Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
AppBuilder

Configuring a pushbutton instance

To configure a pushbutton, you must:

Customize the appearance to present appropriate cues to the user.
Write trigger code to respond to the CHOOSE event.

To begin customizing the pushbutton’s appearance, select it and choose Tools Property Sheet. The dialog box opens:

Minimum configuration

While you can accept many default settings, at a minimum you should:

Change the object identifier to one that more closely represents the role of this pushbutton in your application.
Set the identifying label to a string or icon that will be meaningful to the user. See the "Setting a pushbutton label" section for instructions.
Resize the pushbutton to fit it to its surroundings in a way that minimizes the space it takes up. For the best visual effect, you should make all related pushbuttons the same size, and align them carefully. If one of them is more significant than the others, you can indicate that greater significance by making that pushbutton unmistakably larger in one dimension, as in these examples:

Miscellaneous configuration (other settings)

These properties modify appearance or behavior as shown in Table 7–3.

Table 7–3: Button properties

Property	Default setting	Description
Auto-End Key	Off	Setting this box causes the ENDKEY condition when the user chooses the pushbutton.
Auto-Go	Off	Setting this box causes the GO condition when the user chooses the pushbutton.
Auto-Resize	Off	Setting this box causes the pushbutton to automatically change size when its label changes size.
Cancel Button	Off	Setting this box causes a CHOOSE event for this pushbutton when the user presses the ESC key. In other words, when this box is set, pressing the ESC key and choosing this pushbutton are equivalent actions. No matter which the user does, the CHOOSE trigger code you write executes.
Convert 3D Colors	On	Only relevant if you use an iconic rather than a text label for this pushbutton. Clearing this box allows the 4GL Engine to modify the colors used by the image you use as a label and use system colors instead. This might produce an undesirable visual effect.
Default Button	Off	Setting this box causes this pushbutton to receive all RETURN key function events, regardless of whether it is selected at the time. Note that, while AppBuilder allows you to set this option for only one pushbutton per frame—it clears any earlier setting—it cannot detect the same setting in other frames.
Default Style	Off	Setting this box adds the thicker margin around the pushbutton that indicates to the user that the object receives the RETURN key events.
Drop Target	Off	Setting this box causes the pushbutton to register an event when the user drags an object onto it. You must write the code needed to handle the event.
Enable	On	Clearing this box causes the pushbutton to ignore attempts to choose it.
Flat	Off	Setting this box causes the pushbutton to display its label without any border indicating the clickable area, except when the cursor is inside that boundary.
Hidden	Off	Setting this box causes the pushbutton not to respond to implicit requests to display itself. It will respond only to explicit requests.
No Focus	Off	Setting this box causes the pushbutton not to indicate that it has the input focus, although the user can select it in the normal way.
No Tab Stop	Off	Setting this box removes the pushbutton from the enclosing frame’s traversal list. An object with this option set neither gains nor gives up the input focus in response to the user pressing the TAB key.

Advanced properties

The pushbutton object has only the standard advanced properties. See the "Advanced properties" section for further information.

Setting a pushbutton label

You can choose to label your pushbuttons with text or an iconic image, but you cannot use both on the same object.

To use a text label, simply type the new string into the Label field. You can even do this without opening the property sheet, if you wish. For your convenience, AppBuilder displays below the toolbar in its main window both the identifier and the label of a pushbutton object whenever it is selected.

To use an icon (and override any text label):

Double-click on the square button marked Up. The dialog box opens:



If the image file you wish to use is listed, select it and choose OK. If the Preview check box is on, the image you select will display in the open area to the right of the listing.

If you are looking for a particular type of file (.ico, .bmp, etc.) you can choose to filter for only those files by selecting the appropriate item from the File Type drop-down list.

If the image file is not listed, you can choose the Browse button to look for them. If you will often search certain other directories for image files, you can add the other directories to the drop-down list in the Directories combo box. Choose Edit Path to add a directory, or to modify the order in which they are listed.