Overview

The Toolbar pages consists of information about toolbar modes, default buttons and shortcut keys. The purpose is to inform the user and make them more efficient in using the program.

Operation

The toolbar is at the heart of all WebTools applications, orchestrating the operation of the form and the relationship between all it's fields and data grids. Understanding the toolbar is the first step in understanding how to operate a WebTools form. A standard toolbar is shown below.

This example shows all the toolbar buttons with the exception of the Back button. It relates to a data editing form because it includes buttons that are only useful for editing data such as Search, New and Edit. A data editing form may have some or all of these buttons visible depending on the functionality required by the developer or the user's permissions. For example it may not have the Delete button if either the developer does not want to give users the ability to delete a record, or if the current user does not have Delete permission for this application.

Report criteria forms usually only display the Report button and may have a Help button if there is help associated with the form.

The Toolbar Mode

In this example the toolbar is in Search mode. However, the toolbar has 4 modes and these affect both how the toolbar and form looks and operates.

Mode	Description
Print Mode	This mode is only used in report criteria forms. Generally report criteria forms will only ever be in Print mode, unlike data editing forms which may change from Search to New to Edit mode.
Search Mode	For data editing forms, this mode allows the user to Search for data from the database. When in Search mode the form may or may not be dirty. After successfully searching for data and populating the form from the database the form is not dirty, while a form that does not contain a valid record is dirty.
New Mode	After clicking the New button, the form is in New mode and the user is able to create a new record.
Edit Mode	After successfully searching for data from the database, the user may click the Edit button to put the form into Edit mode allowing them to make changes.

The Default Button, Enabled and Disabled Buttons

Because it is usually much more efficient to use only the keyboard when entering data, WebTools forms are designed to limit the necessity to use the mouse. This is achieved in part by using default buttons.

When a button has a light grey outline it is the default button, and the user is able to click it by pressing the Enter key rather than having to resort to the mouse. The toolbar monitors the users actions and attempts to anticipate their intentions, and changes the default button accordingly. Furthermore it enables and disables buttons as well. For example if the form is in Search mode and is dirty (i.e. it does not contain a valid record), the Edit button is disabled because there is no valid record to edit. If however the user clicks Search and populates the form with valid data, the Edit button is enabled.

The following table describes various form actions and events and their effect on the default and enabled buttons. Note that this describes the default toolbar behavior. A developer may choose to override the default behavior.

Shortcut Keys

The toolbar also uses shortcut keys to eliminate the need to use the mouse. Notice the Search button has the S underlined, the Edit button has the i underlined and so on. If you hold down the Alt key and press the underlined letter, the associated button is clicked. This is a useful method for clicking a button that is not the default.