Kexi/Handbook/Building Simple Databases/Designing Forms/Most important terms
Most important terms
- Form
- A window provided for easy data entry and presentation on the computer screen.
- Form's data source
- Database table or query providing data displayed in the form. The data source is needed because forms itself are only tools for displaying and entering data, while tables and queries are the source of data. New, empty forms have no data source assigned, so they are not displaying any data from your database unless you assign a data source to them.
- Form field
- Direct equivalent of a column in a table or query. Most frequently used are fields for displaying text and numbers. Entering a new value or changing the existing value of such a field causes a change in the bound table or query column (after accepting the change).
- Form design
- Tasks you are performing to define the appearance and functions of the form. To do this, you need to provide data source, insert form fields of various types and place them at the appropriate location.
- Form widget
- Form's element. Main widget types are:
- Widgets displaying information, e.g. a text box or an image box. Each widget of this type can be bound to a data source field (a table or a query column). Therefore, such widgets are called in short form fields.
- Widgets able to perform a specified action, e.g. a push button that can close the current form. Within other applications this widget type is sometimes called form control because it can perform previously defined action of controlling your database application's behavior.
- Other widgets allowing to enrich a form's appearance, e.g. a “line widget” can visually separate two form areas.
- Container widget
- A widget that can contain other widgets within its area. For example, frame widget or tab widget are containers. The form's surface itself is a container as well. A command button cannot be called as container because it is not possible to insert a widget inside it. In more complex cases, container widgets can be inserted inside a container, so nesting is possible.