Brady Form Designer User Manual

Form Designer User Guide

DOC-FD-UG-US-23/02/06

The information in this manual is not binding and may be
modified without prior notice.

Supply of the software described in this manual is subject to
a user license. The software may not be used, copied or
reproduced on any medium whatsoever, except in
accordance with this license.

No portion of this manual may be copied, reproduced or
transmitted by any means whatsoever, for purposes other
than the personal use of the buyer, unless written
permission is obtained from Braton Groupe sarl .

©2006 Braton Groupe sarl,

All rights reserved.

Teklynx and its products are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Braton Group sarl or its affiliated
companies. All other brands and product names are the
trademarks of their respective owners.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

The layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

The Menu bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

The Tool bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

The Tool box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

The Properties Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4

The Main Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4

The Status bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5

The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5

What are Actions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5

Chapter 2: Creating a form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-9

The designing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-9

Example 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-9

DBForm.xmf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-10

Placing the controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-10

Setting the control properties (no data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-10

Setting the control properties (with data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-11

Setting the Database grid’s properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-12

Setting the Form’s properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-12

Setting the Text box’s properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-13

Setting the Combo box’s properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-14

Setting the Buttons’ properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-14

Example 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17

Generic.xmf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17

Placing the controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17

Setting the control properties (no data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-18

Setting the control properties (with data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-20

Setting the Buttons’ properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-20

Setting the form properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-22

Setting the ListBox properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-23

Setting the ComboBox properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-24

Setting the Textbox properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-25

Setting the Preview properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-25

Setting the Datagrid properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-25

C H A P T E R 1

Introduction

Introduction

Form Designer is a visual designing tool that allows the
rapid building of front-end data entry and label printing
applications.

It includes features such as:

• Label and printer type selection

• Print preview

The layout

• Page and Printer settings

• Database connections

• Multiple Screen/Form application

• Pre-defined values and data control

Form Designer’s layout is easy to use reducing the time
necessary to familiarize yourself with the software. It
includes a Menu bar , a Tool bar, a Tool box, a Properties
grid, a Main window and a Status bar. .

Chapter 1 - 2 Form Designer User Guide

The Menu bar The Menu bar comprises itself of 6 items: File, Edit, View,

Data, Layout and Help. When clicked, each item will

expand showing a new list of items, to allow the user to
perform a variety of functions. To access the menu items
more quickly, press Alt + the underlined letter from your
desired choice: Alt+F will open the File menu.

The Tool bar The Tool ba r is usually displayed just below the Menu bar.

It is made up of icons which represent the most commonly
used software functions. These icons can be clicked to
quickly access these functions.

New

Open

Save

Copy

Cut

Delete

Paste

Undo

Redo

to Grid

Snap

Align

Space

Evenly

Bring to

Front

Send

to Back

The Tool box The Tool Box is made up of the 12 controls that can be

added to a form: Label, Link label, Button, TextBox,
CheckBox, GroupBox, ListBox, ComboBox, DataGrid,
DatabaseGrid, PictureBox, Preview.

Form Designer User Guide Chapter 1 - 3

Each control serves a special purpose. They can be linked
to fixed or variable data and can be associated with actions.
To insert a control into your form; simply click on the control
and drag and drop it into the form.

Control Description

Label non-active text used to show the

name of a input field

LinkLabel active text used to link to a webpage

or other specific location

Button an active control used to perform set

functions/actions
TextBox data entry field
CheckBox a control used to activate/deactivate

or select/deselect predefined features
GroupBox non active box placed around a

group of controls for visual

organization
ListBox displays a list of data as defined in its

properties
ComboBox displays a drop-down list of data as

defined in its properties
Datagrid displays pre-defined data in a grid

such as variable names, values or

customized data

Chapter 1 - 4 Form Designer User Guide

Control Description

DatabaseGrid displays the database defined in the

properties along with some basic

functionalities such as filters and

search fields.
PictureBox a box where an image can be

imported into
Preview a box that will display a preview of the

label attached to the form

The Properties
Grid

The Main
Window

The Properties Grid lists all the properties for the selected
control. Here you can change the characteristics of your
controls such as control name, color, size, actions... It is
context sensitive, so the list of properties will change
according to the control selected. Having the grid displayed
replaces the usual right-click menu command.

The Main window, displayed in the center, is your work
area. Here, you will add controls and create the forms you
will use to input data for label printing. Once the form has
been created and configured, you can go to View >
Execution to run the form and see its final result.

Form Designer User Guide Chapter 1 - 5

MAIN WINDOW

The Status bar The Status bar gives you the x axis and y axis location of

your pointer, the form name and the name and basic details
of the control you have selected.

The Basics

What are
Actions?

Actions are functions that are assigned to buttons and to

load/unload forms. In Form Designer, 12 pre-defined
Actions have been included in the Actions menu to save you
time and to eliminate the need for programming. In some
cases, where specific parameters must be configured,
these, too, have been pre-defined in the Action’s
configuration.

The pre-defined Actions are:.

Action Show the document property dialog box

Displays the properties dialog box for the
selected document which shows information
such as creation date and its location.

Action Show the form dialog box

Displays the form dialog box where the user
can set the values for the form variables