• A Conditional Object Example
• About Forms and Browses
• Accented Characters
• Adding Users from the Desktop
• Changing Custom Menus and Toolbars at Runtime
• Circular Tabbing on a Form
• Creating a Maximized Application with a Menu
• Creating Alpha Anywhere Help Text
• Creating Alpha Anywhere Help Text - AlphaSports
• Creating and Assigning a Startup Form
• Creating and Using a Conditional Object
• Creating Custom Menus
• Creating Menu Forms
• Creating the InvoiceItemsPie Form
• Creating Wallpaper for Your Application
• Design a Custom Menu
• Designing an Application for Alpha Five Runtime
• Displaying a Form as a Dialog Box
• Displaying the Main Menu
• Dynamic Internationalization for Desktop Application Forms and Reports
• Editing Objects
• Editing System Menus
• Editing System Toolbars
• Filter Builder
• Find by Form
• Find by Key
• Find Text
• Follow Changes and Enters
• Form Editor Control Library
• Form Events
• Form Headers and Footers
• Form Layout - Mouse Cursor Property
• Genies
• Linking to a External Help File Topic
• Managing Style Properties
• Methods for Opening Forms and Browses
• Modal and Modeless Data Entry
• Navigation
• Object Explorer
• OnKey Events on Forms
• Placing a Conditional Object
• Placing a Control on a Form
• Placing Bitmaps on a Form
• Placing Hotspots
• Placing Hyperlinks, Mail-to Links, and FTP Links on a Form
• Placing Lines and Frames
• Placing Subforms
• Prompting for User Input
• Put a Button on a Form to Open Another Form Showing Selected Records
• Put a Button on a Form to Send a Customized Email
• Query
• Querying and Sorting Child Tables on a Form
• Quick Import for a Form or Browse
• Reading From and Writing To the Data Dictionary
• Relative Addresses
• Running a Script with a Function Key
• Sales People Form
• Selecting and Opening a Form
• Selecting the Appropriate View of Your Data
• Setting Form Properties
• Setting Form Restrictions
• Setting the Tab Order
• Specifying a Window
• Startup Form Design Examples
• Synchronizing Form and Embedded Browse Record Navigation
• The Customer Information Form
• The CustQueryReport Form
• The Edit_Customer_Info Form
• The Inventory Form
• The Invoice Form
• The InvoiceItemsPie Form
• The InvoiceReportMenu Form
• The Items Form
• The Main Menu Form
• The Vendors Form
• The Window Bar
• Understanding Levels in a Form
• Using a Dialogasa Search Form
• Using a Form
• Using the Form Editor
• Using the Navigator
• Using the New Form Genie

Selecting the Appropriate View of Your Data

Description

Alpha Anywhere uses form and browse layouts for entering and reviewing information stored in tables and sets. Each layout provides different features and tools for editing data. In Form View, you typically work with one record at a time. A form is a window containing fields from the table, and field values for the particular record you are viewing. In the example below, the form displays one record, which corresponds to a single row of data from a table. Each table and set has at least one form called the Default Form. The Default Form contains every field in the table or set. Form View:

Form View

Objects displayed on a form are called controls. For example, the form above contains field label controls, and text box controls. Forms can also display a variety of other controls like images, graphics, buttons, and colors. One of the advantages of viewing data in forms is that you can arrange the controls in various ways to suit your needs.

Browse View

Alpha Anywhere uses form and browse layouts for entering and reviewing information stored in tables and sets. Each layout provides different features and tools for editing data. Each table and set also has a default browse. The Default Browse contains every field in the table or set. In Browse View, you work with multiple records at the same time, in a familiar tabular, spreadsheet style layout. Browse View

Form or Browse or No Layout?

The task at hand dictates the best layout. Experiment with both forms and browses to determine their suitability for your different tasks. Some tasks are better suited for an Xbasic script. Refer to the following topics for an introduction to using Xbasic to process the records in a table or set.

• Fetching Records

• Fetching Through a Table in Record Order

• Fetching Through a Table with Ordered Records

• Fetching in a Set

• Fetching Through Filtered Records

• Writing Field Values in a New Record

• Contrasting TABLE.OPEN()with TABLE.CURRENT()and TABLE.GET()

Xdialog Forms

Xdialog forms are different from normal forms, in that they are manually coded. There are advantages and disadvantages associated with Xdialog forms.

• They only are appropriate for users who have mastered Xbasic

• They have more flexibility in presentation and design than regular forms

See Also

• Learning Xdialog
• Display an Xdialog Box.