Difference between revisions of "LibreOffice-Suite-Base/C2/Add-Push-Button-to-a-form/English"

Spoken tutorial on LibreOffice Base : Push Button Control Learning Objectives

Add a Push Button to a form

In this tutorial, we will learn how to

Add a Push Button to a form.

Adding Push Button to a form

Show Image BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG and point at the buttons at the bottom of the image.

Now in this tutorial, we will learn how to add push buttons to a form.

Click on the 'open an existing database file' option.

And open our Library database. You probably now how to open an existing database by now.

Click Open under the File menu and choose Library database.

Click on the Forms icon on the left panel

Right click on the form 'Books Issued to Members', and click edit.

Let us open the 'Books Issued to Members' form that we were working with in the last tutorial.

To do this, let us click on the Forms icon on the left panel

And then right click on the 'Books Issued to Members' form on the right panel. Now click on Edit.

We are now in the form design window.

Right-click on the text box next to Member name label. Click on Cut.

Remember, we had an assignment of creating the second list box in the previous tutorial.

First, let us remove the text box that is on the right of the Member Name label

by right-clicking on this text box and then clicking on Cut.

The text box is deleted.

Use the click, drag, drop method.

Now click on this area, drag it vertically down, so that there is enough space for the list box. Refer BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG

Select all the form elements that are below the Member Name label. Use the click, drag, drop method.

Now click on this area, drag it vertically down, so that there is enough space for the second list box that we will add in the next step. Refer BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG

Since list boxes need more space than text boxes, we will push the form elements further down on the form.

Here is how we will do this.

First let us select all the form elements that are below the Book title label.

For this, we will use the click, drag and drop method.

Next, let us click on the selected area and drag it vertically down,

so that there is enough room for the first list box that is adjacent to the Book Title label.

Now, let us repeat the same step for the Member Name label as well. <pause>

Refer BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG

Save form using Control S.

And move to its right, so that it is aligned with the rest of the form controls nicely.

Okay, let us save our work on the form so far, by using the keyboard shortcut Control S.

Adding Push Button to a form

Show Image BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG and point at the buttons at the bottom of the image.

Point cursor over the buttons

A push button is another example of a form control.

We are familiar with OK, Cancel, Next, and Finish buttons; these are some examples of Push buttons.

With Base, we can add these Push buttons to our form and instruct Base, to perform specific actions when clicked.

Again, Save or Undo, or Delete are some examples. Let us see how.

Let us now add four push buttons to our form, below all the other form elements, just as in the image shown here.

Click once on the Push button icon in the Form Controls toolbar. (This icon looks like a button with the word Ok on it.)

Draw the first button at the bottom left. Use click, drag, drop for this.

Resize again by click, drag and drop. Refer BookIssueForm1stViewScript6.JPG

Add three more buttons, following the above mentioned way. Align them in one horizontal line, at the bottom.

Double-click on the first button.

In the Properties window, type 'Save Record' against 'Label'.

Click on the second button on the form. In the properties window, type 'Undo Changes' against label.

For the third and the fourth buttons, type 'Delete Record' and 'New Record' respectively.

And, click once on the Push button icon in the Form Controls toolbar.

This icon looks like a button with the word Ok on it.

Notice that the mouse pointer looks like a plus symbol.

Now let us draw our first button at the bottom left, by clicking, dragging and dropping on the form, below all the other elements.

And, we will resize it accordingly.

Now let us repeat the above step three more times, <pause>

and now, we have three more buttons, all aligned in one horizontal line.

We are done drawing the push buttons on the form; now let us change their labels.

To do this, double-click on the first button.

We now see the Properties window. Here let us type 'Save Record' against the 'Label'.

Now, let us click on the second button on the form.

And in the properties window, we will type 'Undo Changes' against the 'Label'.

For the third and the fourth buttons, let us type 'Delete Record' and 'New Record' respectively.

Now let us define their actions.

And in the Properties window, scroll down until we spot the 'Action' label. Click on the drop down list box and click on the 'Save record'.

Similarly for 'Undo Changes' button, choose 'Undo changes' action.

For the 'Delete Record' button, choose the 'Delete Record' action

And for the 'New Record' button, choose the 'New Record' action.

And in the Properties window, let us scroll down until we spot the 'Action' label.

Here, we will click on the drop down list box and click on the 'Save record'.

Let us follow the same steps for the other three buttons.

For the 'Undo Changes' button, we will choose the 'Undo changes' action.

For the 'Delete Record' button, we will choose the 'Delete Record' action

And for the 'New Record' button, we will choose the 'New Record' action.

So, now we have added the push buttons.

Close the window.

Go to the Base main window. Click on the Forms icon on the left panel

and click on 'Books Issued to members' form on the right panel.

and close this window.

In the next tutorial, we will go through just three more simple modifications to our form

and then we can use the form for data entry and data updates.

For example, when a Library member returns a book, we can update this information in the database using this form.

Assignment: Add a push button to Refresh the form. Add 4 narrow push buttons for record navigation (First, Previous, Next, Last)

Add a fifth push button to the form beside the fourth, and when used, it should refresh the form.

And add 4 narrow push buttons in the next line below. These buttons should help us navigate through the records.

Adding a Push Button to a form

To summarize, we learned how to: Add a Push Button to a form.