Control Element Forms in Detail

BASIC Guide

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• The Language of OpenOffice.org Basic

• Overview of a Basic Program
• Working With Variables
• Strings
• Numbers
• Boolean Values
• Date and Time
• Arrays
• Scope and Life Span of Variables
• Constants
• Operators
• Branching
• Loops
• Procedures and Functions
• Error Handling
• Other Instructions

• Runtime Library

• Conversion Functions
• Strings
• Date and Time
• Files and Directories
• Message and Input Boxes
• Other Functions

• Introduction to the API

• Universal Network Objects (UNO)
• Properties and Methods
• Modules, Services and Interfaces
• Tools for Working with UNO
• Overview of Central Interfaces

• Working with Documents

• The StarDesktop
• Styles and Templates

• Text Documents

• The Structure of Text Documents
• Editing Text Documents
• More than Just Text

• Spreadsheet Documents

• The Structure of Spreadsheets
  • Rows and Columns
  • Cells and Ranges
  • Formatting Spreadsheet Documents
• Editing Spreadsheet Documents

• Drawings and Presentations

• The Structure of Drawings
• Editing Drawing Objects
• Presentations

• Charts (Diagrams)

• Using Charts in Spreadsheets
• The Structure of Charts
• Chart Types

• Databases

• SQL: a Query Language
• Types of Database Access
• Data Sources
• Database Access

• Dialogs

• Working With Dialogs
• Properties
• Events
• Dialog Control Elements

• Forms

• Working With Forms
• Control Element Forms
• Database Forms

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The control elements available in forms are similar to those of dialogs. The selection ranges from simple text fields through list and combo boxes to various buttons.

Below, you will find a list of the most important properties for control element forms. All properties form part of the associated model objects.

In addition to the standard control elements, a table control element is also available for forms, which enables the complete incorporation of database tables. This is described in the Database Forms chapter.

Buttons

The model object of a form button provides the following properties:

BackgroundColor (long)

background color

DefaultButton (Boolean)

the button serves as a default value. In this case, it also responds to the entry button if it has no focus

Enabled (Boolean)

the control element can be activated

Tabstop (Boolean)

the control element can be reached through the tabulator button

TabIndex (Long)

position of control element in activation sequence

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

Tag (String)

string containing additional information, which can be saved in the button for program-controlled access

TargetURL (String)

target URL for buttons of the URL type

TargetFrame (String)

name of window (or frame) in which TargetURL is to be opened when activating the button (for buttons of the URL type)

Label (String)

button label

TextColor (Long)

text color of control element

HelpText (String)

automatically displayed help text which is displayed if the mouse cursor is above the control element

HelpURL (String)

URL of online help for the corresponding control element

ButtonType (Enum)

action that is linked with the button (default value from com.sun.star.form.FormButtonType)

State (Short)

in toggle button, 1 = pushed, 0 = normal

Through the ButtonType property, you have the opportunity to define an action that is automatically performed when the button is pressed. The associated com.sun.star.form.FormButtonType group of constants provides the following values:

PUSH

standard button

SUBMIT

end of form entry (particularly relevant for HTML forms)

RESET

resets all values within the form to their original values

URL

call of the URL defined in TargetURL (is opened within the window which was specified through TargetFrame)

The OK and Cancel button types provided in dialogs are not supported in forms.

Option Buttons

The following properties of an option button are available through its model object:

Enabled (Boolean)

the control element can be activated

Tabstop (Boolean)

the control element can be reached through the tab key

TabIndex (Long)

position of control element in the activation sequence

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

Tag (String)

string containing additional information, which can be saved in the button for program-controlled access

Label (String)

inscription of button

Printable (Boolean)

the control element can be printed

State (Short)

if 1, the option is activated, otherwise it is deactivated

RefValue (String)

string for saving additional information (for example, for administering data record IDs)

TextColor (Long)

text color of control element

HelpText (String)

automatically displayed help text, which is displayed if the mouse cursor is above the control element

HelpURL (String)

URL of online help for the corresponding control element

The mechanism for grouping option buttons distinguishes between the control elements for dialogs and forms. Whereas control elements appearing one after another in dialogs are automatically combined to form a group, grouping in forms is performed on the basis of names. To do this, all option buttons of a group must contain the same name. OpenOffice.org combines the grouped control elements into an array so that the individual buttons of a OpenOffice.org Basic program can be reached in the same way.

