Customizing Toolbars

TexNotes Pro provides extremely comprehensive customization options. You have full control to make the appearance of TexNotes Pro breathtakingly simple, or crowded but with immediate access to most options. You can apply comprehensive customization to the Navigator Outline, and move most of the panels in docked, floating or hidden states.

You can also move all the toolbars (except the StatusBar tools), dock them in different locations, float them freely, hide them, and even create your own toolbar.

Toolbar customization is normally combined with Layouts to effectively change the look-and-feel of the TexNotes Pro user interface.

To move toolbars and panels, first select the Anchor point (the vertically-dotted area) in a toolbar or panel's Title bar.
This the Anchor point in the Quick Search toolbar .

The mouse pointer changes into a four-headed cross arrow when you have successfully located the anchor point. Click and hold the left mouse button as you drag the panel or toolbar to its new position. It can sometimes be tricky to dock panels or toolbars exactly where you want, but with a little practice you'll soon master their behavior.

Alternatively, right-clicking on a panel Title bar accesses these options to auto dock.

Because you can freely move the toolbars and panels, it's easy to arrange your workspace and tools to suit your own preferences. Combine this with Layout sets and Application Themes, and it's not difficult to personalize your flexible TexNotes Pro.

The toolbar customization dialog box can be invoked in one of two ways:

1. Use Customize Toolbars from the View menu.
2. Right click on any toolbar and select Customize Toolbars.

This dialog box has three main areas. The left panel lists all available toolbars. Currently active toolbars are indicated by a check mark. The center panel displays all available buttons. The right panel displays the buttons that are placed on the currently-selected toolbar.

Additional options such as adding or changing the command's caption and tooltip, and controlling the size of displayed icons, are also available in this dialog box.

This example explains how to alter the Insert toolbar after you have opened the Customize Toolbars dialog box. 

First, click Insert Tools in the left panel named Toolbars. The dialog box title changes to display Customizing Insert Tools Toolbar. The center panel named Commands shows all available buttons. The right panel shows all the buttons currently placed on the Insert Tools Toolbar. To move an Available button to the Insert Toolbar, click and press the + [Add] key. To remove a button from the current Insert Toolbar, click and press the - [Minus] key.

To create your own toolbar, click the New button and provide a name. Then click OK to see the newly created toolbar in the Toolbars list. Now add all the toolbar buttons you'd like to have.

As you add new toolbar buttons, they appear in the Current toolbar buttons list panel on the right. Once you are happy with the content of your toolbar, click Apply. If you have checked Visibility, the new toolbar is in floating state. You can move it around, and dock it in suitable location.

If you made a mistake or changed your mind about content, don't panic. Go back to the Customize Toolbars dialog box, select your toolbar and edit the content by moving buttons in or out. You can also delete it.

This toolbar customization option means you can replace all the TexNotes Pro default toolbars with your custom designed toolbars.

It's wise not to delete the TexNotes Pro default toolbars. Keep them for fallback, just in case. Just keep them (or any of your own toolbars) invisible until you need them.

Toolbar content changes are only visible in whichever mode (Simple or Advanced) you were using when you changed them.

Simple and Advanced modes come with default, prebuilt, toolbars and buttons. But of course you can customize the TexNotes Pro toolbars according to your preferences. Many toolbars showing all buttons, or very few with minimal buttons. It's totally up to you.

The usual practice is to have just a few, sparsely-populated, toolbars in Simple mode, with more numerous, heavily-populated toolbars showing in Advanced mode. In this way you can easily switch views as needed without more customization.

You can also use Set Toolbar Mode in the View menu to change toolbar modes.

It is usually helpful to have Auto Hide Toolbars checked. This ensures that when you select an object, toolbars that can't be used to manipulate that object, are automatically hidden. Obviously this does depend on exactly which toolbars you have chosen to display in Show Toolbars in the View menu.

If, for example, you have chosen to display the Table Tools toolbar, and select an image, the Table Tools toolbar is automatically hidden.

The bottom of the TexNotes Pro window is devoted to the Status Bar. The left part shows the size of the current file when it was last saved, together with some Status Bar Information:

The information displayed here is context specific. Move the cursor around the screen, and hover it over the buttons and other screen objects to see the kind of information that is displayed. You'll notice it often repeats ToolTip information or the names of menu selections. If you move the cursor over the file size, the time and date when you last saved the file is shown.

The right section holds the StatusBar Tools.

The StatusBar Tools are always positioned at the base of the TexNotes Pro window. You cannot change this toolbar's position, or modify it in any way, although you can control whether it's hidden or visible by using Show Toolbars in the View menu, or the first button on the StatusBar Tools toolbar.