Interface functionality: managing screen objects

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The Screen editor opens when you double-click an existing screen or when you start a new screen file, from the Screens manager or the Application browser (see Accessing screens). The Screen editor allows you to edit the layout of the screen and the properties of all objects on that screen and of the screen itself. The screen will as much as possible be laid out as it would in a running Collections application, but since Collections 1.11 the display of a detail screen is no longer fixed and the organisation of the field and labels may change depending on the width of the Record details view and other factors: see the Managing screens: designing detail screens for Collections topic for more information about designing screens for Collections.

The possibilities in the Screen editor are as follows:

Setting the interface language

In the Language menu you can change the language in which you view and edit the screens. Make sure you select the proper language first, when you start editing a screen, so that the displayed texts on screen are always in the correct language.
When you place for instance a new label on the screen, you are allowed to type the text for it immediately in the physical control. But if your application supports different languages you must type this text in the currently set application language. So set the language to English if you want to enter English texts and let all other texts on the screen also be displayed in English. And for instance change the language to Dutch to view or enter Dutch texts on screen. The advantage of translating this way is that you can see directly if a text fits the space for it (with this font anyway). To ease translating like this, the status bar holds the default (English) name of the field or label that is currently selected, so you don't have to switch back and forth between languages. But if you tend to forget to set the right language, or just want to enter all language texts per control at once, it may be easier to translate such texts in the properties of the concerning screen object; in there you can enter all language texts at once, without having to switch the application language.

Inserting new screen objects

Through the Insert menu you can add new objects to a screen. By default these are placed at the bottom of the screen.
You can also right-click the screen or an object, and choose New in the pop-up menu to insert a new object directly under the mouse pointer, instead of at the bottom of the screen*.
You can add the following objects:

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Fields - In an entry field the user can read the value from the associated database field, or enter a new value. A new entry field will automatically come with an associated label to the left of it; it's important to keep them together, although the label-part can be deleted separately if you don't want the entry field to have a label at all. (When you delete an entry field, the accompanying label will be deleted too.)

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Labels - Separate labels are used to display a fixed text on the screen, without it having to do with any specific entry field. It's best not to use separate labels on screens for Axiell Collections, since the screen renderer might reposition these labels depending on the displayed view width, after which the labels are no longer in front of or above the proper entry fields.

•	Boxes - Boxes are cosmetic frames to visually group entry fields that sort of belong together. A box comes with an integrated label in the top left corner.

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Images - Image objects were relevant for Adlib but they have no use in Collections: the Collections Media Viewer is automatically present if there are image fields in the .inf associated with the current data source. And for brief display screens (that determine which fields/columns will be shown in the Result set the first time a user opens Collections or after a reset of the user settings), in design mode you can simply place a normal entry field with the relevant reproduction reference tag on the screen if you'd like thumbnails to show on first-time use. And if it isn't, then the user can always select the image field from the Result set settings dialog to still display thumbnails.
If image objects are still present on screens used for Collections, they'll simply be ignored by Collections.

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Menu options - Menu options (a.k.a. checkboxes) were used in Adlib, but are ignored in Collections. The Result set view in Collections comes included with checkboxes and checkboxes on detail screens should be regular, narrow entry fields (of the Undefined or Text data type) which are associated with a data dictionary field (in the .inf) of the Logical (Boolean) data type. These will then be displayed as checkboxes in Collections.

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System fields - In Adlib, system fields (indicated by reserved tags *A, *B, *C etc.) could be used on brief display screens to concatenate data from fields and fixed (separator) texts, but they are ignored by Collections. For Collections, a brief display screen (that determines the initial column layout of the Result set), can simply be specified by a single row of entry fields, each with some field tag. Any field labels will be ignored: column header texts in the current user interface language will be taken from the Screen texts property on the User interface texts tab for the relevant field definition in the .inf or, if those texts haven't been specified, from the Field names property on the Field properties tab for the relevant field definition in the .inf.

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Text windows - In Collections, Text windows are ignored but any fields and labels inside them will display normally.
(In Adlib, a text window placed a small window on screens in the detailed presentation of a record to display different fields next to and beneath each other, as a sort of rudimentary print preview.)

•	Buttons - were never implemented: Collections ignores them.

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Web browser controls - These are ignored by Collections. The Report viewer in Collections is a better alternative.
(In Adlib, a web browser control displayed data from the current record as an HTML page in a fixed box on the screen, by means of an XSLT stylesheet which had to transform the XML format of the data to HTML.)

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HTML fields - An HTML field is a field meant for long, laid-out text. Layout can be applied to the text during editing of the record. You can print the contents of such a field to a Word template or with the aid of an XSLT stylesheet, whilst keeping the layout intact. Although you will see just the laid-out text while you are editing an HTML field, the field contents will actually be stored as HTML code in the background.

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Empty lines - When you edit a screen with a lot of objects on it, it is not so easy to manually create a empty line somewhere in between, because you have to select and move many objects. Instead, you can insert an empty line; select an object above which you want the empty line to appear, insert the empty line via Insert > Empty line, and note that all objects below it have moved down and that the current box has been resized too.

* Note that if you insert objects from the right-click pop-up menu, not all object types may be present in the pop-up menu. This is because some objects cannot be inserted into certain other objects. In a field for example, you can't insert any object at all.

Selecting and deselecting screen objects

To move, align, copy or cut one or more objects on the screen, you have to select them first.
You can select a single object, by simply clicking it. A selected object is displayed differently, its border line being doubled or four little black squares being placed around its corners.
You can select more than one object, by holding the Ctrl key down while clicking all objects that you want to select.
If you select an entry field, you automatically also select the associated label (if it has one).

