User Interface

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User Interface
Wednesday, September 21, 2016PrintSubscribe
Show Action Buttons

Every form in web applications created with Code On Time display a row of buttons. The typical actions available in the “Form” scope include Edit, Delete, Close/Cancel, Save, and Save and New. In addition, actions that trigger custom calculations are often put in the “Form” scope. The default presentation mode for form actions is called “Auto”.

Auto

The “Auto” mode will present form buttons in the best location depending on the size of the screen. On medium size screens, the buttons will be aligned to the right side of a fixed bar at the bottom of the screen. This ensures that the buttons are in the same position every time a user opens the form, resulting in a smaller learning curve to the application.

On small screens, form action buttons are rendered in a fixed button bar at the bottom of the screen, aligned to the right.

Larger screens will result in the form buttons shifting to the center of the button bar, closer to the field values.

Large screens will render form actions aligned to the center of a fixed bar at the bottom of the screen.

If the screen is too small to display all form buttons, they will be automatically collapsed into a three-dot menu.

When action buttons do not fit in the available space, these actions will be folded under a three-dot menu.

If the screen is both narrow and short, the form buttons will be rendered at the bottom of the form. This will ensure that devices with small screens can maximize the amount of space used for display of field values.

Very small screens will render buttons at the bottom of the form.

None

It may be desirable to hide the form actions bar from the screen. Let’s remove the form buttons from the Orders screen of the sample Northwind project.

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, double-click on “Orders / container1 / view1 (Orders, grid1)” node.

Modifying view1 that shows Orders grid1 in Orders page.

Make the following change:

Property Value
Show Action Buttons None

Press OK to save, and press Browse on the toolbar to regenerate the app.

When the app comes up in the default browser, click on a record on Orders page to view the form. Notice that the form action buttons are no longer visible. The actions are still accessible in the top right corner of the screen.

The Orders form with form action buttons hidden.

The user can also access all actions by clicking on the three-dot menu in the top right corner to access the action panel.

The form action buttons are still available in the action sidebar.

Top

When Show Action Buttons is set to “Top”, the action buttons will be rendered above the form.

Action buttons are rendered at the top of the form.

Bottom

When Show Action Buttons is set to “Bottom”, the buttons will be rendered below the form.

Action buttons are rendered at the bottom of the form.

Top And Bottom

When Show Action Buttons is set to “Top and Bottom”, the buttons will be rendered both above and below the form. This can be helpful when the form is very long.

Action buttons are rendered at the top and bottom of the form.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016PrintSubscribe
Data Field Search Options Index

The Search Options data field property restricts and reorders the search options available to the end user on the Advanced Search Bar.

Employees grid view with advanced search bar. Birth Date search options are visible.

The search options available are dependent on the field type.

Below is a table of all search options and their description.

Numeric Filters
Search Option Text Description
= Equals The search will find exact matches of the parameter
<> Does Not Equal The search will exclude all exact matches of the parameter
<= Less Than The search will include all results that are less than the parameter
>= Greater Than The search will include all results that are greater than the parameter
$between Between The search will include all results that are between two parameters
$in Includes The search will include all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
$notin Does Not Include The search will exclude all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
Text Filters
Search Option Text Description
= Equals The search will find exact matches of the parameter
<> Does Not Equal The search will exclude all exact matches of the parameter
$beginswith Begins With The search will find all matches that begin with the parameter
$doesnotbeginwith Does Not Begin With The search will exclude all matches that begin with the parameter
$contains Contains The search will find all matches that contain the parameter
$doesnotcontain Does Not Contain The search will find all matches that do not contain the parameter
$endswith Ends With The search will find all matches that end with the parameter
$doesnotendwith Does Not End With The search will exclude all matches that end with the parameter
$in Includes The search will include all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
$notin Does Not Include The search will exclude all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
Logical Filters
Search Option Text Description
$true Yes The search will find all results that equal “True”.
$false No The search will find all results that equal “False”.
Date Filters
Search Option Text Description
= Equals The search will find exact matches of the parameter
<> Does Not Equal The search will exclude all exact matches of the parameter
< Less Than The search will include all results that are less than the parameter
> Greater Than The search will include all results that are greater than the parameter
$between Between The search will include all results that are between two parameters
$in Includes The search will include all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
$notin Does Not Include The search will exclude all selected parameters (will open a modal window to select items)
$tomorrow Tomorrow The search will find all results that match the day preceding the current date.
$today Today The search will find all results from the current date.
$yesterday Yesterday The search will find all results that match the day after the current date.
$nextweek Next Week The search will find all results that match the week preceding the current week.
$thisweek This Week The search will find all results from the current week.
$lastweek Last Week The search will find all results that match the week after the end of the current week.
$nextmonth Next Month The search will find all results that match the month preceding the current month.
$thismonth This Month The search will find all results from the current month.
$lastmonth LastMonth The search will find all results that match the month after the end of the current month.
$nextquarter Next Quarter The search will find results that match the quarter after the current one.
$thisquarter This Quarter The search will find results that match the current quarter.
$lastquarter Last Quarter The search will find results that match the quarter before the current one.
$nextyear Next Year The search will find results that match the year after the end of the current one.
$thisyear This Year The search will find results in the current year.
$yeartodate Year To Date The search will find results from the beginning of the current year up to the current date.
$lastyear Last Year The search will find results that match the year before the beginning of the current one.
$Past Past The search will find all results before the current date.
$Future Future The search will find all results after the current date.
$quarter1 All Dates In Period: Quarter 1 The search will find all results in the first quarter.
$quarter2 All Dates In Period: Quarter 2 The search will find all results in the second quarter.
$quarter3 All Dates In Period: Quarter 3 The search will find all results in the third quarter.
$quarter4 All Dates In Period: Quarter 4 The search will find all results in the fourth quarter.
$month1 All Dates In Period: January The search will find all results in the month of January.
$month2 All Dates In Period: February The search will find all results in the month of February.
$month3 All Dates In Period: March The search will find all results in the month of March.
$month4 All Dates In Period: April The search will find all results in the month of April.
$month5 All Dates In Period: May The search will find all results in the month of May.
$month6 All Dates In Period: June The search will find all results in the month of June.
$month7 All Dates In Period: July The search will find all results in the month of July.
$month8 All Dates In Period: August The search will find all results in the month of August.
$month9 All Dates In Period: September The search will find all results in the month of September.
$month10 All Dates In Period: October The search will find all results in the month of October.
$month11 All Dates In Period: November The search will find all results in the month of November.
$month12 All Dates In Period: December The search will find all results in the month of December.

