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Controlling Form Behavior

When you are designing a form in the Form Designer, the form is live: except for setting the Visible property to false (.F.), visual and behavioral changes you make are immediately reflected in the form. If you set the WindowState property to 1 – Minimized or 2 – Maximized, the form in the Form Designer immediately reflects this setting. If you set the Movable property to false (.F.), a user will not be able to move the form at run time and you won't be able to move the form at design time either. You might want to design the functionality of your form and add all the appropriate controls before you set some of the properties that determine form behavior.

The following form properties are commonly set at design time to define the appearance and behavior of the form.

Property

Description

Default

AlwaysOnTop

Controls whether a form is always on top of other open windows.

False (.F.)

AutoCenter

Controls whether the form is automatically centered in the main Visual FoxPro window or on the desktop when the form is initialized.

False (.F.)

BackColor

Determines the color of the form window.

255,255,255

BorderStyle

Controls whether the form has no border, a single-line border, a double-wide border, or a system border. If the BorderStyle is 3 - System, the user will be able to resize the form.

3

Caption

Determines the text displayed in the title bar of the form.

Form1

Closable

Controls whether the user can close the form by double-clicking the close box.

True (.T.)

DataSession

Controls whether the tables in the form are opened in work areas that are globally accessible or private to the form.

1

MaxButton

Controls whether or not the form has a maximize button.

True (.T.)

MinButton

Controls whether or not the form has a minimize button.

True (.T.)

Movable

Controls whether or not the form can be moved to a new location on the screen.

True (.T.)

ScaleMode

Controls whether the unit of measurement in object size and position properties is foxels or pixels.

Determined by settings in the Options dialog box.

Scrollbars

Controls the type of scroll bars a form has.

0 - None

TitleBar

Controls whether a title bar appears at the top of the form.

1 - On

ShowWindow

Controls whether the window is a child (in screen), floating, or top-level window.

0 - In Screen

WindowState

Controls whether the form is minimized (in Windows only), maximized, or normal.

0 - Normal

WindowType

Controls whether the form is modeless (the default) or modal. If the form is modal, the user must close the form before accessing any other elements of your application's user interface.

0 – Modeless

You can use the LockScreen property to make run-time adjustment of control layout properties appear cleaner.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Add Properties and Methods to a Form

How to: Assign an Icon to a Form

How to: Edit Event and Method Code

How to: Save Forms

Reference

Form Designer

Visible Property (Visual FoxPro)

Other Resources

Manipulating Objects

Creating Forms