Direct manipulation events are ABL events that directly modify the size, shape, position, and appearance of a widget. These events are generated by mouse actions. Each user interface widget either has direct manipulation enabled or does not. Some types of widgets, such as menus, cannot have direct manipulation enabled. You can enable widgets for direct manipulation by setting the SELECTABLE, MOVABLE, or RESIZABLE attribute to TRUE.
If a widget has direct manipulation enabled, then direct manipulation events take priority over all other events. In other words, while data manipulation is enabled, the widget cannot perform data entry or application control functions. For example, if you set SELECTABLE to TRUE for a button, ABL interprets a MOUSE-SELECT-UP event as a SELECTION event. If you set SELECTABLE to FALSE, ABL interprets the same event as a CHOOSE event.
Direct manipulation events can be broken down into two types: general and frame-only. General direct manipulation events apply to both field-level and frame widgets. Frame-only direct manipulation events apply only to frames.
The following sections list the ABL events associated with direct widget manipulation. The user actions listed for these events assume that you set the appropriate attributes to make each event possible. For example, a widget must be SELECTABLE to receive the SELECTION event.
