- Created by Anthony George, last modified on Jan 11, 2023
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Introduction
In order to add content to the screen we need access to the palette and the screen must be unlocked.
Locking and Unlocking a screen
The screen is unlocked if you can see the context toolbar for the screen.
- To unlock the screen for editing, right-click anywhere on the screen to open the popup menu and select Unlock.
- PhixFlow displays the toolbar for the screen so that you can begin to make changes.
- If you want to see how a user will experience the screen, you can Lock the screen, this means when we click on an item we will interact with it rather than edit it.
Palette
- To view the palette, click Palette from the context toolbar to display the palette on the right.
Adding Content
We will now create the following screen:
Adding a Grid
We can drag a table directly onto a screen to display it. This is how:
- From the toolbar click Table
- The list of available tables will appear in the repository
- Drag the companies table onto the screen canvas.
- Select how you want to display the data, select Grid.
- The attribute picker appears and here we can select the attributes we wish to display, this will include the attributes from the table and those from related tables.
- Select all the attributes and drag them onto the grid.
- Column widths can be set by dragging the header to the desired width.
- If you want a specific size, click the column header.
- In the properties that open navigate to Grid Settings → Grid Default Width (pixels) and enter a specific value here.
- Click on the Company Name column header
- Set Grid Settings → Grid Default Width (pixels) to be,
200
. - In the Label section we will change the name displayed in the column header to be,
Name
. - Click Apply
- Set Grid Settings → Grid Default Width (pixels) to be,
- Take some time to space out the columns as required.
- Once you are happy with your column layout you can test it in app mode to see how it will appear to users.
- Click Application Mode in the top right corner of the screen to switch the application into App Mode. This is how users will experience your application.
- You can lock an app to interact with it as a user will but design panes remain displayed.
- To switch back to designing your application, click Design Mode in the top right hand corner. Lock.
Set a Static Header
- Click on the header,
Header 1 Dynamic
. - Its properties open on the right.
- In the Default Value, change the text to be
Companies Data
. - Click Apply.
- IN the event you do not see the change appear on your screen, close and reopen the screen.
Add Items from the Palette
- We will now add an additional Tile.
- Open your palette.
- Navigate to the Tiles section
- Drag Blank-Column onto your screen.
- Notice the centre of the screen highlights this is because the body of your screen is the preferred parent of a Tile.
- There are lots of tiles available each designed to satisfy a specific need or act as a foundation for your own design. Mouse over the tiles to find out more about each.
- Name the tile
Additional Info
.
Check Point
At this point your screen should look like this:
Add a Card Container
We will add a card container that will display the employees for the selected company.
- In the palette expand the Card Containers section.
- Drag Contacts onto the tile Additional Info.
- Name it
Employees
. - We now have a card container that is designed to hold contact information. We will use this to display employee information.
- In the Employee Details Card Container properties open on the right.
- If they have closed click on the Employees card container in the layouts section on the left.
- Click Table, next to the Tables box.
- Drag Employees into the Tables box.
- This sets the Employees as the table backing the card container and will allow us to display the data.
- With Employees as the backing table PhixFlow will automatically associate any table attributes to form fields or dynamic text fields with the same name . For example, there is a dynamic text field called Role on the Employees card container, this matches the attribute Role on the Employees table, therefore the Role data is displayed in the dynamic text.
- When working in design mode the card container will only display one card containing the data from the first record is receives from the backing table. When we switch to Application Mode or Lock, all the data we have chosen will be displayed.
- To display the data on the Employees table we can either change the names of the form fields and dynamic text fields to match the attribute name on the Employees table or we can tell PhixFlow which attributes to associate with them. Here we will use the latter option:
- Click on First Name to highlight it and then right-click and select Add Backing Attribute.
- In the Available Attributes dialog that opens tick
first_name
. - Click the Next button.
- The form field will now display the data in the first_name attribute.
- We will repeat these steps but this time set the Last Name field to be the last_name attribute on the Employees table.
- We will return to this card container later and add additional content to display data.
Add a Splitter
We will now add a splitter. This will allow us to separate a tile into two separate sections.
- In the palette open the Basic Layouts section.
- Drag the Area - Split H onto the tile Additional Info.
- Hover your mouse over any of the components in the palette to see a full description.
- Name it
Splitter
. - This will most likely have moved the card container. What we will do now is move the card container into the top part of the splitter.
- In the Layouts section on the right
- Expand Splitter.
- Find the Employees card container. Click on it and hold the shift key, and now drag it onto Split Area Top.
- The card container will now appear in the top area.
- We will now add a generic map to the Splitter Area Bottom.
- From the palette, from the Maps section drag the Map over the bottom area of Splitter.
