This page explains how to open a screen or create a new one.
Select an Existing Screen
From the application Home window, select Design Screens.
- Select one of the listed screens.
PhixFlow opens the screen canvas on the left and the palette on the right.
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Create a New Screen
If you have defined your data in an ERD, you can create a screen and its components based on data; see Create a Screen From ERD Data. To create the screen first:
- Click
Create New to create a new screen.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - Select a screen template. This will give you pre-set layouts such as:
- desktop or mobile dimensions
- full screen or pop-up
- a data grid or form.
- PhixFlow prompts you to:
- Enter the name and description for the screen.
- Select whether or not the screen will Open Maximised.
When you select this option, the screen will open "full screen" for the application user.
Otherwise, PhixFlow assumes the screen will be a pop-up window. It automatically selects the following options:- Always on top
- Allow user to resize
- Click Confirm.
- PhixFlow opens a new screen canvas on the left and the palette on the right.
To add components to the screen, drag them into the canvas from the palette.
The Screen Canvas and Options
PhixFlow has several areas of the screen with features to help you when designing a screen.
- The central area is the canvas where you design your screen.
- Along the top of the canvas is the toolbar
- On the left is the layers panel, which shows how the components are nested; see Using Layers, below.
- On the right is the palette. Drag components from the palette onto the canvas.
- Above the toolbar, are tabs?? where you can find things that you might want to use:
- other palettes
- component categories
- templates: components that can be added to a palette
- styles
- menus
- images.
Unlock a Screen Canvas
To prevent accidental editing of a screen, PhixFlow opens an existing screen with the canvas locked:
- when you first open an existing screen in
Insert excerpt _design_mode _design_mode nopanel true - when you switch between
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To unlock the canvas, right-click on the canvas and select
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Adding Components to a Screen
A typical screen has a nested structure, as shown in the following picture.
The way a screen is made up of layers of components is reflected in the way components are grouped in the palette. At the top level are the pre-built items, such as:
- Complete Forms - drag in a single tile that has all the components to crete a full screen.
- Form Elements - drag in several tiles to design your own screen. Each tile has layers of components, such as an area with headers, fields and labels.
If you want more control over the design of your screen, drag individual components from Base Components and Data Elements. Start by dragging in area components to be the containers. These will give you distinct areas on the screen, with padding and margins so that child items can be automatically positioned.
- Tile containers - create the areas on your screen design
- You can then drag in Tiles or tile elements. These are still composites of several components.
If you want to go right back to the basic screen components and fields, use the last 2 palettes.
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You do not need to add lots of individual form fields to your screen. Instead you can:
For how to do this, see Showing Data on a Component. Alternatively, you can add components, such as fields, and bind them to data later. |
Fields that do not know what data to show are displayed with a broken link icon??, and those that have a data binding show the link icon??
For your selected template, PhixFlow displays a palette. This has all the "bits" or components you need to build a screen.
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The easiest way to move components around is in the layers panel, rather than in the screen itself. When you are dragging things around in the screen, PhixFlow may not know if you want to drop a component:
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Where Can I Drop This?
Whenever you start to drag a component from the palette, or an attribute, PhixFlow highlights the area onto which you can drop something using light blue, as shown below.
Using Layers
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As you add components to the screen, they are nested so that there is an outer container (parent) with components inside (children). To show the parent/child hierarchy, click
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You can
- Select something on your screen to see it/them highlighted in the layers list.
- Selected items outlined in blue
- Parent item outlined in orange.
- in the layers list, drag components around to move them on the screen.
See Also
Refer to details in other pages
- Component concepts, and properties.
- Component → template → palette
- Where you can drop things - default container
- Designing with Drag-drop page
- Screen properties
- Palettes and Themes
- Styles and Formats
For how to display data see: Showing Data on a Component.
Testing Screens
PhixFlow aims to show you how the screen will appear to users. However, when you are working in
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