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Controls: Overview

Elements you can drag onto the screen to provide functionality

Updated over a week ago

A control is defined as anything you can drag into the Canvas section of the Design Mode (If you don't recall what this is, there’s a whole section about it!) 

There are a variety of controls you can add to your screen, all of which can be found in the right panel section of the screen's Design Mode if you select the plus tab.

The controls are divided up into three types: 

  • Containers - they hold other controls

  • Objects - elements used to display information or provide user interaction

  • Fields - data elements connected to a specific table


Control Properties

Every control will have four main property sections:

  • Settings: Options to configure the control.

  • Style: Options to style the control's look.

  • Actions/Events: Every object has an “Actions/Events” section that can be used to assign and change actions and events associated with this object. For more information on events and actions please see our documentation on the topic. You can also find a full list of actions here, and a full list of events here.

  • References: Links to where the control is referenced by other controls in their action sets.

In the below image, an example of the Button object shows the main property sections.

Every control will have these sections, however, the contents of each section will change depending on the control.

NOTE: Almost every object also has a Caption or Text. Internally, the Caption will be used to name the control if you need to reference it within Actions. In the case of two or more controls with the same name, a number will be appended to the internal name for reference within actions only. This number does not appear on the live screen. Example: If there are two “Save” buttons, one will be named “Save”, the second one will be named “Save1” to help you distinguish within actions. When viewing the button text on the live screen, however, both will display “Save”.


Containers

A container is exactly what it sounds like - it’s placed on the canvas to “contain” objects, fields, and even other containers. In fact, you can’t drag an object or a field onto the canvas without one! Currently, there’s only one kind of container available, called a section.

In the below image, two sections (SectionNav and SectionMain) have been added to the canvas.


Objects

Objects are the elements users interact with when using a screen (everything from a simple button to a full calendar is considered an ‘object’). Each object has unique characteristics built by the Method team to perform certain unique functions in an easy-to-use drag-and-drop package. All objects must go inside of a container.

The objects available in Method are:


Fields

The final controls you can drag onto the screen are fields. They are data elements connected to a specific table set as the base table for the screen.

Fields will show data based on the Record ID set in the Screen Active Record ID.

We talked about fields in our Databases section, so for the full story on fields, check it out. We aren’t going to list every single field available in Method right here because there are hundreds associated with many, many different tables. The takeaway from this part is that you can drag a field into a section just as you can an object, and that field will draw information from its associated table.

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