Table of Contents

Overview

Tripous.Desktop is the Avalonia UI layer of Tripous.

It sits above Tripous.Data and turns registered data descriptors into usable desktop forms, item pages, grids, lookup controls, locator controls, dialogs, menus and commands.

Main Entry Points

  • Ui
  • UiGlobalSettings
  • DesktopRegistry
  • FormDef
  • AppForm
  • DataForm
  • ItemPage
  • UiFactory
  • AvaloniaAssets
  • DesktopExceptionHandler

Ui

Ui is the central static helper class for the desktop layer.

It provides:

  • access to the main window;
  • file dialogs;
  • input box dialog;
  • UI thread dispatching;
  • wait cursor helpers;
  • tree view helpers;
  • debug output through LogBox when available.

Example:

Ui.MainWindow = MainWindow;

Ui.Post(() =>
{
    Ui.Debug("Background work completed.");
});

Ui.Debug() writes to LogBox when the log box is initialized. Otherwise, it writes to the normal debug output.

UiGlobalSettings

Ui.Settings contains desktop layout and behavior settings.

Ui.Settings.FormColumnCount = 2;
Ui.Settings.FormColumnWidth = 420;
Ui.Settings.FormMemoRowCount = 3;
Ui.Settings.DetailGridMinHeight = 240;
Ui.Settings.ShowDataFormLog = true;

Important settings:

  • FormColumnCount
  • FormColumnWidth
  • FormMemoRowCount
  • FormMaxControlsPerColumn
  • FormImageHeight
  • FormImageStretch
  • ShowIdColumnsInGrids
  • DetailGridMinHeight
  • ShowDataFormLog

These settings affect generated item forms, detail grids and the DataForm log panel.

Desktop Registry

Forms are registered in DesktopRegistry.Forms as FormDef instances.

DesktopRegistry.AddForm(
    "Customer",
    TitleKey: "Customers",
    Module: "Customer",
    Group: "CRM");

A FormDef connects a desktop form to a data module.

It also defines:

  • the DataForm class;
  • the ItemPage class;
  • the reference context menu class;
  • the navigation group;
  • read-only mode;
  • required user level.
DataForm Form = DesktopRegistry.CreateDataForm("Customer");

AppForm And DataForm

AppForm is the base user control for application forms.

DataForm is the standard data-aware form. It hosts browser/item views, talks to a DataModule, executes insert/edit/delete/save/cancel workflows, and coordinates UI state.

Most application CRUD screens use DataForm.

ItemPage

ItemPage is the item editor part of a DataForm.

It creates the editing controls for the top table and the detail grids. It also owns the current detail grid command handling, such as add/delete row actions for detail and subdetail grids.

Generated Item UI

Tripous.Desktop can generate editing UI from ModuleDef, TableDef and FieldDef.

The descriptor metadata controls:

  • which fields are visible;
  • field captions;
  • field order and grouping;
  • control kind;
  • lookup and locator behavior;
  • memo and image controls;
  • detail grid creation.

This is why the same Data Registry descriptors are important for both data access and desktop UI generation.

Bindings And Grids

The desktop layer binds Avalonia controls to DataRowView, MemTable, TableSet and module context objects.

The grid binding code handles:

  • column creation;
  • visible and hidden fields;
  • lookup and locator columns;
  • row selection;
  • detail grid synchronization.

Locators And Reference Menus

Locator controls use Tripous.Data locator descriptors to search related records and assign reference values.

Reference controls can also show a context menu for common reference actions, such as opening the referenced form.

Commands Menus And Dialogs

Tripous.Desktop includes command, menu and toolbar helpers used by application shells and data forms.

Dialog helpers cover common modal workflows, while DesktopExceptionHandler centralizes desktop exception handling and writes useful diagnostics to LogBox.

LogBox

LogBox is a lightweight UI log target used by the desktop layer.

It is used by:

  • Ui.Debug();
  • DataForm logging;
  • locator diagnostics;
  • desktop exception handling.

It is intentionally small, but useful while testing generated forms, locators and data workflows.

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