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EiffelStudio

# Component viewer

The Component viewer allows you to view the structure of a component without having to create new objects from the component.

This tool is displayed in a separate window, and may either be shown or hidden (default). To change between these two states, click on the main toolbar, or select Show/Hide component viewer from the View menu.

## Targeting a component

To target a component into the tool, pick the component from the component_viewer, and drop on the displayed in the tool bar of the component viewer (See screenshots above). Any existing component displayed is simply removed.

Alternatively, you can hold down the Ctrl key while starting a pick on a component in the component_selector. This will automatically target the component to the component viewer. If the viewer is currently hidden, it will also make it visible.

## View types

Looking at the left-hand screenshot above, you can see that the button is depressed, meaning the component viewer is in display view mode. Clicking on will put the component viewer into build mode view as shown in the right-hand screenshot. These modes are mutually exclusive and are described below:

- Builder view - This view is similar to the view used by the display window. i.e. the EiffelVision2 controls are displayed exactly as is defined in the component.
- Display view - This view is similar to the view used by the builder window. i.e. all EiffelVision2 containers are represented by frames so they are immediately visible. This makes the actual structure represented by the component completely visible.

Note: The type of the "root_object" within the component is displayed in the toolbar of the component viewer.

See also
Builder window
Layout constructor