By the end of this chapter you will understand what an Open Screen action is and how to use them, and you will have created an Open Screen Actionflow in your application.

What is an Open Screen Action?

The  Open Screen action opens new screens in PhixFlow. Open Screen actions run once per flow, or once after receiving the final record.

Creating Open Screen Actions

1. Click the  Open Screen icon in the toolbar to display any existing screens in the application
   1. Existing screens can be dragged from the Repository onto the canvas to create an Open Screen node
2. Alternatively, drag the  Open Screen icon from the toolbar onto the canvas and follow the steps to create or open an existing screen

Worked Example

Here's a worked example using the School Data (available from the Learning Centre).

In this example, we want to be able to add and edit courses in the School Courses grid on the Course Management screen. The first step to doing this is by creating two Open Screen Actionflows. Both will open the same screen but when we are adding a new course, we want an empty input form, and when we are editing an existing course, we want the input form to contain course data.

We will configure the Save and Delete Actions on the input form in a later chapter on this course.

Note: When creating a new screen in PhixFlow, a Grid Actions wizard can configure the Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) actions for you. For the purposes of understanding the mechanics of Actionflows, we will create these manually.

Open Screen to Add New Data

1. On the Course Management screen, where the Actionflow will be initiated from, right-click on the button and choose  Add Actionflow
2. Enter a name for the Actionflow,
   1. Name: Add Course
   2. Select Confirm
3. Click the  Open Screen icon in the toolbar to display the existing screens in your application
4. Drag the  Course Form screen from the Repository onto the canvas to create an  Open Screen node

5. Select Click to Connect and for the input, choose the   On Click Action Event, then select Connect Input

6. Click and drag the  icon onto the  Open Course Form node to connect the input to the action
7. Close the Actionflow to return to the Course Management screen
8.  Lock the screen and press the  button to see the Actionflow in action
   1. We can see that the Actionflow is working because it opens an empty form

Open Screen to Edit Existing Data

1. On the Course Management screen, where the Actionflow will be initiated from, right-click on the  button and choose  Add Actionflow
2. Enter a name for the Actionflow,
   1. Name: Edit Course
   2. Select Confirm
3. Click the  Open Screen icon in the toolbar to display the existing screens in your application
4. Drag the Course Form screen from the Repository onto the canvas to create an Open Screen node
5. Select Click to Connect and for the input, choose the School_Courses View Component, then select Connect Input
6. The Mappings window will open:
   1. Drag the CourseID attribute from the left (Grid) to the right (Connection Point Interface), then click Save
   2. 
7. Click and drag the  icon onto the Open Course Form node to connect the input to the action
8. Right-click the connector between the  input node and  Open Screen node on the canvas
9. Choose  Open Mappings and the Mappings window will open:
   1. Drag the CourseID attribute from the left (Actionflow) to the right (Screen), then click Save
10. Close the Actionflow to return to the Course Management screen
11.  Lock the screen and press the button to see the Actionflow in action
    1. We can see that the Actionflow is working because it displays the data from the School Courses grid in the edit form