The Problem

Occasionally it becomes necessary to dynamically change the text displayed in a label. For example, in a health system, one field could be used for the type of problem (e.g., eyes, teeth, etc) and another field could be used for the name of the practitioner, using intelligent labels such as "Name of Dentist" or "Name of Optician". This field would need to change its label according to the entered type of problem, but UNIFACE does not normally allow the content of labels to be changed at run-time, other than the use of language variations.

The Solution

One common solution is to use an Editbox widget, and change its font and properties so it looks like a label. This will then allow for dynamic content. Although this appears to resolve the problem, on closer inspection the text displayed in the Editbox appears on-screen slightly out of position when compared to normal labels (see example below). Also, if the cursor is moved over the label, the cursor changes to that of a text-type cursor, which can be misleading for users.

A better way to resolve this problem is to use the Dragsource widget; this widget has been designed to accommodate dynamic labels directly. To do this, follow the steps below.

Paste a 1 by 1 Dragsource widget with a meaningful name. Change its Characteristics to Boilerplate, and leave all the other properties as default, except for the "Dynamic Label" checkbox in the "Drag & Drop Properties" window which should be checked on. Add a shorthand interface - C1 for example - if you wish to eliminate the warning message.

Paint your required label (for clarity, next to the Dragsource widget) and associate it with the Dragsource widget. The easiest way to do this is to highlight both of them (via Shift-clicking), pressing the right mouse button and selecting Labelà Rename As from the pop-up menu.

To populate the label either, use the second subfield of the Dragsource’s value. For example, in the proc code assigning the list to the Dragsource widget, like so:

Dynamic_Drag.Entity = "test=1;Dynamic"

(where ";" - gold semicolon - is the subfield separator) would assign the value "Dynamic" to the field’s label. Since the Dragsource widget itself will not actually be used, and will therefore not appear, it does not matter what appears in the first part of the list.

OR set the initial value in the Dragsource to a list, for example:

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