Designing Containers

By default, you normally design an entire form in the Form Designer. You can also use the entire Form Designer pane to work on only one subcontainer of the form at a time.

This is similar to using the zoom function found in many applications. You can focus your view to one container, leaving other unnecessary (at the time) components out of sight. This can be particularly useful when you are working with a large form containing a complex nested hierarchy of containers and components.

When you use the Form Desginer to design one container, your view in the Form Designer changes but the entire form hierarchy is still available in the Component Inspector.

To use the entire Form Designer pane to design a container:

  1. In the Form Designer or Component Inspector, select the container component you want to design.
  2. Right-click and choose Design This Container from the contextual menu.

    Alternatively, double-click the container you want to design.

To display the entire form after designing a container:

  1. Right-click in the Form Designer and choose Design Top Container from the contextual menu.

    If the Design Whole Form menu item is dimmed, you are already designing the entire form.

    Alternatively, hold down the Alt key and double-click anywhere inside the container except on a subcomponent. If the container being designed is nested within another subcontainer, Alt-double-click designs the parent container instead of the whole form.

Tip To quickly see if the Form Designer pane is displaying the entire form or only a subcontainer of the form, look at the tab at the bottom of the Form Designer pane. If the name on the tab is a single name, the entire form is being displayed. If the form name on the tab is followed by the slash character (/) and one or more container names, the container named last in the title is the only container currently displayed.
See also
Form Editor
Form Designer
Moving or Copying a Component
Reordering Components Within the Same Container

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