Application Development With Visual FoxPro 6.

1. Developing Forms

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Module Objectives

In this section, we are going to take a more in-depth look at Visual FoxPro forms by learning some new
terms, as well as, applying some of the terminology presented in the previous section. You will learn
about:

?? The Data Environment

?? Container Classes
?? Forms Sets
?? Referencing Form Objects
?? The _SCREEN Object

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Data Environment

Overview

The most common reason to build forms is to display and update the data in the application. Before
you start building forms, you have to understand how forms work with data. Forms use the Data
Environment to integrate data into a form.

The Data Environment contains information about all the tables, relationships, and views, used by a form
or report. When you save a form or report, the Data Environment information is saved with it. The
Data Environment is modified in the Data Environment Designer.

When the Data Environment of a form or report is defined, specifying .T. in the AutoOpenTables and
AutoCloseTable properties instructs Visual FoxPro to open the tables or views when you open or run
the file and close them when the file is closed or released.

Accessing the Data Environment

There are several ways to access the Data Environment.

?? Data Environment: Click on the Data Environment button on the Forms Designer
toolbar.

Or

?? Select the View | Data Environment menu option.

Or

?? Select Data Environment from the shortcut menu

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Adding Tables to the Data Environment

There are a couple of ways to add tables to the Data Environment.

?? Select the DataEnvironment | Add menu option

Or

?? Select Add from the shortcut menu

Adding a Bound Text Box Control from the Data Environment

A bound text box can be quickly created by clicking and dragging a field from the Data Environment
and placing it on the form (A bound control is a control that is directly tied to the data in a specific
field).

Adding Multiple Bound Fields from the Data Environment

You can add multiple bound controls quickly by selecting the fields to be placed from the Data
Environment. Right click on one of the fields and drag it on to the form. Visual FoxPro will display a
shortcut menu asking if you want a grid or multiple controls for the fields you selected.

Adding a Bound Grid Control from the Data Environment

A bound grid control can be quickly created by clicking and dragging an entire table from the Data
Environment and placing it on the form.

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Student Exercise: Add Bound Controls to a Form With the Data

Environment

In this exercise, we will add bound text boxes from the Data Environment to a form. First though, we
need to prepare the Visual FoxPro environment to suit our training class needs.

1. Select the Tools | Options menu option to access the Options dialog. Select File Locations.

2. Click the Default Directory check box and enter C:\VFPDEVEL as the default directory.
Click Set as Default to save this setting for future Visual FoxPro sessions. Click OK.
3. Create a new project named VFPDevel.
4. Add the TestData database to the project. We’ll be using the sample data for our exercises.
(TestData.DBC ships with Visual FoxPro and can be found in the \Program Files\Microsoft
Visual Studio\MSDN98\98VS\1033\SAMPLES\VFP98\DATA subdirectory).
5. Select the Documents tab, select Forms and click New.
6. Select New Form and click OK.

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7. Right-click on the form to open the shortcut menu and select Data Environment.
8. The Add View dialog will appear.

9. Select the Employee table and click Add. Click Close to return to the Data Environment.
10. Size the Data Environment window so that you can see the Employee table.
11. Click on the Emp_id field, drag it over to the form and release the mouse to place a bound control.
What is the Caption property of the label created next to the textbox? What if you wanted
Employee ID instead of Emp_id to be used automatically? Where would you make that change?
12. Individually place the Last_name , First_name and Title fields on the form using the same
technique.
13. Now add the Address, City and Region fields by selecting them and then dragging one of them on
to the form with the right mouse button.
14. Select Multiple Controls from the shortcut menu displayed.

15. Add a command button and set the following properties:

Property Value
Caption Done
Name CmdDone

16. In the Click event of the button type RELEASE THISFORM.

17. Save the form as frmEmpInfo.
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18. Run the form by clicking the Run tool in the Standard toolbar.
19. Close the form.

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Student Exercise: Adding Bound Controls Manually

In this exercise, we will add a bound control manually by making the appropriate entries in the Property
window.

1. If it isn’t already in the Form Designer, modify the frmEmpInfo form.

2. Add a text box to the form.
3. Select the Control Source property (its on the Data tab).

4. Select the drop-down list in the Property Settings Box and select the birth_date field.
5. Save and run the form.
6. Close the form.

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The Data Environment

Overview

In the previous section, you built a form and were introduced to the Data Environment. You added a
table to the Data Environment and build a form with bound controls on it. In this section we’ll look a
little deeper at the Data Environment and what you need to know to work with it effectively.

