Kexi/Handbook/Building Simple Databases/Designing Forms/Working with form design

Working with form design

As with table or query design, you are able to use Data View and Design View. Form designing is performed in Design View. We will often refer to the form design window as to Form Designer.

To create a new empty form, select Insert-> Form from the Menubar. Optionally, you can use New Form command from drop-down button on the Project Navigator's toolbar or Create Object: Form command from the context menu.
A new frame will appear, you can resize the form by moving the borders. The form is covered with a grid which simplifies accurate positioning of the widgets.

As with table design, Form Designer provides Property pane. To save some space on the screen, the pane has three tabs related to the currently selected form:

The Properties tab: Contains a list of properties for the currently selected widget.
The Data source tab: Contains properties related specifically to the data source of the currently selected widget or the form itself.
The Widgets tab: Contains a hierarchy of all widgets of the form. The list simplifies widgets lookup by name and navigation between them.

There is information about currently selected widget's name and type displayed on the first and second tab.

Additional toolbars are also available:

The Widgets toolbar used for inserting new widgets into the form.

The Format toolbar used to format form's elements (e.g. adjusting widget's size, grouping). Formatting commands are also available in the Format menu.