Layout

Next Tutorial: Style Previous Tutorial: Plugins

Overview

It's possible to define the layout of various plugins loaded to the main window by adding a <window> element to the config file. The child elements are:

• <width>: Window's width in pixels
• <height>: Window's height in pixels
• <menus>: Configure menu options
  • <drawer>: Side drawer configuration.
    • visible: Set to false to hide the drawer and the button to trigger it.
  • <plugins>: Plugins menu configuration.
    • visible: Set to false to hide the plugins menu and the button to trigger it.
    • from_paths: Set to false to prevent filling the menu with all plugins found on the paths. In that case, if no plugins are given with <show> elements, the plugins menu will be empty.
    • <show>: Add a show element for each plugin which should be shown on the menu. If from_paths is true, all plugins will be shown anyway, so adding <show> has no effect. For the plugin to be shown, it must be on the path.
• <default_exit_action>: Default CLOSE_GUI. If set to SHUTDOWN_SERVER and <dialog_on_exit> is false, closing the window will emit a server shutdown request with stop = true to the <server_control_service> topic. This can be used in applications like Gazebo which can run a server in a process separate from the GUI to stop both the GUI and the server when the window is closed. The value is case-insensitive.
• <server_control_service>: Default /server_control. This is the name of msgs::ServerControl service that allows e.g. stopping the server. It is usually not needed to alter this value.
• <dialog_on_exit>: If true, a confirmation dialog will show up when closing the window.
• <dialog_on_exit_options>: Configuration of the dialog shown before exit (with all elements optional).
  • <prompt_text>: Text of the prompt in the confirmation dialog.
  • <show_shutdown_button>: Default false. If true, display a "Shutdown simulation" button in the confirmation dialog, which shuts down the server, too. Always set <close_gui_button_text> to a different string than "OK" if both close GUI and shutdown buttons are shown, otherwise there would be a dialog with options "OK", "Cancel" and "shutdown", which is bad UX.
  • <shutdown_button_text>: Text of the "Shutdown simulation" button. If empty, a default text is used.
  • <show_close_gui_button>: Default true. If true, display a "Close GUI" button in the confirmation dialog, which leaves server running.
  • <close_gui_button_text>: Text of the "Close GUI" button. If empty, a default text is used. When both shutdown and close GUI buttons are shown, always change the text of the close GUI button, otherwise there would be a dialog with options "OK", "Cancel" and "shutdown", which is bad UX.

Example layout

Try an example layout:

gz gui -c examples/config/layout.config

Compare it to the same plugins loaded without a layout:

gz gui -c examples/config/no_layout.config

Create a new layout

You can start from an empty window and insert plugins, or from an existing config file. For example:

1. Open a config file loading several plugins, but without window configurations, for example:

    gz gui -c examples/config/no_layout.config
   

1. Drag the widgets as you wish.

1. Click on File->Save configuration as and save on a new file.

   > You can also click on File -> Save configuration to save that as the default configuration which is loaded whenever Gazebo GUI is opened without a config file.

1. Close the window, then load the new config file:

    gz gui -c <path to saved file>
   

   You can also load the new config file from File->Load configuration.