The following example shows how the models of the control elements of a group can be iterated, exemplary displaying the states of all control elements in a given group:

Function test
  Dim oGroup as object
  Dim Doc As Object
  Dim Forms As Object
  Dim Form As Object
  Dim Ctl As Object
  Dim I as Integer
 
  Doc = ThisComponent
  Forms = Doc.Drawpage.Forms
 
  Form = Forms.GetbyIndex(0)

  oForm.getGroupByName("MyOptions", oGroup)
  msg = ""
  for i = LBound(oGroup) to UBound(oGroup)
    oCtl = oGroup(i)
    msg = msg + oCtl.Name + ": " + (str(oCtl.State)) + chr(10)
  next i
  MsgBox msg 

end Function

The code corresponds to the previous example for determining a simple control element model. It accesses the array of models using the GetGroupByName method (rather than the GetByName method to determine simple models).

Checkboxes

The model object of a checkbox form provides the following properties:

Enabled (Boolean)

the control element can be activated

Tabstop (Boolean)

the control element can be reached through the tab key

TabIndex (Long)

position of control element in the activation sequence

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

Tag (String)

string containing additional information, which can be saved in the button for program-controlled access

Label (String)

button label

Printable (Boolean)

the control element can be printed

State (Short)

if 1, the option is activated, otherwise it is deactivated

RefValue (String)

string for saving additional information (for example, for administrating data record IDs)

TextColor (Long)

text color of control element

HelpText (String)

automatically displayed help text, which is displayed if the mouse cursor is above the control element

HelpURL (String)

URL of online help for the corresponding control element

Text Fields

The model objects of text field forms offer the following properties:

Align (short)

orientation of text (0: left-aligned, 1: centered, 2: right-aligned)

BackgroundColor (long)

background color of control element

Border (short)

type of border (0: no border, 1: 3D border, 2: simple border)

EchoChar (String)

echo character for password field

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

HardLineBreaks (Boolean)

the automatic line breaks are permanently inserted in the text of the control element

HScroll (Boolean)

the text has a horizontal scrollbar

MaxTextLen (Short)

maximum length of text; if 0 is specified, there are no limits

MultiLine (Boolean)

permits multi-line entries

Printable (Boolean)

the control element can be printed

ReadOnly (Boolean)

the content of the control element is read-only

Enabled (Boolean)

the control element can be activated

Tabstop (Boolean)

the control element can be reached through the tab key

TabIndex (Long)

position of the control element in the activation sequence

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

Text (String)

text of control element

TextColor (Long)

text color of control element

VScroll (Boolean)

the text has a vertical scrollbar

HelpText (String)

automatically displayed help text, which is displayed if the mouse cursor is above the control element

HelpURL (String)

URL of online help for the corresponding control element

List Boxes

The model object of the list box forms provides the following properties:

BackgroundColor (long)

background color of control element

Border (short)

type of border (0: no border, 1: 3D frame, 2: simple frame)

FontDescriptor (struct)

structure with details of font to be used (in accordance with com.sun.star.awt.FontDescriptor structure)

LineCount (Short)

number of lines of control element

MultiSelection (Boolean)

permits multiple selection of entries

SelectedItems (Array of Strings)

list of highlighted entries

StringItemList (Array of Strings)

list of all entries

ValueItemList (Array of Variant)

list containing additional information for each entry (for example, for administrating data record IDs)

Printable (Boolean)

the control element can be printed

ReadOnly (Boolean)

the content of the control element is read-only

Enabled (Boolean)

the control element can be activated

Tabstop (Boolean)

the control element can be reached through the tab key

TabIndex (Long)

position of control element in the activation sequence

FontName (String)

name of font type

FontHeight (Single)

height of character in points (pt)

Tag (String)

string containing additional information which can be saved in the button for program-controlled access

TextColor (Long)

text color of control element

HelpText (String)

automatically displayed help text, which is displayed if the mouse cursor is above the control element

HelpURL (String)

URL of online help for the corresponding control element

VBA : Through their ValueItemList property, list box forms provide a counterpart to the VBA property, ItemData, through which you can administer additional information for individual list entries.

Furthermore, the following methods are provided though the view object of the list box:

addItem (Item, Pos)

inserts the string specified in the Item at the Pos position in the list

addItems (ItemArray, Pos)

inserts the entries listed in the string's ItemArray data field in the list at the Pos position

removeItems (Pos, Count)

removes Count entries as of the Pos position

selectItem (Item, SelectMode)

activates or deactivates the highlighting for the element specified in the string Item depending on the SelectMode variable

makeVisible (Pos)

scrolls through the list field so that the entry specified by Pos is visible

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