We’ve searched our help desk for common questions, and this one pops up quite often, How do I Define Reusable Interface Objects?

One of the challenges of today’s programming is maintaining a consistent look and feel across hundreds of open windows, browsers, and reports. Gone are the days of simple text green screens; today you have a choice of hundreds of fonts, sizes, and colors. Setting these choices for each object is horribly time-consuming, and keeping them consistent or making changes is next to impossible, if they are set on an object by - object basis.

Fortunately, eDeveloper makes this sort of thing incredibly easy. eDeveloper contains a robust system of models, which can be used to define the look and feel of every interface object, including text fields, radio buttons, tables, table columns, print formats, Web browser screens, and Windows windows.

When these are set up as models, using them is easy: you just choose the model you want while designing your form. Changing them is even easier: you change the model, and all items that use that model automatically change.

Here we will give an example of setting up a simple model for a field prompt.

Creating a control model

1. Go to the Model repository (Shift+F1), and move to the desired location.

2. Press F4 (Edit->Create Line).

3. Type in the name of the model (here it is “Required Field Prompt”).

4. Select the class you need:

• GUI Display: for any online screen control, which is what we are using in our example.

• GUI Output: for most formatted reports

• Text-based: for text-only output going to another product or older printer.

• Browser: for Browser controls.

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How do I Set the Icon for My Application?

When you are creating your own application, you will probably want your own unique icon. You set this internally to the project, as shown below.

Setting the icon for your application

1. Select File->Application Properties (Ctrl+Shift+P).

2. Type in the icon file name for the icon you want, or use zoom to select the file.

3. Click OK.

Now, when you run the application, you will see the icon at the upper left hand side of the window. You will also see it on the taskbar, and when you press Alt+Tab to switch between windows.

Hint: It is best not to use a hard-coded path name for this sort of internal file, since your user will probably have a different setup than you do. The default path will be your working directory (where the project EDP file is), so you can put your image file there, as in the example, or use a relative sub-directory.

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