Eliah M1 — form designer (box emulation)

• Type: feature (app / demo)
• Status: unfinished (original box-emulation scope done; component-library scope added, parked — low priority)
• Track: B
• Parent: feature-eliah-ide
• Opened: 2026-06-22

Goal

Designer pane paints a designed form as plain drawn boxes — pure emulation. Each box = a rectangle with widget kind + caption + size. The garin docmodel is the source of truth (serializes to .lfm/.pas, and is what ilja renders too).

Live widgets REJECTED (2026-06-23, user): no instantiation of pcl/GTK controls for the preview — they overcomplicate, can bug up, and ilja can't share them anyway. Box emulation only. Still: no design-time/runtime TComponent split, no TComponent linked, no design-time packages.

Scope

• apps/ide/garin/docmodel.pas — widget-tree doc: nodes (kind, caption, parent, x/y/w/h in px, children), render-agnostic. The truth; serialization later. Most-used props are deliberately few: width + height + parent cover ~9/10 cases; caption for labels/buttons. Keep the node minimal.
• apps/ide/eliah/designer.pas — GTK DrawingArea, paints docmodel via lib/pcl/graphics.pas TCanvas: rectangle + label + size text per node.
• Object inspector via real RTTI (lib/rtl/typinfo.pas): inspect a real instance's published props (render-agnostic data — ilja shows the same). Editing a prop updates the docmodel; designer repaints. Inline in props pane, no modal.
• Interaction: click-place, drag move, drag handles to resize; selection outline.

Acceptance

Place/move/resize mock boxes on the canvas; docmodel updates; repaint matches. OI lists a node's props from RTTI and edits write back to the docmodel. Coords px. No live GTK widget instantiated for the preview. Builds with $(PXX_STABLE); compiler gaps → Track A ticket, no workaround.

Log

• 2026-06-22 — filed (depends on M0).
• 2026-06-23 — locked: box emulation ONLY (live-widget view rejected by user); docmodel = source of truth; OI via real RTTI over real instances (render- agnostic data, shared with ilja); minimal node = width+height+parent (+caption for label/button).
• 2026-06-23 — interaction trio DONE: select (docmodel.HitTest, topmost-wins, 5 bochan gate assertions), drag-move (BeginDrag/DragTo grab-offset), corner- resize (HandleAt 4 corners, MIN_SIZE clamp). Selection outline + corner handles painted. Inspector pane lists the selected node's Kind/Caption/Left/Top/Width/ Height, live during drag. All headless-smoke-covered (eliah --smoke).
• 2026-06-23 — OI design refinement: "real RTTI over real instances" assumed live component instances, but box-emulation has none — the docmodel record is the truth. So the inspector reads docmodel fields directly (still render- agnostic data; ilja reads the same model). RTTI-over-instances does not apply to this architecture; field-list inspector is the correct form.
• Remaining for M1: editable inspector (write a prop back -> repaint), click-to- place a new widget from a palette, and seed/load a sample form (.lfm) so the surface isn't a hardcoded stub. Then M2 (builder).
• 2026-06-23 — M1 designer COMPLETE. Editable inspector (click a prop row, type, Enter -> docmodel write-back via SetNodeCaption/SetNodeBounds, StrToIntDef guards bad ints); palette + one-shot click-to-place (KindFromPalette -> AddNode parented to form); load: garin/lfmload.LoadLfmText seeds the docmodel from apps/ide/eliah/sample.lfm (box-emulation parser, NOT the live-component streamer). All headless-smoke + bochan-gate covered (31/31). The pin landmines this surfaced (method-ptr coerce, open-array ctor, Length getter, nested routines, import-corruption) are all fixed + pinned now; eliah wiring is idiomatic. Acceptance met. Remaining IDE work tracked separately: feature-eliah-pane-reflow, feature-eliah-m2-builder, and file SAVE (.lfm write).

CLOSED via triage (2026-06-30)

Acceptance MET (M1 designer COMPLETE 2026-06-23: editable inspector, click-to-place palette, .lfm load, 31/31 gate). The only remaining item is an added 'component-library' stretch scope (low priority) — split out if pursued. Closing the ticket on its own acceptance.