Designing Screens › How to Create Screens › Add a Field

Add a Field

A field represents the implementation of an attribute. This means that you can add fields only to screens, not to templates. When you add a field, you must define and position it (except for hidden fields, which you only define).

Adding a field involves the following tasks:

• Add a field name
• Define a field
• Position a field

You can add individual fields, repeating groups of fields, and nested repeating groups. When you add repeating and nested repeating groups where the maximum cardinality exceeds the number of display lines, you should also add the special fields for scrolling (Scroll Location Msg, Scroll Amount Msg, and Scroll Indicator Msg) to either the template (if repeating groups are found on all screens) or the individual screen.

When you add nested repeating groups to a screen, you should plan the screen layout so that the presentation of fields reflects the subordination of one group to another. One way to do this is through indention of groups, similar to the indention of repeating group names on the Views panel during View Maintenance. CA Gen supports multiple levels of nesting, but only three levels can contain groups with a cardinality greater than one. Only the highest level of a repeating group can be scrolled.

Repeating group views can be mapped only to repeating group views. In addition, non-repeating group views can be mapped only to non-repeating group views.

A procedure step is associated with a single screen, which is responsible for providing data to import and export views of a procedure step. Since a field can represent both the import and export data views of an attribute, the field must be correctly mapped to both. During the definition of a field, you can specify the import and export views. During field definition, CA Gen automatically maps a matchable import view field to the export view chosen. In some cases, however, an export view cannot be mapped to a corresponding import view. In these cases, you should map the import view as not yet mapped. When you define a field with unmapped views, you should perform view mapping. If the field is contained only in the export view (only exported from the procedure step), the system maps the import view of the field to none.