Advice for laying out controls in a windowclass sheetdata xml?

[MostTornBrain]

Hi,

Is there any advice on how to efficiently layout controls in the sheetdata xml for creating a custom windowclass?

Suppose I want to create a dialog window with a large number of text fields and buttons. Do I just figure out all the coordinates by hand for where everything should be placed? Is that how windowclasses like character sheets are made initially?

Assuming the controls are positioned "by hand", are there recommended techniques for doing this? Do people use graph paper, or a drawing program (and somehow convert the coordinates afterwards), or something else? I am starting to try to create a custom windowclass that will have a couple dozen controls on it, and this got me to thinking maybe I was being unnecessarily inefficient by trying to figure out all the coordinates/offsets by hand on a piece of paper.

Is there a better way than figuring out the positioning than by trial an error?

Thanks for any advice.

Cheers,
Brian

[Moon Wizard]

I usually lay out the sheet in sections where the controls are relative to a frame and/or each other. This allows easier reorganization of frames, if you need to move/adjust them, without having to figure out every control again as well. Many of the built-in rulesets use this approach in several areas (CoreRPG, 5E, etc.)

Regards,
JPG