Effective GUI Design with Lucid Spec - ' Control Limitations ' (
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Exporting Your Project
One feature that does work very well is the ability to export a project. You can't export the simulation, but you can export the overview of the project as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file. Anyone associated with the project can view the RTF file and provide feedback on the static information the report provides.
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The use of a report for initial comments is another reason to create footnotes with copious information. Once everyone has decided on the static features, you can demonstrate the application flow during a meeting.
Unfortunately, you won't find a single word about this feature in the tutorial. You need to read the Help file carefully to find features such as printing and exporting your project.
Control Limitations
Lucid Spec comes with most of the common controls that you expect, such as push buttons and text boxes. However, it's missing some controls, such as the up/down control, and there isn't any documented way to add them. In addition, you won't find any common dialog box controls, such as a File Open dialog box. You can create some of these common dialog box entries by employing the custom Widget feature that Lucid Spec provides, but I expected the vendor to provide some of these controls.
One way around this particular problem is to place an image control on one of your forms. Grab a screenshot of the control you want to mimic. Configure the image control to display an up/down control, or whatever custom feature you need, by referencing the control screenshot in the Image property. Make sure you give the control a generic name that makes the generic use of the control easy to understand. Select the image control and choose the Edit | Add Custom Widget command. The control appears in the Custom category of the Widgets window; figure 3 shows an example of an up/down control.
Figure 3: You can create your own collection of controls, but the results are less than perfect.
Notice that I highlighted the up/down control entry in the Widgets window. The control looks fine when viewed on the dialog box, so using this approach won't affect the usability of the design you create from a visual perspective. However, the control itself appears in the Custom folder of the Widgets window with an image icon. Consequently, you have to name the controls carefully when you create a number of these custom controls. Lucid Spec doesn't provide any other means of identification, and you don't want people working on the project to become confused and use the wrong control.
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