You can deselect all selected objects at once, by clicking an empty part of the screen. Note that the space inside a box is NOT an empty part of the screen: if you click the space inside a box, you select the box.
You can deselect one object in a group of selected objects by Ctrl-clicking it again.

Moving, copying, cutting or deleting a selection of objects

You can move an object by clicking it, keeping the mouse button pressed down, and dragging it to another position. A group of selected objects can be moved together by dragging one of the selected objects in it.

Moving snaps to a grid of 80x25 cells, each 10x25 pixels in size. You cannot move or size outside of these dimensions.

Screen objects may be partially or completely hidden by other objects. When you are working with conditional fields it may be desirable to place entry fields on top of each other, but mostly you don't want this. To change the "stacking" order in which these objects appear (to be able to move them elsewhere) you can bring a selected control to the front of the stack (make it visible) by clicking the Bring to front button:

or send it to the back with the Send to back button:

You can copy or cut one or more selected objects, either by right-clicking one of them and choosing Copy or Cut from the pop-up menu, by choosing these functions in the Edit menu, or through the shortcuts Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X.
You can paste the copied or cut object(s) in the same screen or in any other opened screen, by right-clicking the location where you want to place them, and choosing Paste in the pop-up menu.

You can remove a selection of one or more objects, by clicking the Delete selection button:

There are some keyboard shortcuts available for navigating and moving screen elements:

Key or shortcut	Function
, Shift+Tab	Selects the object to the left, or above.
, Tab	Selects the object to the right, or below.
Home	Selects the first object, in the left upper corner, of the screen (not a box).
End	Selects the last object, in the right lower corner, of the screen (not a box).
Shift+,,,	Changes the size of the currently selected object(s) in the direction of the arrow, if the object allows it (see the next paragraph).
Ctrl+,,,	Moves the selected object(s) in the direction of the arrow, but won't move other objects accordingly, so overlapping may take place.

Resizing screen objects manually

The size of some screen elements can be changed manually, some can't, and others are set automatically. If adjustable, length can be changed in steps of 10 pixels (equals 1 column), and height in steps of 25 pixels (equals 1 row). However, Axiell Collections may still not display the screen elements in the intended dimensions because screens are rendered dynamically dependent on the current width of the Record details view.
Numerical coordinates (measured from the top left corner of the screen) and dimensions of screen elements are displayed in the status bar of the Screen editor, in two possible formats:

•	(row, column)-(row, column) for image objects, boxes and text windows, indicating the location of the top left corner of the selected object followed by the location of the lower right corner of the same object.

•	(row, column)[length] for fields, labels, system fields and menu options, indicating the location of the top left corner of the selected object followed by the length in number of columns.

In general, you can resize a screen object, if a double arrow appears when you move the mouse pointer over a border of the element (usually the right and/or lower border). More specifically:

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Fields - Select a field, move the mouse pointer over the right border until it turns into a double arrow. Now click, hold the mouse button down and drag the field longer or shorter. Only on this side of the field you can adjust its length, you can't adjust the height.
Note that the actual data content can be longer than the entry field, but this content can never be longer than the associated data dictionary field length defined in the database setup; if a database field contains more text than can be displayed in the entry field, then place the cursor in it and move to the right with the arrow key, to scroll through the contents.

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Labels - Labels are automatically sized to fit the space in between the left screen border or the right border of a field to the left of it, and the right screen border or the left border of a field to the right of it. Click anywhere in a (selected) label and drag it left or right to move it, and thereby expand or shorten its length, whilst keeping its right border at the same location.

•	Boxes - You can resize these screen objects by dragging their right or lower borders.

Please see the Managing screens: designing detail screens for Collections topic for more information.

Aligning or resizing screen objects semi-automatically

You can align or resize all selected screen objects to the LAST selected element. Ctrl-click the desired elements, and remember to select the proper last element. Then click the desired align or resize button in the toolbar:

Button	Name	Function
	Align left	All selected objects are moved left or right so that their left border is aligned with the left border of the last selected object; their length remains unchanged.
	Align right	All selected objects are moved left or right so that their right border is aligned with the right border of the last selected object; their length remains unchanged.
	Align top	All selected objects are moved up or down so that their upper border is aligned with the upper border of the last selected object; their height remains unchanged.
	Align bottom	All selected objects are moved up or down so that their lower border is aligned with the lower border of the last selected object; their height remains unchanged.
	Make same width	The length of all selected objects is changed (if possible) to the length of the last selected object; the position of their left upper corner remains unchanged.
	Make same height	The height of all selected objects is changed (if possible) to the height of the last selected object; the position of their left upper corner remains unchanged.

Connecting or disconnecting fields and labels

Currently, you cannot disconnect a field from its accompanying label (other than deleting the label), but you can connect a separately inserted label to a field without label. Please see the "Ensure labels are associated with the correct field" paragraph in the Managing screens: designing detail screens for Collections topic for more information.

Opening the properties of a screen object

The properties of any screen object can be opened by right-clicking the object and choosing Properties in the pop-up menu. Some objects only have one property, others have multiple, spread out over several tabs. You can open the properties of the screen itself by right-clicking an empty space on the screen (not somewhere in a box) and also choosing Properties from the pop-up menu.

Note that the caption property of labels and boxes, and the tag property of fields, can also be edited in the visual objects themselves, instead of in their properties.