Customize the app

You can customize the app by changing property values in the Business Application (BA) diagram.

At this point, if you were creating a real-life app, you would continue to build your BA diagram. For example, you might add and customize forms, add other mobile peripheral entities, create relations between entities, and customize the generated code. Table 1 shows some of the many customization options in BAM.

Table 1. Customization example resources
Example Resource
Creating a master/detail form for mobile. See Quick Start: Generate a master-detail mobile app.
Creating forms for mobile devices. See Working with forms.
Mobile form patterns. The Mobile Patterns demo includes a BA diagram with examples of various forms, relationships between forms, and form behavior. See Mobile form patterns.
Add custom code to the BAM generated code. See Adding custom code.
Change default rendering of the actions in the app. See the Action rendering topic in the Genero Business Development Language User Guide.

For this quick start, you will make a simple customization by changing the form to open in ADD mode, instead of the default DISPLAY mode.

  1. Open appflow.4ba.
  2. Select the Form entity. In the Properties view, find the UI Settings section.
  3. Change the Open Mode property to ADD.
    This changes the program so that when this form opens, it is ready for the user to enter a new row of data.
    Figure: Change a form property

    In the BA diagram, the form entity is selected. The Properties view is displayed with Open Mode set to ADD.
  4. Save your changes to appflow.4ba.
  5. Execute the app again. (Right-click the Main program entity and select Execute Program.) New code is generated to reflect this property change.
    Figure: Entering text using the Android™ phone emulator

    Displays the Android emulator with the form opened in Edit mode. The user has begun to enter text in the firstname field.
  6. Test the program by adding a new row.