- Call it
Map
. - This is a generic map, instructions are provided in the expression for the component on how to set this to dynamically update or see the article: How-to Create a Google Map
- The map will display when we switch to Application Mode or Lock the screen.
- Call it
Check Point
Switch to Application Mode or Lock the screen and it should look like the image below.
Linking Views
Data is displayed in PhixFlow via views. The grid and the card container are both considered views. At present the Employee card container is showing all employees and ideally we only what to show those associated to the company selected on the Companies grid. We will achieve this using filter.
We will create a background filter as follows:
- Drag Company ID from the grid onto the card container.
- Select
Company ID
and click OK. The prompt is for us to select which attribute on the card container we want to compare to the Company ID we just dragged across. - The filter is created and applied automatically. The filter properties open on the right.
- In the properties window change the Name to
Selected Company
. - Click Apply.
Filter Explaination
- Filter Details: here is an overview of the filter details, for more information see Filter.
- Our Clause, Companies.CompanyID, is referencing the component on the screen called Companies and its attribute CompanyID. One very important factor here is that our clause is set to be an expression.
- Literal Value indicates the value is expected to be a string. Click this icon to switch to an expression.
- (Expression String) indicates the value is expected to be an expression. Click this icon to switch to a string.
Accessing the Filter
The filter we created is owned by the card container. This means to access the filter we navigate to t through the card container.
- Click on the card container in the Layers section or click on the card container header on the screen, to open its properties.
- Expand the Background Filter Rules, here we see a list of all background filter rules applied to the card container.
- Double-click on any rule to open it. For our example double-click Selected Company.
- We see the Filter Rule. This is the condition that needs to be satisfied in order for the Filter to be applied. Our example is blank, this means it will always fire. However we can create a filter condition using PhixScript. We will see examples of this later in the course.
- To open the filter we created click the Filter hyperlink above the filter name.
- We also have the option to disable the filter here by unticking the Enabled check box. This is helpful if debugging.
- Finally we have the option to Stop if True. If ticked, if this filter rule is true no filter rules that occur after this one will be checked.
- Switch to app mode and when you select different companies in the grid the associated employees should be displayed.
- Switch back to design mode.
Tile Formatting
Before we continue we will now look at formatting the tiles. We can set a tiles width using a size, percentage or a growth factor shch is co
Edit the Card Container
build up a employees contact card.
Add a splitter and move card into the top
Add a map to the bottom.
Link the two areas
Add the Crud buttons
Create a new screen and show more screen options
About Tables → Views → Grids
Adding Data as a Grid
- The Grid
- Use Custom Data Range
- The View
- Periods
- Inheriting the period from the table.
- The Table
- Table Period.
- Combined filtering
- Does the grid setting override the view????
- CRUD Buttons
- Adding Crud buttons after prompt.
- Attributes
- Adding attributes
- Relational Attributes
- Reordering Attributes
- Hiding Attributes
- Conditionally Hiding Attributes.
- Styling a Grid
- Basics
- Bold Text
- Available Styling i.e. default styles.
- Conditional Formatting Background Colour
- Cell and Row.
- Removing the Title
- Labelling and double header?
- Link to in depth How To guide
- Basics
- In grid editing, link to how to.
Adding Data as a Card Container
- The Container
- Table
- View
- Filtering
- The Cards
- Design and App mode display.
- Adding filters dynamically
- Changing the backing attributes
Adding a Chart
- Simple Setup
- Colour Maps
- Link to setting up more chart types.
Finding Layouts and Components
It can be very useful to find a layout, component or container. There are two ways to do this:
Using Layers
The Layers pane is expandable from the left of the screen canvas. Select an item:
- on the canvas to highlight it in the Layers pane
- in the Layouts pane to highlight it on the canvas.
If the layer section is not visible click Show/Hide Layer Panel.
Using Find in Repository
Right-click any item on an unlocked screen and select Find in Repository Alternatively, to search the repository, expand the Components section and navigate to the component. The position of the components on a screen is reflected in their order and nesting in the repository list.
To check whether a component is shared with multiple applications, open its properties and check the Parent Details section, which names the application or package to which the component belongs. For example a component that is shared between several applications has a package as its parent; see Package.
Moving Components
- Options
- Templates
- Complete
- Blank
- Screen Options
- Floating
- Size
- Open Maximised
- Creating from an ERD
- Creating from a Workflow
- Available Unused Actions.
Styles
explanation
Style Hierarchy
- Application Styles
- Shared Style
- Local Styles
- Formatting Rules
- Overriding Styles Best Practice
- Clearing Styles
Creating Screens from the Home page
- Options
- Templates
- Complete
- Blank
- Screen Options
- Floating
- Size
- Open Maximised
- Creating from an ERD
- Creating from a Workflow
- Available Unused Actions.
Data Type and Formatting
- Date
- Date-Time
- Numbers
- No labels