Now that the form is created, it is time to get familiarized with the Form Designer toolbars.
With the Form Wizard, R:BASE placed the areas where users will enter data, along with text, and a navigator bar, across the top under the employee title, with arrows and other pictures grayed out. These different areas are called field objects. There are many different kinds of field objects that can be placed on forms. The field objects are categorized by control type, within the "Object List" toolbar, which provides options for adding new and reviewing existing form controls. Here is a list of the form toolbar control types:
•Standard Controls
•Database Controls
•Variable Controls
•Additional Controls
•Legacy Controls
•Internet Controls
•File System Controls
Adding New Objects
The Object List toolbar offers increased organization and navigation of possible and existing form controls. Control Groups can be collapsed/expanded and control names shown/hidden. If defined, the "Favorites" will always be located on the top of the list. The "Filter Controls" button allows users to easily find and add available controls, with the help of the component filter, e.g. typing "button" reduces the list to only button-type controls. The arrow button provides the ability to deselect a form control.
Existing Objects
The "Existing" tab of the Object List toolbar is very helpful in finding form objects, and the properties of the objects, especially in forms where a great number of objects are placed. The controls can be filtered by type and parent control. Columns provide information on the class, description, Component ID, EEPs, and Popup Menus. The EEPs column displays a gold star image if a Custom EEP exists. A blue star is displayed for external EEP files. A green star is displayed within the Pop-up Menu column, if exists. Locked controls are listed with bold text and a gray background color applied.
Toolbars
There are other toolbars to alter the form or the objects placed upon it. Those toolbars are listed here:
•Form
•Edit
•Settings
•Object Inspector
•Format
•Align or Space
•Size
•Nudge
While in the Form Designer, you can position toolbars on any edge of the client window and in any order. Detaching a dockable toolbar from the frame window is called floating the toolbar. Attaching a floating toolbar to the frame window is called docking the toolbar. A toolbar can be docked to any side of its parent window, or can be floated in its own mini-frame window. Whether the toolbars are docked or floating, you will see the hint for any toolbar button when the cursor is hovered over the button. The Form Designer will remember the last docked/floating setting when closing the designer.
When a toolbar is docked, it will look like this:
On the left side a series of characters are displayed to drag the toolbar into a floating position. The "character" can be one or more dots or pipe symbols "||" based on your operating system and current theme. The dots/pipes are used to drag the toolbar into a floating position.
When floating, the toolbar can be moved by clicking and dragging the caption area and can be resized by clicking and dragging the edge. When a toolbar is floating, it will look like this, where a border is wrapped around the toolbar and the name and a close button (x) is displayed in the caption:
From inside the Form Designer, you can launch the Form Designer help file by pressing the [Shift]+[F1] hot keys, or by pressing the "Help" button on the "Form" toolbar (above).
Tips:
•Double click on the caption area of a floating toolbar to dock it to the last location it was docked
•When floating, the "x" is used to hide a toolbar
•The toolbars can be docked on the sides or bottom of the screen to provide a greater work space
•From the menu bar, select the View: Toolbars option to hide or show any toolbar
