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Configuring Form UI Applets for the Siebel Handheld Client


Form UI is a technique of applet design which enables Siebel Handheld application developers to create applets that are larger than normal form applets. An applet designed for form UI can have a greater height and a greater width than the applet display area. Form UI enables application developers to create large applets which can resemble a paper form.

You create form UI applets as normal form applets, but with the FormUI user property set to TRUE. For more information about this user property, see FormUI User Property.

Location of UI Controls

The location of the UI controls on normal form applets is determined automatically. For form UI applets, you can define the location of each control. This enables you to design the applet in the way that you want the applet to appear to users. You can place UI controls in any location on the applet. This enables you to create forms that are easier for your users to use, or reflect your current business processes. For example, you can design an applet that resembles the layout of one of the paper forms that your business currently uses.

You can also design more complicated forms. For example, you can create a form that has three fields beside each other. Form UI allows the following benefits for UI design for Siebel Handheld applications:

  • Flexible location of labels
  • Hidden labels
  • Flexible location of fields
  • Flexible field sizes
  • Flexible location of buttons
  • Flexible button sizes
  • Flexible location of radio buttons

You use the Grid Layout Editor in Siebel Tools to create form UI applets. Before you design the layout of the applet, you must set the FormUI user property to TRUE. In Grid Layout Editor, add the required controls to the applet, then arrange the controls appropriately.

Navigation Scheme

Form UI applets also have a new navigation scheme to enable users to navigate efficiently in a large form applet. There are no scroll bars in form UI applets. Instead, users can tap-and-hold on an area outside of the fields, then drag the form so that a part of the form that they cannot see is displayed.

To enable the new navigation scheme to function effectively, the performance of the screen drawing functionality for form UI applets is significantly better than for other types of applet.

COM Interface

To perform complex processing on a form UI applet, you can write components that use the Component Object Model (COM) architecture. For example, if you want to implement data validation or a more sophisticated UI, you can write a component extension for the applet. For more information about how to write component extensions, see COM Extensibility.

UI Behaviors

To reduce the potential for user confusion, many of the automatic UI behaviors which occur in the normal form applet do not occur in form UI applets. For example, the following behaviors are different:

  • When the SIP opens, the form UI applet does not resize or scroll automatically to show the insertion point. Instead, the user must drag the applet until the insertion point is visible.
  • When you tab to a field that is not visible, the form UI applet does not scroll automatically to the active field. Instead, the user must drag the applet until the active field is visible.
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