In OOP terms, the Data Environment is a container object that contains Cursor and Relation objects.
Data Environment properties can only be accessed while the Data Environment Designer is open.

Cursor Objects

When tables or views are added to the Data Environment, a cursor object is created for each table. A
cursor (CURrent Set Of Records) is a representation of a set of records.

For example, if a form accesses a single table, there would only be one cursor object in the Data
Environment. If a form accesses two tables there would be two cursor objects in the Data Environment.

Relation Objects

When you have more than one table in the Data Environment, the Relation object allows you to specify
characteristics about how those tables are related.

Commonly Used DATA ENVIRONMENT Object Properties

Property Description

AutoCloseTables Specifies if the tables should be closed when the form closes.
AutoOpenTables Specifies if the tables should be opened when the form loads.
InitialSelectedAlias Specifies which work area should be selected when the form loads.

Commonly Used DATA ENVIRONMENT Object Events

Event Description

AfterCloseTables Occurs after tables are automatically closed.

BeforeOpenTables Occurs before tables are automatically opened.

Commonly Used DATA ENVIRONMENT Object Methods

Method Description

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CloseTables Causes the tables and views to be closed.

OpenTables Causes the tables and views to be opened.

Commonly Used CURSOR Object Properties

Property Description

Alias Specifies the name of the table or view referenced in the cursor.
BufferModeOverride Specifies whether or not to override the buffer setting for the form.
Exclusive Specifies if the table should be open exclusively.
Filter Specifies a filtering criteria to exclude records from the cursor.
Name Specifies the name of the cursor.
Order Specifies the index tag to use initially.
ReadOnly Specifies if the cursor is read-only.

Commonly Used RELATION Object Properties

Property Description

ChildAlias Specifies the name of the child table in the relationship.

ChildOrder Specifies the index tag to use for the child.
Name Specifies the name of the relation object.
OneToMany Specifies if a one-to-many relation exists between the two tables.
RelationalExpr Specifies the expression used to join the two tables.

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Container Object

Overview

Container objects contain other objects and allow access to the objects contained within them. For
example, forms are containers. They contain the controls you place on them.

The following table lists what each container class can contain.

Container Contains

Command Button Groups Command Buttons

Data Environment Cursors and Relations
Form Sets Forms and Toolbars
Forms Controls
Grids Columns
Grid Columns Controls
Option Button Group Option Buttons
Page Frames Pages
Pages Controls
Toolbars Controls

.Parent Object Reference

The Parent object reference references the immediate container object of a control. For example,
suppose there is a textbox control named txtControl on a page named pagSales on a page frame named
pgfStuff. From txtControl, we could change the background color of page pagSales with:

THIS.Parent.BackColor = RGB(255,0,0)

The following would hide the entire set of pages all together:

THIS.Parent.Parent.Visible = .F.

There will be more on object referencing in a later section.

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Collections and Counts

Every container object has an associated collection property which stores a reference to each item in
the container. A Collection is just a fancy term for an array. If you understand arrays, you understand
collections.

For example, a form is a container that contains controls. Every form object has a collection property
Controls that stores a reference to each control on the form.

The number of items in the container is stored in a count property. For example, the ControlCount
property stores the number of controls on a form and the PageCount property stores the number of
pages objects in a page frame.

The following table lists the name of each container and it's associated collection and count property
names.

Container Collection Name Count Name

Command Button Groups Buttons ButtonCount

Form Sets Forms FormCount
Forms Controls ControlCount
Grid Columns Controls ControlCount
Grids Columns ColumnCount
Option Button Groups Buttons ButtonCount
Page Frames Pages PageCount
Pages Controls ControlCount
Toolbars Controls ControlCount

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Accessing Objects in a Collection

The following code demonstrates a simple way to disable all textboxes on a form without knowing their
name. The code will loop from 1 to the number of controls on the form. Each control in the forms
Controls collection will be interrogated to see if the control is a textbox. If it is a textbox, then its
Enabled property will be set to false. This code will work if there are 2 or 200 controls on a form.

FOR i = 1 TO THISFORM.ControlCount

IF THISFORM.Controls(i).BaseClass = "textbox"

THISFORM.Controls(i).Enabled = .F.

ENDIF

ENDFOR

WITH...ENDWITH

The WITH...ENDWITH clause is used to allow multiple statements to be run on a single object
without having to specify the name of the object.

Syntax:

WITH ObjectName

[.cStatements]

ENDWITH

The ObjectName specifies the name of the object that multiple properties will be set for.

cStatements consist of any number of commands that are used to set properties for ObjectName.
Properties are set by placing a period before each property and assigning a value.

