Identifying form items

Elements defined in a form file can be identified with a name, to be used in programs.

Form fields are implicitly identified by the tabname.colname specification after the equal sign, while other (non-field) form items such as static labels and group boxes can get an optional item name.

The form item name defined in the form file will be copied to the name attribute of the corresponding node in the .42f file. It can then be used by programs to select a form element at runtime, to introspect or modify its attributes.

For example, specify the name for a GROUP container by writing an identifier after the layout container type:

GROUP group1 (TEXT="Customer")

Here the group name is 'group1', and it can be used in a program to identify the group element:

DEFINE w ui.Window 
DEFINE g om.DomNode 
LET w = ui.Window.getCurrent()
LET g = w.findNode("Group","group1")
CALL g.setAttribute("text","Another text")

Helper methods are provided for common tasks on form elements. For example, to hide a group with the identifier group1, you can use the setElementHidden() method on a ui.Form object:

DEFINE f ui.Form
...
   LET f = DIALOG.getForm()
   ...
   CALL f.setElementHidden("group1", TRUE)

Consider defining unique names to identify form elements, and to simplify the search at runtime. A good practice is the use of a prefix based on the type of form element (g_ for groups, l_ for labels for example).

Static items (labels) in a GRID container cannot get a name, because these are self-defined with the layout part of the item:

GRID
{
Name: [f1               ]
...
}
END

In the above example, the label "Name:" cannot be identified. In order to give a name to such a label, use an item tag and add a LABEL item definition in the ATTRIBUTES section, to specify the name of the label after the colon:

GRID
{
[l1   ][f1               ]
...
}
END
...
ATTRIBUTES
LABEL l1: l_name, TEXT="Name:";
...