Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Form View
In Form view, you see only one record at a time. To see the next record click the pages of the
topic icon, press Ctrl+down arrow, or use some other method of switching records (
Navigat-
ing Record by Record
)
. Most of the database work you did in the first chapter was in Form
view, so it should be very familiar by now. You can use Form view when you have a lot of
information to see about one record, or when you want to focus on just one record without
being distracted by all the others.
TIP
The Status toolbar has handy buttons for switching between views. The tools are well designed so
you can easily guess which is which, but if you're not sure, just point your mouse to any button to
see a tooltip that explains what the tool is for.
List View
List view works
almost
the same as Form view. All the fields are arranged exactly as on a
form, but if you stretch or scroll your window, then you see that your records appear one on
top of the other, like a long list of forms. You can sort or find data in List view, but since you
have more than one record onscreen at once, you need to know which record you're in. You
can tell by the thin black line along the left edge of the window at the edge of the active re-
cord.
Some people don't like seeing that thin black line because it shifts everything a few pixels to
the right to make room. You can turn off the line (it's called the “Current Record Indicator”)
active. In that case, you can use a less visually intrusive bit of feedback called
active row
state
. You can see it in
Figure 2-1
. Read about it on
Adding Rows to a Portal
.
When you're working with a
group
of records—updating one field in several records or
browsing through all your records in search of something—List view comes in handy.