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Example:

Here’s the same code from above using WITH…ENDWITH.

WITH THISFORM

FOR i = 1 TO .ControlCount

IF .Controls(i).BaseClass = "textbox"

.Controls(i).Enabled = .F.

ENDIF

ENDFOR

ENDWITH

Tip: WITH …ENDWITH is a HUGE timesaver. It makes code easier to write and reduces
code clutter, the refore making code easier to read. You will see it used very often in class.

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Form Sets

Overview

If a form is just one form object, then a form set must be multiple form objects. Correct! You can
manipulate multiple forms as a group by including them in a form set. A form set is a container for one
or more forms.

Form sets have the following benefits:

?? You can show or hide all the forms in a form set at one time.
?? You can visually arrange multiple forms at once to control their relative positions.
?? With a data environment created at the forms set level, you can automatically synchronize
record pointers in multiple forms. If you change the record pointer in a parent table in one form,
the child records in another form are updated and displayed.

Creating a Form Set

By default a new form is not a form set. You need to specify that you want to work with a form set.
This is done by selecting the Form | Create Form Set menu option. It won’t look like much happened
after you select Form | Create Form Set. What actually happened is that the Form | Add Form menu
option has been activated.

Adding Forms to a Form Set

Once a Form set is created, forms are added by selecting the Form | Add New Form menu option. A
second (or third, or fourth, or fifth...) form will appear. The forms are individual objects with properties
and must be treated as such.

Removing a Form From a Form Set

You Remove a form from a form set by selecting the Form | Remove Form menu option.

Closing a Form Set at Runtime

The RELEASE THISFORMSET command releases closes the active form set.

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Student Exercise: Create a Form Set

In this exercise, we will create a form set and view different information from one table on two forms.

1. Create a new, blank form.

2. Save the form as frmEmpInfoFormSet.
3. Open the Data Environment and add the Employee table.
4. Drag Emp_id, Last_name and First_name to the form.
5. Click on the form.
6. Select the Form | Create Form Set menu option.

7. Select the Form | Add New Form menu option.

8. A second form appears in the Form Designer. Notice the first one is called Form1 and the second
is called Form2. They are two separate objects.
9. With Form2 in the front, select Data Environment from the shortcut menu.
10. Drag the Address, City, and PostalCode fields onto Form2.
11. Save and run the form.
12. Click back and forth on the two screens. How were they arranged when they first came up?
13. Close both forms.

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14. What a pain! Having to close both forms individually like that. Reopen the frmEmpInfoFormSet
form. Place a command button on Form2 and set the following properties:

Property Value
Caption Done
Name cmdDone

15. In the Click event of the cmdDone command button, type RELEASE THISFORMSET.
16. Save and run the form.
17. What happens when you click the Done button?

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Student Exercise: Fun With Form Sets

In this exercise, we will create a form set that contains three forms. Only one will ever be visible at a
runtime though.

1. Create a new, blank form.

2. Save the form as frsInvisoForms.
3. Create a form set.
4. Add two more forms to the current form.
5. You should now have Form1, Form2 and Form3 in the Form Designer (You might have to move
the forms to see them all).

6. For Form2 and Form3 set the following property:

Property Value
Visible .F.

7. Add a command button to Form1 and set the following properties.

Property Value
Caption \<Switch
Name CmdSwitch

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8. In the Click event of the cmdSwitch button, enter the following (minus the line numbers):
THIS.PARENT.Visible = .F.
THISFORMSET.Form2.Visible = .T.
9. Copy cmdSwitch to Form2 and Form3.
10. Modify the Click event of cmdSwitch on Form2 to look like the following code:
THIS.PARENT.Visible = .F.
THISFORMSET.Form3.Visible = .T.
11. Modify the Click event of cmdSwitch on Form3 to look like the following code:
THIS.PARENT.Visible = .F.
THISFORMSET.Form1.Visible = .T.
12. Save and run the form.
13. Close down the form.
14. Try to modify frsInvisoForms. Did you get a “File in Use” message? Why?
15. Type CLEAR ALL in the command window to remove the form set from memory.
16. Modify frsInvisoForms.
17. Add a command button to Form3 with the following properties:

Property Value
Caption \<Done
Name CmdDone

18. In the cmdDone Click event, enter RELEASE THISFORMSET.

19. Save and run the form.
20. Would the following code work behind the Switch button on Form1?
THIS.PARENT.Visible = .F.
THISFORMSET.Forms(2).Visible = .T.

