Form Designer

When you create a form, or edit a form, the form is opened in a Form Designer window:

There are four (Toolbox, Datasets, Form Explorer, Properties) tabbed panes, two to the left, and two to the right of the Design Sheet:

This is the default window layout. However, you can save and restore your own window layout. See: Window Layouts.

You can also toggle the visibility of these panes (and a Scripts pane) on and off using the options in the View group on the ribbon:

Design Sheet

The Design Sheet is where the design of the form takes place. When you create a form, a default grid is superimposed onto the Design Sheet of the form. A grid is the primary container for the controls you add to the form. Controls may be positioned interactively by dragging them from the Toolbox pane and onto the Design Sheet with the mouse.

Use the options on the Zoom toolbar to zoom in and out on the Design Sheet. You can also set raster and snapline placement options.

Ribbon

The Ribbon above the Design Sheet provides the tools and options you need to show or hide panes in the Form Designer window, navigate and manipulate the controls you have added to the form, and finally save and execute the form.

See: Ribbon

Toolbox

The Toolbox pane contains a list of the container and user interface controls that can be dragged and dropped onto the Design Sheet.

See: Toolbox

Datasets

The Datasets pane shows the tables and fields you have defined for the form. The tables can be shown as a list or a hierarchy. You can hide or show the pane using a toggle button on the ribbon.

Fields or tables in the Datasets pane can be dragged and dropped directly onto the Design Sheet:

• When you drag a dataset onto the Design Sheet, the dataset is automatically bound to a DataGrid.
• When you drag a dataset field onto the Design Sheet, the dataset field is automatically bound to a control (the type of control that is bound to the field will depend on the data type of the field).

• When you drag a dataset field onto the Design Sheet with CTRL and SHIFT, this creates a Label control with the name of the field and its Content (display text).

Use the ALT key after the drag and before the drop to place the control in a "container".

See: Datasets

Form Explorer

The Form Explorer shows a hierarchy of the controls added to the canvas.

The Grid is the top-most control in the hierarchy and is the primary container for the controls you add to a form. When you create a form, a Grid is superimposed on the Design Sheet in the Form Designer. For more detail on the Grid, see: Working with Containers

See: Form Explorer

Properties

The Properties pane allows the properties of the selected control (or the shared properties of multiple controls) to be viewed and edited.

See: Properties

Scripts

The Scripts pane allows you to modify the underlying scripts that control the behaviour of the controls you have added to a form.

See: Scripts Pane