The CatEdit screen designer

A CatEdit application can consist of an unlimited number of screens connecting to various databases that provide an OLEDB link.
After the opening of a database, the design of a CatEdit screen begins with drawing tables on the screen surface. From then on any data coming from those tables can be used on the screen.

CatEdit screens are drawn

With the CatEdit screen designer the controls are drawn on the screen surface. Most of the work consists of specifying attributes for those objects concerning :

• The linking of the objects to the database contents and to each other
• The look of the objects (font, size, color etc…)
• The editing rights
• …

There is a palette of more than 20 drawing objects

With them you can draw all the objects needed for managing the content of your database publishing project :

• Static and dynamic text of any length
• Static and dynamic Comboboxes and checkboxes
• Calendar assisted dates
• Editable plain or WYSIWYG HTML text
• Static and dynamic pictures
• Lookup and calculated fields
• Tabs in order to divide one screen into multiple layers
• Text or picture Buttons
• Data trees for easy display of hierarchical data
• ...

Data can be showed in form or grid mode. Both modes can be combined on one single screen.

Editing a screen is just a click away. Actual data remain on screen while editing the screen, design is fast and accurate because you see what you get.

Scripting is there to give you full power and flexibility

For some objects, like buttons, scripting is available for basic to complex actions when depressing the button. Scripts can also be written for specific behavior when posting data to the database.

This is standard Windows scripting and debugging is built-in, so there is no extra language to learn.

A library of the most common scripts is available. Most of the time editing a few words or lines is enough to get the script working on a specific screen.

Some common uses of scripts are :

• Actions before or after posting changes
• Actions before deleting records
• Calculated fields
• Go to another screen
• Print the screen
• Generate a PDF file with a Leaflet template
• …

Finding a particular record is a breeze

Just put the cursor on (almost) any field and specify in the search window the criteria and CatEdit will find the first matching record.

You can see which records correspond to the criteria that is entered key by key.

Import/export from Excel is straightforward

As many users know and like Excel as an efficient tabular data manipulation tool, CatEdit can easily import and export data from Excel with the click of the mouse. If the CatEdit screen allows it, the user can copy all or part of the records of a grid to Excel. Provided the column headings correspond he can also update or append records coming from Excel to the grid. All data traffic goes through the clipboard.