Front-end stored settings

Front-ends can store some layout properties of windows and widgets, for subsequent program executions.

Purpose of stored settings

With a GUI front-end, application windows/forms and some widgets inside forms such as tables can be resized. Furthermore, child elements such as table columns can be reordered, resized, and used to sort rows.

Note: For the GDC desktop front-end, the window state (normal, minimized, maximized) can also be stored. For the GBC front-end, these window states do not make sense in a web browser.

When a window/form is closed, the front-end stores these layout properties locally for the current program. On the next program execution, or when the window/form is reopened in the same program instance, these settings are restored to display the forms with the same size and layout as when they were closed.

Managing stored settings on front-end side

Front-ends such as GDC and GBC support configuration options to manage stored settings.

For example, it is possible to disable stored settings completely, or to reset them in order to get the original form layouts.

Stored settings can be controlled by the end-user, in the front-end configuration panels.

See front-end specific documentations for more details.

Controlling stored settings in program forms

When changing the layout of a form, for example when adding fields and containers, the window/form settings currently stored on the front-end side may disturb the new layout.

Or, when shipping a new release of the application, you may want to reset all stored settings for some forms.

In order to ignore the last stored settings for a given form, define the VERSION form attribute of the LAYOUT element in the form definition file. This attribute indicates that this is a new version of the form, and forces the front-end to skip stored settings for this form.

Some window presentation styles attributes such as ignoreMinimizeSetting or position can be also used to control stored settings.