Genero Studio Overview: Form Designer

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Related video: Genero Studio Overview: Form Designer

Forms serve as the user interface to a Genero program. Instructions in the source 4gl files have built-in functionality to interact with the form, the user, and the data source. Form Designer provides a graphical way to design and manage these forms for Genero programs.

Form designs can be simple or complex, depending on the needs of the program. New forms can be created with an empty form as a starting point, or the Data Control Wizard can create a form based on the columns of database tables.

Genero Studio gets the database information from an associated database schema file. The meta-schema manager extracts a data schema describing the tables, columns and relations of a database. Meta-data about the tables and columns can be examined and enriched. This information is used in the design of the form.

The wizard first asks to specify the database columns that should appear on the form. Next, select the type of container for the form. The generated form is displayed in the central document view to make changes if needed: delete or move existing form items or add new containers and widgets. All form elements are listed in the Structure view and element properties are shown and can be modified in the Properties view.

The Right-click menu can be used to add additional items, such as a Toolbar to a form.

Preview the form to see how it will be rendered.

Here is a more complex form that included columns from more than one table and includes a variety of containers, such as folders, and widgets, such as this combobox.

Text based per files can also be imported into Form Designer, converted to the form designer format (4fd) and edited graphically.

Form Designer provides a graphical way to design and manage forms.