Area Frames and Lines

Area frames are objects that can be used to group or separate the contents of a Form component.

Form with Area Frames

Form with three area frames

An area frame is implemented as a uframe physical widget, but you can define your own logical widgets to create different frame styles using colors or a border. If no widget type is defined, the default logical widget is FRAME.

Line Frames

Line frames define horizontal and vertical lines on form and report components. They have no properties.

Drawing Area Frames

When defining area frames, be aware of the following:

  • Area frames can be drawn almost anywhere on the component. If you draw an area frame on top of another object, Uniface places it behind the object.
  • Area frames are visible at runtime only if properties such as BackColor or BorderType have been set in the initialization file.
  • Area frames cannot overlap header, footer, or break frames.
  • When drawn inside a repeating occurrence, an area frame must be drawn with every repetition. Otherwise, it appears only inside the first occurrence.
  • For printing purposes, when an area frame encloses an entity and has the same name as the entity, the area and entity frames are treated as a logical unit. For more information, see Area Frames for Printing .

Defining Area Frame Widgets

To define and use your own frame widgets:

  1. Add or edit an [areaframes] section in the usys.ini file.
  2. Define the frame names and properties of area frame widgets in the [areaframes] section of the usys.ini file. For example, the following definitions used for the illustrated form:
    [areaframes]
FRAME=uframe(bordertype=flat) ; default when no widget type is specified
AFRAME_PLAIN=uframe(bordertype=flat;BorderRadius=20)
AFRAME_FANCY=uframe(bordertype=flat;BorderRadius=20;backcolor=slategray1)
  3. To use one of these area frame widgets, draw a frame and select the preferred frame in the Widget Type.

Area Frame Widget Properties

The widget properties of area frames are static. They are set in the initialization file and cannot be set in the Uniface IDE or changed in ProcScript. They are applicable only in Form components and are ignored when the component is printed.

Note:  Prior to Uniface 9.7.01, a border and color were applied to the frame using the Border and Index Color properties. These properties have been deprecated and are only available for backward compatibility.

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