Difference between revisions of "LibreOffice-Suite-Base/C2/Build-a-complex-form-with-form-controls/English-timed"

!Narration

|Welcome to the Spoken tutorial on LibreOffice Base.

|In this tutorial on Complex Forms, we will learn about

|* Building a complex form

* And modifying the form

|In the previous tutorial, we learnt how to enter data using forms and how to modify a form using LibreOffice Base.  

|In this tutorial, let us learn about building a complex form.

|Let us first invoke the LibreOffice Base program, if it's not already open

|And open our Library database.

|If Base is already open, then we can open the Library database from here by clicking Open under File menu

|or by clicking Recent Documents under File menu

|Let us design a new form that will help us track the books, issued to the Library members.  

|Let us see how we can design this form as shown in the screen image.

|Let us go to the LibreOffice Base main window, and click on the Forms icon in the Database list on the left panel  

|And then click on 'Use Wizard to create form'.

|This opens the Forms window and the now familiar wizard on top.  

|In Step 1, Field Selection, let us choose 'Tables:BooksIssued' from the drop down box beneath the label that says Tables or queries.

|Let us move all the fields from the left to the right, by using the double arrow button. <pause>

|Let's click on Next.

|This is Step 2, but we will skip this step for now, and click on the next button at the bottom.

|We are in step 5 now. Let us choose the first arrangement 'Columnar – Labels Left' and click on the Next button.

|Let us skip Step 6 also by clicking on the Next button

|Step 7, let us choose Ice blue, and  

click on the Next button

|In step 8, let's name the form as 'Books Issued to Members'  <pause>

|Next click on the Finish button.  

|Notice that the wizard popup window is gone and we are looking at the form design window.

|Here, we are going to make some modifications before we use the form for data entry.  

|Let us first Ungroup all the elements we see on the form.  

|We are doing this so that we can edit the properties of individual elements on the form easily.  

|To do this, let us first open up the Form Design toolbar  

|by clicking on the View menu at the top, then click on Toolbars and then click on Form Design.  

|In this toolbar, let us click once on the mouse pointer icon which is the first and the leftmost icon.  

|We will call this as the Select icon from now on.

|This is used for selecting form elements by clicking and dragging.

|We will use this way repeatedly, to select groups of form elements.

|Now whatever action we do here, will affect all the elements inside this area, uniformly.  

|Now let us move the mouse pointer on any label here,

|Notice that the mouse pointer looks like a plus sign over labels and text boxes.  

|So let us right click over a label and click on Group at the bottom and click on 'Ungroup'.  

|For this, let us push down the form elements and then centre them within the form.  

|So first let us press the down arrow key about seven times.

|Then press the right arrow key about 14 times.  

|Notice that this moves all the selected form elements towards the right and the centre of the form.

|Now let us bring the cursor to where we need to type the heading.  

|To do this, let us click on the top left of the form window area,

|And press the enter key twice,

|Then press the tab key four times and then type 'Form to track Books Issued to Members'.

|Now as we click on the individual labels and text boxes, we see that these elements are selected or highlighted individually.

|Okay, next, let us rename the BookId and MemberId labels on the form.  

|We can do this, by double clicking on BookId label, which opens up the now familiar Properties window.  

|Against label, type in Book Title.  

|Now let us click on the MemberId label on the form.  

|Notice that the Properties window has refreshed and again here, we will type in 'Member Name' against Label.  

|As we press the tab key, we will notice the new label changes on the form.

|Again let us select all the elements.  

|And now, we will double click on any label which in turn will open the Properties window.  

|Let us scroll down to find Font and click on the square button on its right.  

|In the new popup window, let us click on Bold and click on size 8,  

|And let us click on the Ok button.  

|Notice that the font has changed to Bold and size 8 across the form now.

|Now let us click and drag on any label, toward the centre of the form design window.

|Now let us, save the form.

|And close this window.

To see how our form looks like now.

|let us go to the Base main window, and double click on the 'Books Issued to Members' form on the right panel.

|And against book title and member name, we see some numbers,

|Which are really primary numbers in the Books and Members table, but not very friendly values.

|Which would you like to see real names and book titles.

|One way is to add a form control called List box.  

|This brings us to the end of this tutorial on Complex Forms in LibreOffice Base  

|To summarize, we learned about:  

* Building a complex form and

* Modifying the form

|Spoken Tutorial Project is a part of the Talk to a Teacher project, supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT, MHRD, Government of India. This project is co-ordinated by http://spoken-tutorial.org. More information on the same is available at the following link.

|This Script has been contributed by Priya Suresh, DesiCrew Solutions.

 

And this is Soundharya, DesiCrew Solutions, signing off.

 

Thanks for joining