Placing components on a form or report
You can place a component on a form or report by selecting its icon from the Component palette or from the Field palette.
Note
To see fields on the Field palette, you must have first placed an active Query object on the form. Fields represented on the Field palette are already linked to the fields of the table(s) specified in the Query object.
To place a component,
Click the component on the palette to select it.
Drag on the design surface until the component is the size you want, or click on the design surface without dragging to add a component in its default size.
Note
If you’re placing a field, simply click the form window; dragging will not size the field while you’re adding it, although you can size it by dragging it after you’ve dropped it on the form or report.
Alternatively, you can add a component in these ways:
Double-click the component in the palette; it appears at a default position on the design surface.
Drag the component from the palette to the design surface.
By default, the mouse reverts to a pointer after you place a component on the design surface. If you want to place multiple instances of a component without having to return to the Component palette to select the component anew each time, uncheck the Revert Cursor To Pointer option in the Customize Tool Windows dialog box (View|Tool Windows|Customize Tool Windows). If you’ve unchecked this option, then before you select another component you have to first click the Pointer icon on the Component palette.
Special case: container components
Besides the form itself, dBASE Plus provides other components that themselves contain components. Examples are the Container and Notebook components. You can use these components to group other components so that they behave as a unit at design time. For instance, you might group pushbuttons and check boxes that provide related options to the user.
When you place components within container components, you create a new parent-child relationship between the container and the components it contains. Design-time operations you perform on these "container" (or parent) components, such as moving, copying, or deleting, also affect any components grouped within them.
Note
The form remains the owner for all components, regardless of whether they are parented within another component.
You generally want to add container components to the form before you add the components you intend to group, because it's easiest to add components that you want grouped directly from the Component palette into the container component. However, if a component is already in the form, you can add it to a container component by cutting and then pasting it. If you drag it in, it does not become a child to the container, and will not act as part of the container unit.