Application Panel

Application Panel

The Application element contains the definition of the mobile application. By double-clicking the Application element under the BXP project tree the Application Panel will appear. The Application Panel is the canvas where a visual view of the application is displayed. It is used to define the application and the form navigation within the application. Through this panel the application is displayed in a graphical and simple way where form dialogs and form links can easily be created through simple mouse and keyboard commands. This is all done without any complicated programming required.

Application Canvas

The Application Canvas is where the application is laid out visually through dialog components and form links. Using this canvas, you can add form dialog components and create form links to connect these dialogs to one-another. These links specify how a parent dialog will open a child dialog.

Form dialogs can be added to the application by dragging and dropping from the Form dialog toolbar to the Application Canvas.

Form links are created by holding the 'Ctrl' button and selecting the parent dialog then holding the left click button on the mouse and dragging the created arrow to the child dialog to be linked.

Within the panel, dialogs and links will highlight in red if are considered incomplete. For more information how to track and rectify these errors, please refer to the Project Validation topic for the Business Application Designer.

Form Dialog Toolbar

Within the Application Panel is a toolbar that contains all the possible form dialogs shown as icons.

Simply dragging and dropping a form dialog icon onto the Application Canvas will create a dialog component of that specific dialog (e.g. dragging and dropping the settings icon will create a settings dialog component). These components are visual representations of form dialogs and may be the target of form links. Once created, double-clicking on a dialog component in the Application Canvas will open the specific dialog editor where the properties of the dialog can be changed.

Alignment and Zoom Toolbar

The Application Panel also provides alignment and zoom functionality to better visualise the components laid out in the Application Canvas. On the bottom of the Application Panel, various alignment buttons are provided to allow for multiple dialog components be aligned. In what direction they are aligned depends on the chosen alignment button pressed; the components can be left, right, top or bottom aligned. The alignment buttons will only be enabled when two or more dialog components are selected. Furthermore, zooming is provided for the Application Canvas through the zoom dial found on the bottom of the Application Panel. A zoom percentage can be specified through this dial with a minimum of 10% and maximum 300% zoom factor.

Also note that while the application panel is focused, the zoom factor may be increased or decreased by holding the 'Ctrl' button on the keyboard and scrolling up and down on the mouse.

Component Properties Panel

The Component Properties Panel is a section of the Application Panel used to display a list of form dialogs currently defined within the application. This panel is also used to display the properties available to each form dialog node. Through the Component Properties Panel, these properties can be altered to tailor to the developers needs. The title of the form that is displayed in the application can be changed as well as other display features such as background colour and image style.

Form Dialog Properties

When a component within the Application Panel is selected, the corresponding properties for that component populate the Properties panel within the Application Panel.

Form Dialog properties (sorted by property name) include: