Form Designer Style Guidelines

Form designer controls have default property values set to match Accredo internal forms, to make FD designed forms look like standard Accredo forms. FD designed forms provided with Accredo are designed following Accredo best practices, such as using panels for layouts. By default, the look and feel of FD forms should match Accredo's internal forms without having to explicitly tweak the properties.

The standard font for forms is Segoe UI. Forms designed in previous versions may have different fonts. You can change the font of all components on a form that have the Form component default font. Change the Form component Font and the change will be applied to all components with that default font.

Some standards to design forms in the Accredo style are:

• Panel - BevelOuter {bvNone|bvLowered|bvRaised|bvSpace} Default to bvNone.
• Grid Navigator - BevelOuter {bvNone|bvLowered|bvRaised|bvSpace} Default to bvNone.
• Grid Scroller - BevelOuter {bvNone|bvLowered|bvRaised|bvSpace} Default to bvNone.

List Grid and Edit Grid components automatically draw without 3D look border bevels.

There are properties on some controls that help with the Accredo UI look and feel:

• Panel, Grid Navigator - AlternateColour {True|False} Default to False.

  If the property value is True the panel will be painted the Form Background colour set in Navigator > Setup > Company > Configuration > Company Display.

  If the property value is False the panel will be painted the colour in the Color property.

• Group Box - Style {gbsStandard|gbsBox|gbsTopOnly} Default to gbsBox.

  If the property value is gbsStandard the group box will be painted with a full pale bevelled border.

  If the property value is gbsBox the group box will be painted with a full darker bevelled border and improved caption alignment.

  If the property value is gbsTopOnly the group box is painted with a bevel at the top only.

Other style guidelines to apply to forms are:

• Remove all bevels as dividers and use colours to differentiate between work and navigational areas. Work areas remain at the default clBtnFace and the navigational areas change to the form background colour. Use panels with Alternate Colour set to True or False to create this effect.
• Add a Navigator to the left side of forms that holds all of the navigational, and form level process buttons. This navigator has Alternate Colour = True.
• A Form Navigator component is available in FD with default properties to match.
• Form and Grid navigator components automatically have a button at the top to Expand Toolbar.