Specialists in Caché & Object Oriented System Solutions

Interface Design

Lastic GUI Builder is the visual interface designer for Lastic GUI, providing complete form construction and help text authoring facilities.

Control Types
A rich array of standard and specialised Windows controls are supported, including:

• text boxes (single and scrolling multi-line)
• list boxes (single and multiple select)
• combo boxes
• check boxes
• command buttons
• bitbuttons
• fixed and variable texts
• frames
• meters (a combination of progress bar and text)
• grids (editable with cell level look-up facility)
• pictures (bitmaps, jpegs, etc.)
• outline (as in Windows Explorer)
• hypertext (providing linked text entries)
• select (a combination of output text and button)
• workbench (for visual designer facilities)
• text window (as per Notepad)
• tab control
• date / time picker
• Splitter
• form menus
• pop-up menus

Form Construction
The main form of Lastic GUI Builder provides the visual form design environment, including:

• control type selection
• control property and event selection
• control property and event editing

Controls may be positioned, moved and resized using the mouse or by specifying the appropriate properties in the property grid. Blocks of controls can also be moved using the mouse.

Form level properties and events can also be set.

Event-handlers at the form and control level are associated with your own application routines on the host Caché / M system.

Sample displays of the form can be generated throughout the design process.

A scaling facility enables the builder form display to be reduced in size - useful when maintaining large forms. Scaling can be from 50% to 100% (in steps of 10%).

All form details are saved within the Caché / M database.

Help Text Authoring
Lastic GUI Builder also contains help file authoring facilities, enabling your applications to be supported by context-sensitive online help information.

Help may be provided at the form and individual control level. Hyperlinks can be specified, allowing users to navigate easily through your help files.

All help information is held centrally within the Caché / M database.

Additional Facilities
Additional facilities are provided for creating and editing tables relating to:

• system wide button texts
• Caché / M functions
• help texts
• look-ups
• validation codes

A 'Templates' facility enables a selected control to be saved as a template (including all properties and events) or a previously saved template to be loaded into the current form. This facility provides a quick means of propagating a control across forms while ensuring all properties and events remain consistent.