Locks, Blanks, and Dashes

Let's take a look at what the lock icon, empty spaces, dashes, and grayed text mean in the context of a given rule.

The extent to which these attributes are displayed depends on the type of rule you're looking at. The default rule, for example, always shows the property values as set by Oracle. If nothing has been overridden, the values for the Required, Hidden, and Read-Only properties are always Optional, Visible, and Editable, respectively.

For all other rules:

• A dash indicates that a value has not yet been set for the property by this rule. At runtime VB Studio evaluates all the rules from bottom to top, so a property setting for one rule can be overridden—and then overridden again—by rules that are higher up in the list.
• A lock icon means that a value has been locked by Oracle and cannot be overridden. (Any property value that appears in light gray is an Oracle-seeded value.)
• Blank fields represent system fields that are not available for modification by anyone.