The Toolbox Window

PowerBASIC Forms offers a palette of 31 standard controls plus a user-definable custom-control option, each represented by a button in the toolbox window. The graphical captions for the toolbox buttons are described below. In addition, hovering the mouse cursor over a toolbox button will display a tool tip that remind the user of the type of control the button represents.

Controls are added to the current work dialog by clicking on the control type in the toolbox window, then performing a click+drag on the work dialog surface to define ("draw") the size of the control. Alternatively, controls can be added by double-clicking the control type in the toolbox window, at which point PowerBASIC Forms automatically positions and sizes the control to the default or favorite size specified for the control.

Large button	Description	DDT control type
$image\c_Graph2.gif$	Graphic control	GRAPHIC
$image\bm4.gif$	Image control	IMAGE
$image\bm6.gif$	Stretchable Image control	IMAGEX
$image\bm8.gif$	Label/Static control	LABEL
$image\bm10.gif$	Text/Edit control	TEXTBOX
$image\bm12.gif$	Frame/Group control	FRAME
$image\bm14.gif$	Button control	BUTTON
$image\bm16.gif$	Image Button control	IMGBUTTON
$image\bm18.gif$	Stretchable Image Button	IMGBUTTONX
$image\bm20.gif$	Check box control	CHECKBOX
$image\bm22.gif$	Check 3-state control	CHECK3STATE
$image\bm24.gif$	Option/Radio control	OPTION
$image\bm26.gif$	Combo box control	COMBOBOX
$image\bm28.gif$	List box control	LISTBOX
$image\bm30.gif$	Horizontal scroll control	SCROLLBAR
$image\bm32.gif$	Vertical scroll control	SCROLLBAR
$image\bm34.gif$	Line or Box control	LINE
$image\bm36.gif$	Spin/up-down control
$image\bm38.gif$	Progress bar control	PROGRESSBAR
$image\bm40.gif$	Slider/track bar control
$image\bm42.gif$	Hot key control
$image\bm44.gif$	Listview control	LISTVIEW
$image\bm46.gif$	Treeview control	TREEVIEW
$image\bm48.gif$	Tab control	TAB
$image\bm50.gif$	Animate control
$image\bm52.gif$	Rich edit control
$image\bm54.gif$	Date Time picker control
$image\bm56.gif$	Month calendar control
$image\bm58.gif$	IP address control
$image\bm60.gif$	Status Bar control	STATUSBAR
	Toolbar control	TOOLBAR
$image\bm62.gif$	Custom control	"Custom Control"

The toolbox window can also be resized and repositioned to any convenient location on the screen, and the change persists between sessions. In addition, the toolbox window supports a "small button" and a "large button" mode, which can be altered in the General Options tab of the Setup dialog.

Where the controls listed above do not have an equivalent DDT control name, PowerBASIC Forms generates the code for the control using the custom-control syntax, for example, CONTROL ADD "SysTreeView32". All common controls fall into this category.

It should be noted that standard Windows 95 installations do not support the Date Time Picker, Month Calendar, or IP Address common controls. However, these controls will be available if Internet Explorer™ version 3 (IE3) or latter has been installed, and/or if a latter version of the common controls library has been installed. PowerBASIC Forms will disable the toolbox buttons for those specific controls if the installed common control library does not support the controls. However, it is still possible to update those PCs by downloading and installing the latest common control Library for Windows 95 from the Microsoft web site at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx.

Fortunately, standard installations of successive versions of Windows are likely to support the common controls listed above because they will install more recent versions of Internet Explorer™.

For information on the menus offered in the main PowerBASIC Forms window, please see IDE Menus.