Dropdown Control

This control adds to the features of a text box by allowing the user to select an item either by typing text into the DROPDOWN control or by selecting it from the list.

NOTE:  The current version of abcDB has a maximum of 40 labels, 40 textboxes, 7 dropdowns, 6 buttons, 14 checkboxes, 1 grid, 4 datepickers, 1 image, 1 scribble and 1 tab per form.

The DROPDOWN control supports the following properties.

Property Name

Description

Back Color

Background Color

Bound Field

The Field from which this DROPDOWN will receive it’s data, or in other words, the field that this DROPDOWN will be ‘bound’ to.

Default

This property determines the default value that will be used to populate this DROPDOWN whenever a new record is added.  For example, if you have a date field, you could automatically populate this field with the current date by entering the following for the DEFAULT property:

DATE()

Alternatively, you could also set the default property to be a simple calculation, such as the following:

= ~TEXTBOX1~ * .07

Enabled

Specifies if this DROPDOWN will be enabled or disabled

Font

The FONT this DROPDOWN will use.

Font Size

The SIZE of the font this DROPDOWN will use.

Font Bold

Specifies if the font will be displayed in BOLD.

Font Italic

Specifies if the font will be displayed in ITALIC.

Font Underline

Specifies if the font will be displayed in UNDERLINE.

Fore Color

The foreground color of this DROPDOWN.

SQL

The SQL property will determine what items are contained in the dropdown list.  You can either enter an SQL statement that returns ONE field, OR you can also enter a hard-coded list of items which are separated by commas.

Ie. To display all the different cities that your customers live in:
”SELECT city FROM customers”

Ie. To display all the months of the year for your user to select from:
”Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec”

Tag

You can use the Tag property to specify or determine the string that identifies the name of a DROPDOWN.  Thereafter, the contents of that DROPDOWN can be referred to elsewhere in the application using the syntax ~TAGNAME~.

ie. If a DROPDOWN is bound to the CITY field of a customers table, you could give this DROPDOWN a TAG name of CITY, which can then be used elsewhere by using the syntax ~CITY~.

Visible

Specifies whether this DROPDOWN will be visible or invisible

Width

The width of this DROPDOWN in Twips*

Left

The horizontal location of the top-left corner of this DROPDOWN in Twips*

Top

The vertical location of the top-left corner of this DROPDOWN in Twips*

Barcode?

Specifies whether this DROPDOWN will be printed as a DROPDOWN OR as a BARCODE. (Note:  This property is only valid in ‘printing’ versions of abcDB™)

Print Border?

Specifies whether this DROPDOWN will be printed with a border or no border (Note: This property is only valid in ‘printing’ versions of abcDB™)

TabPage If a tab-control is present on the form, this property determines which 'page' of the tab this control will be located on.  0-Not on tab.

The DROPDOWN control supports the following EVENTS.

Event Name

Description

On Click

This event fires whenever a user selects an item from the list.  There are many uses for the ON CLICK event.

Ie.In an Automobile dealership, it might be useful to be able to quickly view all the vehicles of a given year.  You could add a DROPDOWN box which contains a list of all the years (ie. 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002). 

Once a user selects (taps) a year in the dropdown box, you could execute a FORMREQUERY statement to display only those vehicles which match the year chosen.