Managing User Interface Defaults

User Interface Defaults enable you to assign default user interface properties for regions and items. The wizard allows you to specify whether or not you want to use User Interface Defaults if they exist. When you create a form or report using a wizard, the wizard uses this information to create default values for region and item properties. Utilizing user interface defaults can save valuable development time and has the added benefit of providing consistency across multiple pages in an application. User Interface Defaults are divided into two categories, the Table Dictionary and the Attribute Dictionary.

• The Table Dictionary allows you to specify defaults for tables and columns that are intialized from the database definition.

• The Attribute Dictionary allows you to create defaults based on attribute or column names, thus being usable across all tables. Attribute definitions can also have synonyms, allowing more than one attribute to share a common definition.

The Table Dictionary takes priority over the Attribute Dictionary when User Interface Defaults are used during creation of pages and regions. If a table and column combination exists, that will be used rather than an attribute definition of the same name. This can be useful, for example, when you want to have a specific label or help text for the CREATED_BY column in the EMP table but then use more generic defaults for CREATED_BY in another other table.

Topics:

• Creating User Interface Defaults for a Table

• Modifying Table User Interface Defaults

• Creating User Interface Attributes

• Modifying User Interface Attributes

• About Exporting and Importing User Interface Defaults