Using GUI Applications as Templates

In the Windows Designer, you can open a new application and base it on an existing application. The existing application is the template of the new application.

You can re-use all GUI classes (windows, dialogs, controls) of the existing application in the new application. You can also choose to re-use only a subset of the GUI classes of the existing application.

NOTE:

By using templates you could create an entire tree of GUI applications based on each other. This can get needlessly complicated and is only advisable if you want to carry GUI specifications from one project to another. Remember that a more straightforward way of making generic and inherited GUI specifications WITHIN an application is to use a style guide of generic GUI classes. Also remember that you can carry individual GUI classes from one project to another through external schema XML export files.

If you specify an existing GUI application as a template, all the initial specifications of the re-used GUI classes are read from the ESI flat file of that GUI application.

You can now continue developing both the template and the GUI application(s) based on it.

·	If you change the template, the changes will not cascade to the application based on it until you generate a new template file.

·	Once a template file is re-generated, all changes made to the template necessarily cascade to the application based on it unless the GUI classes concerned were not selected for re-use.