantiating
any object). For example, the method GetCursorPos() doesn't belong to any 
class, so you call it directly as:
	($x, $y) = Win32::GUI::GetCursorPos();

Of course, you can still call it as an object's method:
	($x, $y) = $MyWindow->GetCursorPos();


METHODS

Note that I've implemented some methods that looks much like properties.
For example, there is a Width() method that returns or sets the width, in pixels, 
of a window or a control. You can use it like:
	print "I'm ", $MyWindow->Width, " pixels large";
	$MyWindow->Width(100);

The second example does effectively resize the window, setting its width to
100 pixels. I've taken this direction as an alternative to "true" properties,
expressed generally as keys of an associative array (see for example the OLE 
module); the two lines above would then have been written as:
	print "I'm $MyWindow->{Width} pixels large";
	$MyWindow->{Width} = 100;

This would probably be more efficient, but requires also harder coding; and finally,
I personally prefer the first way of writing. Of course, I'm open to 
suggestions/improvements/contributions on this point; as I said before, the preferred
media for related discussions is the Perl-Win32-Porters@ActiveState.com mailing list.

EVENTS

Events are user-defined Perl subroutines that are called in response to certain
actions on the graphical user interface. For example, a button has a "Click" 
event that gets called when the user clicks on the button with the mouse.


OPTIONSLISTS

An "optionslist" is a list of options, expressed as an associative array where keys
always begins with a dash (-). This is the same syntax as the Perl/TK interface,
just to keep things common. An example of optionslist follows:

    $Window = new Win32::GUI::Window (
                  -name => "Window",
                  -title => "Perl Window",
                  -left => 150,
                  -top => 150,
                  -width => 400,
                  -height => 300,
              );