Scripting in USoft Windows Designer

Actions and events

In USoft Windows Designer, you can script customised software behaviour by triggering actions when events occur. For example:

•You can open or close info boxes or dialogs when the end user clicks certain buttons.

•You can change the background color of a field when it displays certain data.

•You can have totals re-computed in additional fields each time new data are displayed.

•You can raise a particular tab page in a Tab object displaying child data, depending on what data are displayed in a parent box.

Triggering object and target object

Actions are defined on objects. Events are also defined on objects. Each time you script an action that must occur on an event, there is a source object or triggering object where the event takes place, and a target object where the action must have an effect. For example, if you want data to be cleared from an info box when the user presses a button, the button is the source object and the info box is the target object.

The triggering object is implicitly the object where the event is defined. If you script:

RecordDelete()

in the Action event property of a button B, then the triggering object is button B.

The target object is often also implicit. In an info box, the target object of RecordDelete() is by default the top-level info box that displays the data. This is where a record is deleted.

At other times, you specify the target object explicitly.

Tab_1.ControlSetActiveTab(Page 2)

the target object is "Tab_1". This is the tab control that must execute the action of raising its Page 2 as the active tab page.

Conditional events

In some cases, you want the script to take effect only under specific conditions. For example, you want to delete a record when the user presses a button, but this may ONLY happen if the CANCEL_DATE field in the record has a non-null value.

To script conditional actions, you must have records to decisions. A decision allows you to find out first whether something applies, and then IF it applies to perform an action (called Yes Action). A decision also lets you define what action must be taken in the opposite case (the decision's No Action).

See Next

Actions