Progress
AppBuilder
Developer’s Guide
Configuring SmartDialog Visual Properties
Many of the properties of a SmartDialog are the same as those of a SmartWindow. The principal differences are:
- There is nothing related to resizing, scrolling, or virtual versus actual size, since the size of a SmartDialog is fixed at design time.
- There is no provision for defining a menu bar, since a SmartDialog is limited to pop-up menus.
- You can invoke the Tab Editor if you wish to define a special TAB-traversal order, since a SmartDialog is technically a Frame and maintains a traversal list. For information about setting traversal order, see the "Traversal-Path Editor" section in "Frequently Used Dialogs".
To open the property sheet, shown in Figure 3–3, double-click on the client area of the SmartDialog, or choose Tools
Property Sheet.
Figure 3–3: SmartDialog Property Sheet
![]()
Minimal Configuration Changes
Although you can choose to accept many default settings, you should at least ensure that each SmartDialog you create is uniquely identifiable. To individualize this SmartDialog, make these changes:
- Replace the generic instance identifier with one that more closely describes the Dialog instance you are creating here. The instance identifier is the token that will appear in the source code, and is the default value for the filename. Note that Progress identifiers for Dialog objects are conventionally prefixed with a g.
- Change the generic title-bar text to a string that identifies this particular Dialog.
Miscellaneous Properties (Other Settings)
Dialogs have fewer miscellaneous properties than Windows do, but those they have in common have the same meaning in both contexts. Dialogs also have a few properties in common with Frames:
- No Auto Validate — Normally cleared. Setting this box turns off, for all field-level objects in the dialog box, the automatic validation defined in the Data Dictionary.
- Open the Query — Normally cleared. Setting this box automatically populates the fields in this dialog box, if there is a query defined.
- Use Dict Exps — Normally cleared. Setting this box makes all the validation expressions and help strings defined in the Data Dictionary available to all the widgets assigned to this SmartDialog.
Advanced Properties
To open the Advanced Properties dialog box shown in Figure 3–4, choose the Advanced button.
Figure 3–4: SmartDialog Advanced Properties
![]()
The only differences in Advanced Properties between a Window and a Dialog are:
- Dialog boxes are always modal, so there is no option to make them always appear in front of other objects. Modal objects always appear in front of other objects.
- Dialog boxes have an option to allow box-selection, normally cleared. Box-selection is sometimes called marquee-selection or lasso-selection. It refers to selecting more than one object by dragging a dynamically generated box (the marquee) around them.
Copyright © 2004 Progress Software Corporation www.progress.com Voice: (781) 280-4000 Fax: (781) 280-4095 |