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"Life is something
that everyone should try at least once." Henry J. Tillman |
Read
first then play the video:
FRM-VIDEO -(Hands-On
08) How to do sizing and layout appearances
Sizing, Layout appearances
Introduction
Window is an empty frame to
hold your object and it is the outermost boundary for a form. Block is
a logical container that holds form objects such as data items and
control buttons. There are two types of block: Data Block and Control
Block. A Data Block is a link to your database information and holds
database data. A Control Block holds information that has nothing to
do with database. An item could be a database column or none database
item. A canvas is a place to hold the objects. The four types of
canvases are: Content, Stacked, Tab, and Toolbar. All can coexist
within a single window. A content canvas is the basic
background for all windows. A stacked canvas lays on top of the
others. A tab canvas is the same as stacked canvases with handy
"tabs" at the top. It can simply move from one canvas to another.
A toolbar canvas contains push buttons giving users quick
access such as horizontal canvas or vertical canvas.
Oracle tools are somehow
follow object oriented methodology. Although they are not pure object
oriented but there are not far from it either. Each item in the Oracle
tools can be identified as an object. To manipulate an object, you use
Property Palette. As you can see from now on, you can do much without
property palette. A Property Palette contains object
properties. The contents of the Property Palette are referred
to as the "Property sheet" for the object. You use the Property
Palette to modify object properties. To open the Property Palette of
an object, go to the object and right click on the mouse button then
select Property Palette. The Property Palette provides complete
control over your objects. It contains the property list of an object.
Remember that the properties of an object can be changed to
control the behavior of the object. The Item properties such as
Tooltip, Hint, and Display Hint automatically, will be used to
provide item-level assistance for the client and can be changed only
from property palette. A text item appearance can be modified by
manipulating properties such as Justification, or Format Mask
properties. For controlling the data within a text item or display
item, you can use properties such as Calculation Mode, and Lowest
and Highest value
Hands-On
On pervious Hands-On, your
users only see the horizontal toolbar canvas instead of the Customer,
Orders, and Items canvases. They have to drag the window in order to
see their "Customer Order" application. They complain that it is
cumbersome to drag the window in order to use the application. You
have been assigned to fix this problem. The requirement from your
client is: to make sure your layout was properly sized so your client
doesn't need to drag or expand the window size.
See Figure 10.
Your tasks are:
1- Make sure the canvas was
sized properly.
2- Run and test all user
functional requirements.
F You will learn how
to: size your canvas, change the horizontal toolbar canvas, use tab
canvas, use "object navigator," use "Data Blocks," use "Layout
Editor," use "Property Palette," use "Run Form," and "Execute
Query."
Figure 10
Open a Module
In the "Object Navigator"
window, highlight Forms. Go to the Main menu and choose "File,"
select "Open" to open an existing form (customer_orders_V07)
in the "iself" folder.
Save a Module
Click on the "CUSTOMER_ORDERS_V07"
form. The color will change to blue. Now, change the name and then
save the Form name as version 08 (customer_orders_v08). This
way the original form is untouched.
Change a Canvas Layout
In the Main menu, choose
the "Tools" sub-menu and select the "Layout Editor" option. In
the Layout Editor window, make sure that the Canvas box contains "PB_BLOCK."
If not, click on the down arrow next to its box and select PB_BLOCK.
Now, you should have the
PB_BLOCK canvas in the Layout Editor window. In the Object Navigator
window, expand the Canvases item and select the PB_BLOCK canvas.
Notice that in the Layout Editor window, the canvas gets eight
handlers. You can use these handlers to expand the size of an object.
Expanding an object using
handlers
Click on the middle down
handler to expand the size of canvas. Make sure that you drag the
black line and let the white line stays. After you reach to a suitable
size, release your mouse. The white line is the border of the
"horizontal toolbar canvas." And the black line is the
border of the content canvas.
Run the Forms Runtime
Run the application
If the window was not sized
enough, you can close the Runtime Form window and repeat the above
steps until you are happy.
Run the application again
and check the appearance of the application.
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"Happiness is that
state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of
one's values." Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982) |
Questions:
Q: Describe a Window in the
Form Module.
Q: The properties of an
object can be changed to control the behavior of the _____.
Q: What is a Data Block in
the Form Module?
Q: How do you resize an
object in the Layout Editor?
Q: How do you move an
object or a group of objects in the Layout Editor?
Q: What are the handlers in
a selected object?
Q: On pervious Hands-On,
your users only see the horizontal toolbar canvas instead of the
Customer, Orders, and Items canvases. They have to drag the window in
order to see their "Customer Order" application. They complain
that it is cumbersome to drag the window in order to use the
application. You have been assigned to fix this problem. The
requirement from your client is: to make sure your layout was properly
sized so your client doesn't need to drag or expand the window size.
See Figure 10.
Your tasks are:
1- Make sure the canvas was
sized properly.
2- Run and test all user
functional requirements.
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