I *really* wanted that 'two-column-50%' feeling

MorphX is great for throwing some controls on a form and and presenting the information from the database table.  If however the form is complex or will be one of the main forms used within the application it is well worth taking a few minutes out to present the information in a beter format...  Did I say a few minutes?

The first attempt had controls with their text cut off and all presented in 2 columns with a third effectively empty.  What I created was two Groups, their Frame set to None, and manually fill each one with controls or more sub-groups so that they balance out in total height of control content.  A little 'meh' but it will do.  Next I manually set their Width properties to 0 (changing the WidthMode, see here).  We will be hitting the X++ to next set their width values. I also set the General tab's ColumnSpace value to 10, and it's LeftMargin + RightMargin to a value of 5. The Columns value is set to 2 of course. Everything has it's AutoDeclaration set to Yes of course.

What I ended up doing was going to the land of WinAPI and attempt to get a handle on the General tab's rectangle dimensions - see the getWindowRect API and the RECT object it returns.  From there it was a case of some simple math, thus:

public void run()
{
    int            iWidth, x, y, k, l;
    ;

    SysListPageHelper::handleRunPreSuper(element, ctrlTabForm, 3, 2);
    super();
    
    [x, y, k, l]    = WinApi::getWindowRect(General.hWnd());
    iWidth          = (k - x
                        - 20 // General.ColumnSpace + General.LeftMargin + General.RightMargin
                        - 20 // Magic fudge factor
                        ) / 2;
    
    GeneralGrpCol1.width(iWidth);
    GeneralGrpCol2.width(iWidth);

    SysListPageHelper::handleRunPostSuper(element, ctrlTabForm);
}

It's not perfect, and I shall have to test it some more but it's far better than before!  As you can see from the above code there is a fudge factor which means that I'm missing something in the total width calculation - any suggestions?

Another example of the WinAPI::getWindowRect can be seen in a blog post capturing Ax form screenshots.  Finally, as we're in WinAPI land, I refer you to a useful post as to how to obtain screen sizes and the like.

All of this work simply because I was a web developer where everything on the page can be designed to 'float' around each other... In conclusion then I DON'T recommend this approach!