Property clauses

Clauses are the means by which the initial properties of a window or window object are defined. Property clauses are listed, each on a separate line, within the braces of the object’s definition, and take the form:

property = value

See Defining a window for the full structure of a window definition, including window objects, window clauses and object clauses.

The values provided in property clauses must be constants, or definitions of constants assigned by !define. The only expressions that can be used are simple numeric expressions with integer values that can be evaluated at compile time.

The clauses available for each object type are listed in that object’s property page, e.g. Table property clauses, Textbox property clauses. Certain properties can be defined for groupable objects (buttons and textboxes) at group level.

Most clauses are optional. Exceptions to this are noted under the sections on each individual object. Sensible defaults are provided for all optional clauses; in many cases window objects inherit property defaults from the parent window or group.

The same form (property = value) can in most cases also be used to modify a property at run time. Field names and expressions may be freely used to provide values for property modification at run time.

Certain properties are only available at run time. Some can be updated, others are read-only.


General properties

Many properties can be applied to almost any object. Not all these properties are applicable to all window objects. The individual sections on each object list all properties which may be applied to that object, and also provide detailed descriptions of properties specific to the object type.

Captions

Help text to be displayed when an object has focus.

Colours

RGB foreground and background colours.

Edit mode

Flags defining behaviour during data input.

Event enable

Specifies which events can be generated by an object.

Event functions

Functions to be called automatically when events are generated by an object.

Fonts

Fonts for the display of text.

Handles

Windows operating system handle.

Palettes Pens

A palette is a collection of pens and properties used for display. From Sculptor V5 onwards, palettes and pens have been replaced by Colours. They are still required for backward compatibility.

Position (current)

Read-only run time properties returning an object’s current co-ordinates in whichever positioning type is being used (pixels or characters).

Position (initial)

Run time properties that can be used to change or retrieve an object’s initial co-ordinates in whichever positioning type is being used (pixels or characters).

State

Run time properties returning an object’s state (e.g. created, invisible…)

Style

Flags affecting an object’s appearance and/or behaviour.

Tab order

Run time property used to alter a control’s position in the parent window’s tab sequence.

Tooltip

Help text to be displayed as a tooltip (small temporary window) when the cursor is over an object.


RELATED TOPICS

Modifying a property at run time

Retrieving a property at run time

Defining a window

Defining a window object