Included Forms

Included forms are used to add the same controls to multiple forms in an easy and efficient way.

Cobol Includable Forms are pieces of the layout that are displayed in forms. Within such an includable, a screen layout is defined that can be called from any form to which that included form is added. Within the forms, the included form appears for instance as the header or footer for that object. For the end user, the form and inserted form appear just as one form.

Includable forms only inserts the graphical screen items into a form. Possible needed information to be exchanged between the form and Cobol program, will need to be added manually along with the other form items.

Creating and adjusting an included form

An included form is created and adjusted pretty much the same way as normal Cobol forms. However, within an included form there are is no code. If an included form is updated, all the forms that inherit functionality from the includable will also be updated automatically. It is important to choose names that are not used inside the layout of the forms to which the includable will be included, otherwise you would get validation errors.

Inserting a layout to your form

Includable forms can be added to a form as follows:

• Open the form to which you want to add an includable.
• In the left pane of your screen, right click on "Included forms" and choose "Add new include object".
• In the listbox that appears, specify the includable that you want to add to the form.

The inserted object will be added to the folder "included forms"

You can remove an includable from the folder "Included forms" by right-clicking on the includable and choosing "Delete".