ForeUI is an easy-to-use UI prototyping tool, designed to create mockup / wireframe / prototypes for any application or website you have in mind.

ForeUI Blog

ForeUI V2.27: Multilevel Menu Element

Hello everyone, today’s new version will include a brand new “Multilevel Menu” element, I bet you will like it 🙂

Multilevel Menu Element

The inspiration to add this element is from Ulrich’s thread about 2 months ago.  I know he is making a lot of clickable wireframes with ForeUI.  He said creating a multilevel menu in (older version of) ForeUI was quite complex, since you have to show/hide the sub menus by yourself, and the simulated menu is not so “real” since you must click the parent menu item to expand its sub menu…  All these are solved with the new “Multilevel Menu” element!  Now creating a multilevel menu is extremely easy: just drag the element into your plot and edit its content in this format:

  • Main Menu Item 1
  • Main Menu Item 2
    • Sub Menu Item 1
    • Sub Menu Item 2
  • Main Menu Item 3

This will generate the two-levels menu automatically, the sub menu will be bound to the second item in the main menu.  What’s more, you can click the menu item to select/unselect it, or expand/collapse the sub menu, or drag an icon from image dock to a menu item…all these can happen in the editing mode!

The more interesting thing happens when you run the simulation: the multilevel menu element will work like a real menu, and the sub menu will be expanded when you move your mouse over its parent menu item.

When you choose an item from the multilevel menu, the “Selection Changed” event will be triggered, you can handle this event can check its selection identification, which will be a string like “a.b.c”.  Here is an example:

In the example above, the case “1” means user selected the first item in the level-1 menu;  Case “4.3.2” means user selected the second item in the level-3 menu, which binds to the third item in a level-2 menu, and that level-2 menu binds to the fourth item in the level-1 menu.  Please pay attention to the quote marks for each case, as the identification is not a number but a string.

Button Margin

This feature is requested by Kenneth Young via email.  In previous versions, all button elements will have a 15 pixels margin, that value kind of big if you want to make a small button.  Now we provide the option to tweak this value for button element.

Other Enhancements:

  • Do not auto expand tree nodes in the pages management window. (Requested by Hervé Séger via email)
  • When manipulating the behavior tree, only expand the nodes that are modified.

Fixed Bugs:

  • Bug_0196: Duplicate page with table that contains multiple embedded elements, some embedded elements may dispear. (Re-fixed, thank Kenneth Young for the reporting)
  • Bug_0197: Table edit: clear content for all cells and press ok, the application may hang.
  • Bug_0198: Can not change the state of TextBox with action during the simulation. (Thank Ulrich for the reporting)

ForeUI V2.25: Table Editor Improvements and More

Hello everyone,  it is another biweekly update today.  The new V2.25 version has some improvements on new table editor, provides smarter zooming and proxy settings and  includes some bug fixings.

Table Editor Improvements

In previous version, the table editor can only insert new row or column before the current one.  Now we’ve made the improvement, you can append new row or column after the current one.  The figure below shows the details:

Also we’ve made an enhancement on table resizing:  only the columns with “auto” width will be scaled during the table resizing.  That means you can fix certain columns’ width during the resizing.  The columns with “auto” width will allocate their actual width from the remained space.  If more than one column has “auto” width, they will allocate their widths according to their content.  So you can add some space characters into table cell to increase its acutal width.

Another enhancement is to auto enlarge table cell (and table) if the table cell is not big enough to hold the newly embedded element.  This feature will be activated after you hold right key to drag an element into the table.  If you want to use this feature, please make sure to turn on the “Auto resize eement after editing its content” option in the settings window.

Smart Focusing after Zoom In/Out

In previous version, after zooming in or out, the view will scroll back to top left corner.  If you are editing something on the bottom right corner, you will have to scroll back after zooming.  Now the zooming become smarter:  it will try to restore the center region you were working at; If you have selected some element, it will try to put them in the center of the view.

Proxy Settings

This feature is requested by Kfir Dadosh.  Sometimes ForeUI needs to get data from internet (update checking, download resource etc), so the proxy settings are needed in some cases.  Now you can find the proxy options via menu “Advanced->Settings->Misc Tab”:

Other Enhancements:

  • When try to export DHTML to existed directory, clean the directory first (requested by Hervé Séger via email).
  • Add “Extract from Container” option in context menu for embedded element (requested by Ulrich).

Fixed Bugs:

  • Bug_0188: Table cell with comma will be splited into two cells.   (Thank Ulrich for reporting)
  • Bug_0189: “Element Clicked” event is not triggered when clicking the table row.   (Regression in V2.22, thank Kenneth Young for reporting)
  • Bug_0190: Do nothing in table editor and press ok button, the table is marked as “modified” (while actually it is not).
  • Bug_0191: Table element may contain broken reference to deleted element, which cause error in DHTML generation.
  • Bug_0192: Rename embedded element will make it dispear from the container.
  • Bug_0193: Hand drawing theme should respect the background color of button element.  (Thank John Giddings for reporting)
  • Bug_0194: The action indicator (red flag) on Table element is not clickable (regression in V2.22)
  • Bug_0195: Should not resize table after editing if “auto resizing option” is off, or preferred size is not bigger than current size.
  • Bug_0196: Duplicate page with table that contains multiple embedded elements, some embedded elements may dispear (Kenneth Young reported via email).