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Referencing Form Objects

Overview

Referencing objects on the form requires a special naming syntax. When an object exists in a container,
you must identify it in relation to the container hierarchy. Items are referenced by the largest object they
exist in, down through any subcontainers, and finally down to the control.

For example, on a form named frmTestForm, there exist two controls, a command button named
cmdSetValue and a text box named txtnAmount. We want to assign a value of 7 to txtnAmount
whenever the user clicked on cmdSetValue. Here’s the code that would go in the cmdSetValue click
event:

frmTestForm.txtnAmount.Value = 7

That’s the Absolute Referencing Technique for referencing txtnAmount. Is txtnAmount in a container?
Yes.

What container is txtnAmount in? The form.

What if we didn’t know the name of the form? We could use the Relative Referencing Technique to
accomplish the same thing. Relative Referencing is accomplished by using the THISFORM prefix.
Here’s the code using Relative Referencing:

THISFORM.txtnAmount.Value = 7

Tip: A very common mistake made by Visual FoxPro programmers is to forget to include the
.Value reference when assigning a value to an object.

Wrong: THISFORM.txtnAmount = 7

Right: THISFORM.txtnAmount.Value = 7

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Student Exercise: Referencing Form Objects

In this exercise, we will create the form we just read about and implement what we’ve learned:

1. Create a new, blank form.

2. Set the following properties for the form.

Property Value
AutoCenter .T.
Caption Set a Value
Name FrmTestForm

3. Save the form as frmTestForm.

4. Add a command button that will close down the form. (Hint: RELEASE THISFORM)
5. Add a command button named with the following properties:

Property Value
AutoSize .T.
Caption Click to Set Value
Name CmdSetValue

6. Add a text box with the following properties:

Property Value
Name txtnAmount
Value 33

7. Double-click on the cmdSetValue command button and enter the following command in the Click
Procedure:
THISFORM.txtnAmount.Value = 7

8. Save and test the form.

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Advanced Object Referencing

Overview

We just saw that when a control is contained within a form, we must reference the form name first, then
the control. What if there was a text box control named txtSalary on a page in a page frame on a form.
Or even worse, what if txtSalary is contained in a column in a grid, the grid is on a page in a page frame,
the page frame is on a form, and the form is a member of a form set. The picture below illustrates that
scenario.

To reference the txtSalary control, it’s entire container hierarchy must be specified.

Formset.Form.PageFrame.Page.Grid.Column.txtSalary

The following table has a few examples of THIS, THISFORM, THISFORMSET and Parent to
set object properties.

Command Where to put the command

THIS.Caption = “OK” In the method code of the control whose

caption you want to change.
THISFORM.cmd1.Caption = “OK” In the method code of any control on the same
form that cmd1 is on.
THISFORMSET.frm1.cmd1.Caption = “OK” In the method code of any controls on any
form in the form set.
THIS.Parent.BackColor = RGB(0,0,255) In the method code of a control on a form.

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The _SCREEN Object

Description

The _SCREEN object specifies properties and methods for the main Visual FoxPro window.

ActiveForm Property

The ActiveForm property of the _SCREEN object allows you to access and manipulate the active
form even if you don’t know it’s name.

For example, if we didn’t want to see the form that is currently active, we could use:

_SCREEN.ActiveForm.Visible = .F.

ActiveControl Property

We can manipulate the ActiveControl property of the _SCREEN object to work with the active
control on the active form. For example, to determine the name of the active control, we could use:

_SCREEN.ActiveForm.ActiveControl.Name

Caption Property

The Caption property of the _SCREEN object sets the caption for the main Visual FoxPro
window. For example, to change the caption for the Visual FoxPro desktop window we could use:

_SCREEN.Caption = “Our Application”

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Student Exercise: Manipulate the Active Form

In this exercise, we will see how the _SCREEN object variable works at runtime.

1. Click on the Command window.

2. Enter _SCREEN.Caption = “Hello World” in the command window and press Enter.
3. Enter _SCREEN.BackColor = GETCOLOR() in the command window and press Enter.
4. Enter _SCREEN.Left = 100 in the command window and press Enter.
5. Enter _SCREEN.Top = 50 in the command window and press Enter.
6. Maximize the screen.

For more information on the _SCREEN object, see Visual FoxPro Help.

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Module Review

In this section, we took a look at forms and techniques associated with running forms. You learned
about:

?? The Data Environment

?? Container Classes
?? Forms Sets
?? Referencing Form Objects
?? The _SCREEN Object

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