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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To create or edit a screen, load your application then in the header bar, click

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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

. PhixFlow opens the screens window.

Screens

Opening an Existing Screen

To open an existing screen:
- either, in the header bar, click
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Create New to create a new screen.

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.

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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_modenopaneltruewhen you switch between Insert excerpt_design_mode_design_modenopaneltrue and Insert excerpt_app_mode_app_modenopaneltrue.To unlock the canvas, right-click on the canvas and select Insert excerpt_layout_unlock_layout_unlocknopaneltrue.

Adding Components to a Screen

A typical screen has a nested structure, as shown in the following picture.

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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.

Tip

You do not need to add lots of individual form fields to your screen. Instead you can:

select the attributes you want to apper in a form
drag the attributes onto the parent container for the form
let PhixFlow create default form fields in which to display data records.

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.

Tip

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:

into another component, creating a parent-child relationship
next to another component, creating a sibling relationship.

If instead you drag acomponent in the list of layers, you can be specific about how the component relates to other components on the screen.

If you are using PhixFlow's palette, most components will flow into the space that is available to them. see Using Size and Position for Responsive Design.

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.

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Using Layers AnchorlayerlayerAs 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 Insert excerpt_layer_slider_layer_slidernopaneltrue. There is an example on the right.

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.

Testing Screens

PhixFlow aims to show you how the screen will appear to users. However, when you are working

- and in the list, click on the screen name you want to open
- or in the repository, expand your application's Screens section and double-click a screen name.
  Alternatively, right-click the name and select Display.
PhixFlow opens the screen in the canvas with the screen locked.
To unlock the screen for editing, right-click anywhere on the screen to open the popup menu and select
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PhixFlow displays the toolbar for the screen so that you can begin to make changes.
Click
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to display the palette on the right. Drag components from the palette into the screen.

Unlocking and Locking a Screen for Editing

When you first open an existing screen in

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, it is locked so that you do not accidentally move any of the components. There is no canvas toolbar visible. To edit the screen, you must unlock it. Right-click on the canvas and select

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An unlocked screen has all the toolbar and pop-up menu options that you need to move components and edit their properties. If you click on a component, such as a button, PhixFlow opens its properties.

Creating a New Screen

To create a new screen:
- either, in the header bar, click
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  .
  PhixFlow displays the list of available screens with an
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  button on the left.
- or in the repository, expand your application's Screens section, which includes an
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  button.
Click
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. PhixFlow opens a window with basic options for your screen. These options are saved in the screen properties.
- Enter a Name for the screen.
- By default, the screen opens maximised in the PhixFlow window.
  Untick Open Maximised if you want a popup window.
- Select one of the screen layout templates. To design your own, screen, select the empty layout.
PhixFlow opens the new screen with the selected layout template and prompts for the details of the table that will be used to populate the screens data.
1. The screen is unlocked and the palette is open in the right panel.

More Screen Properties

There are additional screen properties that affect how the screen behaves. In the toolbar, click

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to open the Screen properties in the right panel. Here are some example screen setups.

For a popup screen, for example for data entry:

in
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→ Basic Settings:
- tick Always On Top
- tick Allow Manual Resizing
in
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→ Style Settings
- set Position to Floating
- PhixFlow has defaults for the size and position of a screen. To change these defaults, set:
  - the size of the window using Width and Height
  - the position of the window, using Top, Left, Right and Bottom.

For a maximised screen, for example to display data:

in
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→ Basic Settings:
- tick Open Maximised
- untick Always On Top
if you intend to make your own navigation or screen controls, untick Show Window Button Bar
optionally, untick Allow user to resize.

Creating a Menu

To create a menu for you application that is always present

To create a menu in the header bar, click
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PhixFlow displays the list of available screens.
Click the
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button on the left.
Enter a Name for the menu.
Select one of the menu layout options.
PhixFlow creates a new menu with the selected layout and will open the menu when your application starts.

Tip
A quick way to create menu options is to drag a screen from the repository directly onto a menu to create a button and actionflow that will open that screen. On the screens home page right-click on the

Testing Screens

When you are creating and editing screens that make up an application, you are working in

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PhixFlow runs applications in

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, with only essential PhixFlow options displayed in the header bar. All other PhixFlow options are hidden. Instead the application user interacts with the screens and menus you have created.

To switch modes, click the icon in the right of the header bar.

When you have configured part of a screen, you may want to test how it behaves for an application user. For example, you may want to click a button and run its action, or have a URL component display its content. To do this:

either, in
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there are visible elements to help you with the process of screen design. For example, the top of the canvas shows the screen toolbar, and components that are connected to data are marked with glyps. To see how a screen will appear to a user and to test how it is working, switch to

, in the screen toolbar, click on
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or, in the header bar on the right, click
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. You can now interact with the screen as if you are an application user.

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to run your application as an application user.

Deleting Screens

Screen can be deleted from the Screens homepage or the

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by right-clicking and choosing

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Deleting a screen containing an area only used by that screen also deletes the area.

Note:

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are unaffected.

Version	Old Version 26	New Version Current
Changes made by	Fiona Sargeant (Unlicensed)	Zoe Baldwin
Saved on	Jun 03, 2021	Aug 14, 2024

Versions Compared

Key

Select an Existing Screen

Create a New Screen

Opening an Existing Screen

The Screen Canvas and Options

Unlock a Screen Canvas

Adding Components to a Screen

Where Can I Drop This?

See Also

Testing Screens

Unlocking and Locking a Screen for Editing

Creating a New Screen

More Screen Properties

Creating a Menu

Testing Screens

Deleting Screens

Page Comparison

Versions Compared

Key

Select an Existing Screen

Create a New Screen

Opening an Existing Screen

The Screen Canvas and Options

Unlock a Screen Canvas

Adding Components to a Screen

Where Can I Drop This?

See Also

Testing Screens

Unlocking and Locking a Screen for Editing

Creating a New Screen

More Screen Properties

Creating a Menu

Testing Screens

Deleting Screens