Tip of the Month (July 2003)

Multi-Page Capabilities Utilizing Tabs

Starting in Visual CE 12.0, it is easy to create a form with tabs. Just select FORM | TABS and define them.

If you have an older version of Visual CE...

A Visual CE form can be larger than the physical screen of the device. You might want to create a set of tab buttons so the user can move from one region to another.

Just create a set of "Move to when pressed" Command Buttons, each of which moves you to one of the regions of your form. Position these buttons side by side and turn on the "Relative to frame rectangle" property for each. This set of buttons will act as a set of tab buttons with which the user can navigate around the form.

You can alter one of the sample forms that comes with Visual CE to see this. Run Visual CE on the desktop and open Bigform.vce (usually in C:\ProgramFiles\Windows CE Services\SYWARE Visual CE\Bigform.vce). For the button labeled "Top", change the width from 235 to 117. For the button labeled "Bottom", change the width from 235 to 117, top from 143 to 0, and left from 0 to 117.

Then download Bigform.vce to the handheld (FILE | DOWNLOAD FORM) and run the form on the handheld. The tabs will appear on the top of the form. Pressing the "Top" button moves you to the top of the form; pressing the "Bottom" button moves you to the bottom of the form. Notice that Visual CE puts an asterisk (*) next to the label on one of the buttons so the user will know which region is being shown.