4th Dimension Learning Basics

There are some functions that most users will find common for most databases. These have to do with Records. Let’s call this menu “Records.” Menu Items for the Records menu should include: Records New N Duplicate D Delete E --------------------------- Next Previous First Last -------------------------- Find F Find by Formula Show All Show Omitted -------------------------- Sort S -------------------------- List View Form View To create the Menu Items follow the same procedure as outlined for adding Menu Items to the File menu except now you will first create a new Menu by Selecting “New Menu” and typing “Records” for the menu name.

Creating Keyboard Shortcuts Creating keyboard shortcuts would seem at first like you might want to type “New N” for a Command N shortcut. Lot’s of luck finding out how to type in the Command symbol. While a Chicago Font Control-Q works in a word processor, it does not work in 4D for creation of the keyboard shortcut.

So how are the keyboard shortcuts created? It turns out 4D makes it incredibly easy. Just open the Menu Bar Editor from the Design environment and Tools menu (see Figure 7).

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Now select the Menu you want, create a new Menu Item, type the name of the Menus Item and then click the “Shortcut” option and enter the shortcut character that will be used with the Command (on Macintosh, Control on Windows) symbol. That’s all there is to it. Figure 11 - Creating a Custom Menu Keyboard Shortcut with 4D When creating new Menu Items with Shortcuts, it is important to create the Menu Item first by typing in the name and then specifying the Shortcut.

This is because Menu Items cannot be modified. If you create a new Menu Item (Add Item) but then go to the ShortCut and then to the item, you will not be able to type anything in.

You will need to delete that blank item and create it again. As noted above, you can add the dividing line by just adding an item and selecting the “Line” option, under the ShortCut option. Note : As per the 4D Design Reference Manuals the following are reserved Keyboard Shortcuts: Mac Keys Widows Keys Operation C Ctrl C Copy Q Ctrl Q Quit V Ctrl V Paste X Ctrl X Cut Z Ctrl Z Undo . Ctrl.

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(period) Stop action W Ctrl W Flushes records to disk in User or Custom Menus environments Note: There are no methods assigned yet for the above menus and keyboard shortcuts. Figure 12 - Resulting 4D Custom Menus Menu Bar, Menus and Menu Items with Keyboard Shortcuts Copyright

P.S. A few readers have asked which relational database platform we actually reach for — it's Claris FileMaker Pro; take a look here if you want the current details.