You use controls to display fields on a ClearQuest® form.
The
Designer provides controls for text boxes, list boxes, check boxes,
option buttons, and so on. For example, you can associate a field
that contains a string with a text-box control. Some controls can
be used only with specific field types. For example, the list-view
control and the parent/child control can be used only with a reference-list
field.
You can use some controls to perform special tasks.
Push buttons and list boxes can be associated with record scripts.
For example, in the ALM schema, the form on the ALMTask record type
includes a CreateActivity button that calls a Record Script to create
the Activities defined in the project's WorkConfiguration records.
The Designer also provides an ActiveX control that
you use to incorporate any registered ActiveX control into a form.
For example, you might use an ActiveX control to interact with an
external database. Before using this control, you must be familiar
with ActiveX functionality and how to register your controls. Note
that you can use ActiveX controls only with the Rational® ClearQuest for Windows client.
The following form controls are supported:
- Form control
- Description
- ActiveX
- Incorporates any registered ActiveX control into a form. You write
the initialization record script and the action record script.
- Attachment
- Displays a list of attached files and includes a set of controls
that allow users to add, remove, or view attached files.
- Check Box
- A two-value control you can use for Boolean values or any field
that has only two values. To specify the two values, right-click the
control on the form and click Properties.
- Combo Box
- Combines an editable text field with a list box.
- Drop-down List Box
- Displays a list of possible values for a particular field.
- Drop-down Combo Box
- Combines an editable text field with a drop-down list box.
- Duplicate Box
- Displays the ID of the record of which this record is a duplicate.
- Duplicate Dependent
- Displays the IDs of any records that are duplicates of this record.
- Group Box
- Visually groups together one or more other controls.
- History
- Displays information about the actions applied to a record.
- List Box
- Displays a list of possible values for a particular field. List
boxes include an additional control for selecting one or more items
from a choice list.
- List View
- Allows you to display the records associated with a field of the
REFERENCE_LIST type. Displays the associated reference list in a multicolumn
format.
- Option Button
- Option button controls are used in groups to represent a set of
mutually exclusive choices. Restricts the selection to one option
in a group.
- Parent/child
- Allows you to set up a form to link associated records. Used with
REFERENCE_LIST field type. The parent/child control consists of both
a list view control and three push buttons. The list view control
and push buttons are associated by using a unique list view ID. If
you change the ID of the list view, you must also update the push
buttons.
- Picture
- Allows you to include a static image on your form.
- Push Button
- Initiates specific tasks related to the record. You can associate
push buttons with record hooks or with list views.
- Static Text
- Displays an uneditable text string.
- Text Box
- Displays a field value as an editable text string.
For detailed descriptions of the properties for each
control type, see Form controls.
Adding controls to a form
Before
you can add a field to a form, you must add the field in the Record
Fields grid. For more information, see To add a new field to the Record Fields
grid.
You can add controls to a form by
using the control Palette or the Field List.
- The Control Palette provides a visual cue as to
the type of control you are adding.
- Selecting a field in the Field List and dragging
it to the form adds the appropriate control to the form.
You can add a field to a form more than once,
but all instances of the field must have the same value.
Adding a control with the Field List
The
advantage of using the Field List to add a control to a form is that
when you select a field from the list and drag it to the form, the
appropriate control for that field type is added to the field. You
do not have to edit the control properties to associate the field
with the control.
The following table lists the
default control that the Designer creates for each field type.
- Field type
- Default control
- Attachment List
- Attachment
- Constant List Choice List
- Drop-down list box
- Date-Time
- Text box
- Integer
- Text box
- Multiline String
- Text box
- Reference List
- Parent/child
- Reference List Constant
- List view
- Reference Choice List=Default
- Drop-down list box
- Short String Constant List
- Drop-down list box
- Short String
- Text Box
Editing control properties
If you use the control Palette to add a new control
to a form, you must edit the control properties to associate that
control with an existing field.
After adding a
control to a form, you can edit the properties of the control, including
selecting the field to associate with the control and specifying display
attributes for the control. You can also assign record hooks to some
controls to allow users perform specific tasks by using that control.
If you want dependent fields to be enabled in Rational ClearQuest Web,
you must specify the field on which the dependency is based. To do
this, use the Web Dependent Fields section
of the control properties page.
For descriptions
of the properties for each control type, see Form controls.
Deleting a control from a form
If
you no longer need a control, you can delete it from the form.
Deleting a control removes it and its label from the
form but does not remove the associated field from the schema. To
remove the field from the schema, you must delete the field from the
Fields grid. For more information, see Deleting a field.
Changing
the size and location of controls
To change
the size and location a control, you can select the control and drag
it to a new location on the form, or you can specify the exact location
coordinates for a control on the control properties page. To move
a control using the arrow keys on the keyboard, select the control
and press the period (.) key until you see the "move" icon:
You can
now use the arrow keys to position the control on the form.
The Form Layout menu provides
the same tools as the Form toolbar, plus some additional tools. The
following table lists each tool and its function.
The
align and same-size tools use the last control that you select as
the basis for modifying the other controls.
- Layout tool
- Description
- Align left
- Aligns the left edge of each control with the left edge of the
control that was selected last.
- Align right
- Aligns the right edge of each control with the right edge of the
control that was selected last.
- Align top
- Aligns the top edge of each control with the top edge of the control
that was selected last.
- Align bottom
- Aligns the bottom edge of each control with the bottom edge of
the control that was selected last.
- Align vertical centers
- Aligns the vertical center of each control with the vertical center
of the control that was selected last..
- Align horizontal centers
- Aligns the horizontal center of each control with the horizontal
center of the control that was selected last.
- Space evenly across
- Arranges the selected controls horizontally to allocate an equal
amount of space between all controls. The leftmost and rightmost controls
are not moved.
- Space evenly down
- Arranges the selected controls vertically to allocate an equal
amount of space between all controls. The topmost and bottommost controls
are not moved.
- Center vertically in dialog
- Aligns the vertical center of each control with the vertical center
of the tab.
- Center horizontally in dialog
- Aligns the horizontal center of each control with the horizontal
center of the tab.
- Make same width
- Makes each control the same width as the control that was selected
first.
- Make same height
- Makes each control the same height as the control that was selected
first.
- Make same width and height
- Makes each control the same width and height as the control that
was selected first.
- Size to content
- Adjusts the size of each selected control so that its entire contents
can be viewed. This is useful for minimizing the size of a Static
Text control while still maintaining the readability of the string.
Changing the tab order of controls
The tab order of controls determines which control receives
focus when a user presses the Tab key. Each time the user presses
Tab, the focus moves to the next control in the tab order.
By default, the tab order of controls is the order in
which you added the controls to the form. You can change the tab order
so that it reflects the order in which you expect users to use the
controls.