Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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- Forms Designer controls and tools
- Attachments control
- Button control
- Calendar control
- Chart control
- Checkbox control
- Combo Box control
- Comfill control
- Convert Form Layout tool
- Date control
- Decimal control
- Dynamic Form control
- Embedded Viewer control
- File control
- Frame control
- Graph control
- Grid view tool
- Group control
- HTML Editor control
- HTML Viewer control
- Image control
- Label control
- Link label control
- List Builder control
- Marquee control
- Notebook tab control
- Notebook control
- Radio Button control
- Selection tool
- Script control
- Subform control
- Table column control
- Table control
- Text area control
- Text control
- Timer control
- Visualization control
- Web Preview tool
- Wrap label control
Combo Box control
Use this control to add a Combo Box that enables users to click a button and select from a drop-down list. The items in the list are associated with a database field or variable. Users can also type in a value if the check box in the selectonly property is cleared (set to false).
To place a Combo Box on a form, click Combo Box and then click the form.
Be sure to put the name of the database field or variable that you want to associate with this control into the Input property.
Best practice
Use eight drop–down lines unless the drop–down set contains a fixed number of elements less than or equal to seven, in which case the number of lines should be equal to the number of elements in the drop–down set.
| Property | Usage |
|---|---|
| Name | Specify a unique identifier for the object on the screen. (Optional) This name is used by external applications, such as RAD, to dynamically change the properties of the object. |
| X | Specify the object’s horizontal position based on the left edge of the object. |
| Y | Specify the object’s vertical position based on the top edge of the object. |
| Width | Specify the width of the object in alignment grid units. |
| Height | Specify the height of the object in alignment grid units. |
| Visible | Select this option to make the object visible on the form. Clear the check box to hide the object from view on the form. |
| Visible Condition | Specify an expression to override the Visible property when that expression evaluates to true. |
| Caption | Specify a text caption for the object. |
| Caption Condition | Specify an expression to override the Caption property when that expression evaluates to true. |
| Input | Specify the database field or variable to associate with this control. |
| Accessible Name | Specify a component name for use with accessibility software. (Optional) Note: This function is only supported by the Web client. If no name is present, the Web client defaults to looking for a nearby label to use for the name of the component. For buttons, check boxes, or radio buttons, it uses the component’s text. Accessibility software can query the Web client to get this information and use it to present data to the user in a variety of ways. For example, speech simulation software says the name and the type of component when the component has focus. |
| Accessible Description | Specify a component description for use with accessibility software. (Optional) Note: This function is only supported by the Web client. If no description is present, the Web client defaults to looking for a nearby label to use for the name of the component. For buttons, check boxes, or radio buttons, the Web client will use the component’s text. Accessibility software can query the Web client to get this information, and use it to present it to the user in a variety of ways. For example, when a component gets focus, speech simulation software will say the name and the type of component, based on the settings in the Accessible Name and Accessible Description fields. |
| Tab Stop | Specify the tab sort order for this field. By default, the TAB key navigates the focus on a form from top to bottom and left to right. Objects that have a non-zero Tab Stop are visited first, in ascending order. For a button, file, radio button or check box, you will almost always use the default of 0. |
| Read-Only | Select this option to disable editing capabilities and provide only viewing access to the field. Give read–only fields a tab–stop value of –1 to prevent users from tabbing into them. |
| Read-Only Condition | Specify an expression to override the Read-Only property when that expression evaluates to true. |
| Mandatory | Select this option so that a red asterisk indicating a required field is displayed. This is a visible change only. - To make the field mandatory for any form it appears on, use the System Definition Utility. - To make the field mandatory for a small number of forms only, use Format Control. |
| Mandatory Condition | Specify an expression to override the Mandatory property when that expression evaluates to true. |
| Array Length | Specify the size of the scrolling region used to view array entries.
A scroll bar appears beside the fields to allow users to view the array entries. - If a field is assigned an Array Length of 5, the form stacks five fields vertically to allow users to view the five array entries. - If Array Length is set to -1, the form dynamically creates as many fields as there are entries in the array. - If the Input data type is scalar, only a single text box appears. Note: The screen object must be associated with an array data structure. The default is 0, which means one vertical line of information appears. |
| Password | Select this option to make the text entered in the field a series of asterisks on the screen. The data is not encrypted, just transposed. |
| Maximum Chars | Specify the number of characters the user can enter in the field. The default is 0 (unlimited). |
| Maximum Characters Beep | Select this option to notify the user by sounding a beep that they reached the maximum number of characters. |
| Case Conversion | Specify how to change the case of text entered in the field. The choices are None, Upper, Lower. |
| Decimals | Specify the number of decimal points for numbers in this field. Service Manager modifies numbers entered in the field to the number of decimal points you specify. |
| Parse | Select this option to verify that the text entered in a field is the correct syntax. The syntax for the field is defined by the type of field it displays (date, expression, number, and so forth). |
| Data Changed Event | Specify the option number (such as Button ID) to call if the data contained in the object changed. This sends an event to the display RAD application. |
| Value List |
In conjunction with the Input property, defines how the Display List values are identified in the database. Value and Display Lists are entered using the Edit List dialog box. You can enter hard coded entries for each list, or you can supply a variable as the first and only entry. The run time values of the variable are used to populate these lists. Note: When defining Value List and Display List properties, you should avoid using the following reserved characters:
Important: Do not use keys (like backspace), as the system cannot process their ASCII representation entries correctly which causes unpredictable results. |
| Value List Condition | Specify an expression to override the property when that expression evaluates to true. |
| Display List |
Specify the values that appear in the drop-down list at run time. There must be a one–to–one correspondence between the values for Value List and for Display List. If the Display List is the only populated property, the display values are written to the database. Note: When defining Value List and Display List properties, you should avoid using the following reserved characters:
Important: Do not use keys (like backspace), as the system cannot process their ASCII representation entries correctly which causes unpredictable results. |
| Display List Condition | Specify an expression to override the Display List property, when the expression evaluates to True. |
| Box Lines | Specify the window size of the drop-down list. |
| Select Only | Select this option to require the user to select from the Combo Box drop-down list. If the user makes a manual entry, the value must already exist in the drop-down list (defined in the Value List and Display List properties). Clear this option to allow the user to select from the drop-down list or to manually enter a value. |
