A large range of modern Graphical Form Widgets are included with the development package and rendered natively in Chimera. Some of the most common graphical controls, such as an IE browser widget, drop-down lists of values for input fields, or adding calendar controls to insert time and date information are included. Widgets can be used directly within the applications source code or referenced from within the script file.

Graphical Lines

Lines defined in forms or by 4GL instructions are rendered clearly and accurately. Those that intersect are drawn using corners, T-pieces and crosses for the best possible form layout.

Buttons

Using 3D Buttons can help your users to distinguish the range of controls on your application. In the same way as a text mode application, your users can activate a button by typing the corresponding short cut on the keyboard, as well as using the mouse.

Image buttons

Statically located or dynamically received graphical images (such as BLOBs) can be displayed anywhere in the client window. These images can be used as buttons, with a key event specified in response to a mouse click. Hydra 4.2 supports the use of .jpg, .bmp, .png, .ico, .tif, and .gif files for image fields & buttons.

Function Field

Function fields are normal form fields, but with a function button located to their right hand side. You can add a key event to this function button, which triggers another action. For example, a 'country' field could have a button which will open a window with a list of countries from which to make a selection.

You can also add customized images in the button space, to give the user an indication of what the button will do. The GUI clients will scale your images to fit in the button space, based on the height of the field.

Radio Buttons

Radio buttons allow you to produce a selection list from which only one option can be chosen. You can have one or many radio button items in a group, but all items in the group will write to the same variable.

Check Boxes

Check boxes are used for making binary choices and each check box relates to a single variable. Where they are used in groups it should be possible to select all or any of the options.

Combo Boxes

A combo box field displays itself as a field with a down arrow button at the right hand end. Clicking the down arrow displays a drop down list of values from which users can choose.

Dynamic Labels

Dynamic Labels are rendered in the same way as static field labels; however their contents can be changed at runtime with standard 4GL statements such as DISPLAY TO.

Calendar Popup

You can now embedd graphical calendar popups in the date fields of your forms, making it easy for your users to enter dates into your form fields by selecting from a graphical calendar.

Web-Browser

You can now embed a Web browser in your forms, to view, control and interact with local or remote HTML pages. You can merge Web-based and 4GL applications in an apparently single graphical front end.

Web-Style Hot Links

Use text labels to trigger events, a popular facility on Web sites, which your users will be familiar with.