Progress
AppBuilder
Developer’s Guide


Introduction to Organizer Objects

Whenever you develop a Progress application, you use organizer objects to provide a context for other objects. When you create a GUI Window and populate it, the widgets you use seem more related than they would without the Window around and under them. The Window is providing that sense of visual and purposeful organization. If you set off part of the Window’s client area with a Frame or Rectangle, the widgets you put inside the Frame/Rectangle will then seem more closely related to one another than to other widgets in the same overall Window. The Frame/Rectangle is acting as another level of organizer.

Besides providing visual/psychological integration, some organizer objects have a functional role as well. SmartWindows, for example, have built-in code to create and initialize the SmartObjects they contain, and more code to maintain the SmartLink communication pathways between the contained SmartObjects.

Part of AppBuilder’s advantage is that it allows you to treat organizer objects (except for basic Frames and Rectangles) as design-window workspaces. Using techniques similar to those of an interactive graphics editor, you can assemble a complete window’s worth of building blocks in the workspace and then execute the workspace.

AppBuilder currently offers seven types of organizer in the File New list:

In addition, AppBuilder offers three types of component-level organizer in the Object Palette:


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