About Forms and Browses

Description

Much of the ease of use and simplicity of Alpha Anywhere comes from the fact that forms and browses are bound to tables or sets. A form allows you to view a single record from a table. A browse displays multiple records. Schematically, they are illustrated below.

images/Browse Illustration.gif

You can switch back and forth between the form and browse views of your table by clicking F8. When creating a form or browse, you can select to display:

  • all or a subset of the available fields

  • values (calculated fields) that appear to be fields but are in fact the result of an calculation based on real field values

  • a selected subset of the table's records (based on the form's filter expression)

  • the selected records in a new order (based on the form's order expression)

When you are developing an application with Xbasic, the close association with a table or set means that:

  • in Design mode you can click View > Dragdrop list and see a list of fields that can be displayed

  • you can dynamically change the form's or browse's filter and order expressions

  • you can dynamically add additional filter and order expressions

  • you can read from and write to any field in any record

For more information about forms and browses: