Text Objects

Text objects are useful for descriptions and/or message areas in your Menus, Dialogs, and Screens. There are two kinds of text objects, one is simply called "Text," the other "Text Rectangle." They are both found on the tool palette. The first is the "A" located in the upper left of the "Objects" section of the tool palette, the second is next to it, it is the A with a box around it.

They both serve as one-way message fields, your procedures can move things to them but not from them. The second, the Text Rectangle, has the appearance of a transfer field but the user cannot type anything into them. That does have its uses. Past mentioning that, we are not going to bother discussing the Text Rectangle further, the rest of this document is about the Text Object. There is another object, the Service Field , that is the same as the Text Rectangle in appearance, but it serves as a two-way message area where the Text Rectangle does not.

The Text Object:

Click on the Text Object in the tool palette (the "A" in the upper left). Then click inside the frame to create a text object in the definition. When you click inside the frame you can make that click a drag, not only creating an instance of the obect but also determining its size all in one operation.

Type whatever text you want in the object. If it word wraps, and you don't want that, stretch it out so it is longer. In our case we typed what you see below. Now get the properties for this object (right-click). You will see something like this:

The Label is simply a repeat of whatever you typed in.

If you are not going to use this text as a message area you have no need to assign an object name to it. If you are, then you must give it a name so that you can reference it. See named objects for more information.

When you put multiple Text Objects into your definition, don't worry about how they line up, later you will use a grid to line them up.

Besides their ability to act as a message area, the majority of the use of Text Objects is simply to provide descriptive information on your Menus and Dialogs, and to identify Transfer Fields on Screens. Text Objects in themselves are quite sophisticated things, you can write a whole book including pictures and drawings in them. For example, each Help screen that you see is a Text Object. But so is the identification of the fields and buttons that you see in your Menus, Screens, and Dialogs.