Boxes and Lines
You can draw boxes and lines on your form for informational and aesthetic purposes. You can use boxes and lines to visually group form components, to provide borders for both normal and pop-up style forms, and to add color and graphic design elements.
You draw boxes and lines with the Create Box/Line operation. Vertical lines are actually boxes that have a vertical length of any amount and a horizontal width of only one column. Horizontal lines are boxes that have a horizontal width of any amount and a vertical length of only one column.
While you can also draw horizontal lines on your form with the Create Trim operation using keyboard keys such as the underscore character or dash, the effect is different than that achieved by using the Box/Line operation. The Box/Line operation allows you to set line attributes (described in Enhancing Boxes and Lines) and also allows you to correctly create intersecting lines. Boxes and lines have the following characteristics:
• Boxes can be of any size up to the size of your form.
• Boxes and lines are the only trim components that can occupy more than one line on your form.
• Boxes can enclose other form components.
• Boxes can be nested within each other and overlap each other.
• If a box line intersects some other form component, the other component overwrites that portion of the box or line that it overlaps. It appears as if the component is lying on top of part of the box. The form is not harmed by having a component overlap part of a box line.
Box/Line Operation or Attribute Boxes
The Simple Fields Attributes operation allows you to automatically place a box around a simple field. Similarly, the FormAttr operation allows you to automatically place a box around a pop-up style form. These automatic box operations have no connection to creating a box with the Create Box/Line operation.
You can use the Create Box/Line operation instead of the automatic operations to place boxes around simple fields or pop-up style forms if you want. By using the Box/Line operation, you are able to specify the display attributes of the box; the automatic operations do not have that capability.
You can also use the Create Box/Line operation to place a box around a field that has been automatically enclosed by a box already, or to place a box immediately inside the border of a pop-up style form. In this case the field or form would then be displayed with two boxes, one nested within the other.
Create a Box or Line
To create a box or line
1. Place the cursor where you want one of the corners of the box to be and choose the Create operation.
The original cursor location that marks one corner of the box is displayed with a flashing plus sign (+).
2. Choose the Box/Line operation.
The following message displays:
Move cursor to position the opposite
corner (press <MENU KEY> when done)
The NewLine operation inserts a new blank line into the form at the cursor location.
To create a visible line, choose the Box/Line operation.
3. Move the cursor to where you want the diagonally opposite corner of the box to be.
For example, if the plus sign marks the upper left corner of the box, move the cursor to where you want the lower right corner to be. The locations of other form components do not matter, with one exception. If you position the diagonal corner so that part of the box's line passes through another component, that portion of the box line is hidden behind the other component.
To form a vertical line, place the cursor directly above or below the original cursor mark. This creates a box that has vertical length and a horizontal width of 1. To create a horizontal line, place the cursor to the right or left of the original cursor mark. This creates a box that has horizontal width and a vertical height of 1.
4. Press the Menu key.
Lines connecting the two corners of the box appear on your form.
To set display attributes of the box, or to change its size, see the following section.
To move a box or line, use the Move operation, described in Move Operation. To delete a box or line, use the Delete operation, as described in Delete Form Components.
Enhance Boxes and Lines
Use the Edit operation to change the size and shape of a box or line, or to specify display attributes.
To edit a box or line
1. Place the cursor anywhere on the box or line. The cursor must be on one of the lines that forms the box, not inside the box.
On terminals that use an underscore character as a cursor, you cannot get the cursor exactly on a horizontal line or horizontal side of a box because the line is drawn in the center of that row's character cell and the underscore is at the bottom of the cell. In this case, make sure that the cursor is in the same character cell (that is, the proper row).
Place the cursor at a point on the box or line that is unique to that box or line to clearly indicate which component you want to change. For example, if you place the cursor at the point where two boxes intersect, the Edit operation cannot tell which box you must change, and arbitrarily chooses one.
2. Choose the Edit operation.
The four corners of the box (at each end of a line) display in reverse video and the Edit menu for boxes displays the following choices:
Resize
Expands or contracts one or more sides of the box, or horizontal or vertical line.
Attributes
Specifies display attributes for the box, or horizontal or vertical line.
Help, End
Perform standard operations.
Resize a Box or Line
To change the size of a box
1. Choose the Resize operation on the Edit submenu.
The upper left corner is marked with a flashing plus sign (+). This is the anchor point. The cursor automatically shifts to the diagonally opposite corner.
2. Move the cursor to a new location. You can move the cursor in any direction.
3. Press the Menu key to redraw the box, using the anchor point and the cursor's new location as the diagonally opposite corners of the box.
4. When finished resizing the box, press the End key to return to the Form Layout frame.
5. To save your changes, choose the Save operation.
There are no restrictions on where you can move the cursor in the form. For example, you can flip a box by moving the cursor from the lower right corner (relative to the anchor point) to a new position above and left of the anchor point.
By rotating the anchor point to a different corner of the box you can change the orientation of your changes. To shift the anchor point, press the Tab key. Each time you press Tab, the anchor point and cursor rotate clockwise to a new corner of the box. By shifting the cursor and anchor point to new corners, you can expand or contract the box in any direction.
Specify Display Attributes for Boxes and Lines
You specify display attributes for a box or line the same way you
Specify Display Attributes for Trim.
The same attribute choices are available.
When boxes with different display attributes overlap each other, the most recently created attribute overwrites the older attribute at the intersection.