 

The “All Dates In Period” search options will include intervals from five years ago to one year ahead.

There are also several modifiers that can be used to change the behavior of the data field.

Search Option Description
$autocompleteanywhere Auto complete in fields can be configured to search anywhere in field values, instead of using “begins with” matching.
$disableautocomplete Text search options will no longer offer auto complete capabilities.
$disablemultiplevalues The “Filter…” option under the column header will be removed – users will not be able to filter by multiple values.
$disablesamples Quick filtering samples under the column header will be removed.
$quickfind Will exclusively filter fields tagged with “$quickfind” when using Quick Find.
$quickfinddisabled Will exclude fields tagged with “$quickfinddisabled” when using Quick Find.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016PrintSubscribe
Wizards in Touch UI

Commonly, multiple screens are connected and the user is required to page through these forms in order to complete their task. This pattern of presentation is called the “Wizard”. Starting with release 8.5.11.0, it is possible to create wizards in Touch UI. The picture below shows an example of a Create Employee Wizard in the Northwind sample database.

Sample New Employee wizard.

Each step of the wizard contains one or more categories. If all categories belonging to a particular step are rendered invisible via the Visible When property, then that step will be hidden.

Let’s implement the wizard shown above.  Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer window, switch to Controllers tab. Double-click on “Employees / Views / createForm1 / c1 – New Employees” category.

Selecting the category 'c1' in createForm1 of Employees controller.

Make the following changes and press OK to save:

Property Value
Header Text General Info
Description Enter employee general information below.
Wizard General

Next, let’s create several new categories. Right-click on “Employees / Views / createForm1” and press “New Category”.

Creating a new category in createForm1 view of Employees controller.

The second category will display in a new column alongside the previous category in the first step of the wizard.

Property Value
Header Text Contact Info
Description Enter employee contact information below.
New Column Yes
Wizard General

The next category will have the following configuration. Note the use of curly brackets wrapping field names. These will be replaced by the value of the field at runtime.

Property Value
Header Text Address
Description Enter the home address of {FirstName} {LastName} below.
Wizard Address

The last category representing the final wizard step is configured below. Notice that the Visible When property is configured to hide the category when the Title field is equal to the value “President”.

Property Value
Header Text Employee Info
Description Enter {TitleOfCourtesy} {LastName}'s employee information below.
Wizard Employee
Visible When
$row.Title != 'President'

Any categories that do not have a “Wizard” property assigned will be displayed on every step, either above or below the wizard content, depending on the position of the category relative to the first wizard category.

Rearrange the data fields as presented in the picture below using drag & drop.

The correct position of Employees data views for the Create Employee Wizard.

On the toolbar, press Browse to regenerate the app. Once generation is complete, navigate to the Employees page and create a new employee.

The correct position of Employees data views for the Create Employee Wizard.

Notice that a Status Bar has automatically been defined. The “Prev” and “Next” actions have been automatically injected into the form action group. Enter some values for the fields, including specifying “President” in the Title field.

Entering 'President' will hide the only category representing the 'Employee' wizard step, therefore hiding that step.

Notice that the “Employee” tab has been removed from the Status Bar. By pressing “Next”, the Address wizard step will be displayed. The field names surrounded by curly brackets have been replaced with the field values defined by the user.

The category description contains field values.

Note that when using custom form templates, wizards can be defined by encapsulating each step by a container of type “wizard”, containing the attribute “data-wizard-step”. The value of the attribute will be displayed in the status bar. See a simplified example below:

<div data-container="wizard" data-wizard-step="General">
    <div data-container="collapsible" data-header-text="General Info">
        ...
    </div>
    ...
</div>
<div data-container="wizard" data-wizard-step="Address">
    ...
</div>