Windows parts
The Windows controls include the following:
Win Controls Category 
Tab Strip Creates tabbed dialog boxes when used with a Tab control.
Tab Creates tabbed dialog boxes when used with a Tab Strip.
Tool Bar Creates a tool bar when used with a Tool Button.
Tool Button Creates a component for a Tool Bar.
Separator Button Separates tool buttons when used with a Tool Bar and Tool Button controls.
Status Bar Creates a status bar that can display various kinds of status information.
Status Panel Displays various kinds of status information when used with a Status Bar.
Track Bar Lets a user select a discrete value or a set of consecutive values within a range. Also known as a "slider".
Progress Bar Graphically depicts the progress of an operation by filling a progress area with small, solid rectangles.
Tree View Displays information as a hierarchy.
At the core of these visual parts are the native Windows controls. The native Windows controls are wrapped in VA Smalltalk, which provides them with a standard VA Smalltalk public interface. You can use these visual parts as you would any other VA Smalltalk visual parts.
Some of these parts are similar to other VA Smalltalk visual parts. For example, the Windows Track Bar is similar to the Slider in the Buttons category. An obvious question is when to use a Windows visual part and when to use another, similar visual part.
There are advantages and disadvantages of using either of the types of parts. The advantage of using the Windows visual parts is that you get controls which include the base Windows controls and are tuned to a Windows desktop graphical user interface environment. The disadvantage of the Windows visual parts is that they are not portable to the UNIX platforms that VA Smalltalk supports. In general, you should use the Windows visual parts if matching Windows graphical user interface control behavior is more important. You should use the other, corresponding visual parts if portability to other platforms is more important.
In the next several sections, we'll look at these visual parts in a little more detail and build up a simple example illustrating their use.
Last modified date: 06/11/2018