The Shoes Manual

Slots

Since the mouse wheel and PageUp and PageDown are so pervasive on every platform, vertical scrolling has really become the only overflow that matters. So, in Shoes, just as on the web, width is generally fixed. While height goes on and on.

Now, you can also just use specific widths and heights for everything, if you want. That'll take some math, but everything could be perfect.

Generally, I'd suggest using stacks and flows. The idea here is that you want to fill up a certain width with things, then advance down the page, filling up further widths. You can think of these as being analogous to HTML's "block" and "inline" styles.

Stacks

A stack is simply a vertical stack of elements. Each element in a stack is placed directly under the element preceding it.

A stack is also shaped like a box. So if a stack is given a width of 250, that stack is itself an element which is 250 pixels wide.

To create a new stack, use the stack method, which is available inside any slot. So stacks can contain other stacks and flows.

Flows

A flow will pack elements in as tightly as it can. A width will be filled, then will wrap beneath those elements. Text elements placed next to each other will appear as a single paragraph. Images and widgets will run together as a series.

Like the stack, a flow is a box. So stacks and flows can safely be embedded and, without respect to their contents, are identical. They just treat their contents differently.

Making a flow means calling the flow method. Flows may contain other flows and stacks.

Last thing: The Shoes window itself is a flow.

Next: Art for Slots