Screen Flow
Update the buttons in your app to give it a more natural flow. To recap the steps in the video:
Add a Clear button
- Add a new button to the Businesses dashboard
- Right click on the Business tab and go to Open Palette → Basic Components
- Hold shift and drag a new button on to the SimpleButtonHolder area.
- Configure the new button:
- Name: ClearBusinessFields
- Action Type: Clear All Fields
- Order: 4
- Button Label: New
Go into App Mode and try the new button. You will see that it clears the values from all fields on the form. Therefore, this is a useful button to press before entering details for a new contact.
Using Conditional Formatting
Now we will hide a button that users do not need to see when they are entering details for a new contact. We will hide the Update button when the details on the screen are blank. To do this, we can test the value of UID. Remember that the UID field is configured on the edit screen, and hidden - but this means we can use the value of UID. We know that UID is always set for every record, so we can test whether this is null or not to work out whether the fields on the edit form are currently populated. Remember also that to access a value on the edit form in an expression we can use _form.
- To conditionally hide the Delete button:
- Click on the Update button to open the configuration details
- Go to the section Formatting Rules
- Add a formatting rule
- Set the Rule Expression to _form.UID == _NULL
- Since there is currently no hidden style, add one:
- Next to Style, press +
- Set Name to Hidden
- Click the Hidden flag
- Save the new style
- In the formatting rule, set the Style to Hidden
- Save the formatting rule
- Apply the same settings to the Update button
- Apply the same settings to the New button
- Now update the Add button so that it is not shown when the user is updating a record, that is, when the UID field is set:
- Open configuration details for the Add button
- Add a formatting rule
- Set the Rule Expression to _form.UID! == _NULL
- set the Style to Hidden
- Save the formatting rule
Go into App Mode, and check that when you press New, all fields are cleared, and the Update, Delete and New buttons disappear, but the Add button is shown. Also check that when you select a record, the New and Add buttons are not displayed but the Update button is shown.