When you open an application, DataEase displays the Application Catalog which is a list of all the documents in the current application; documents like forms, tables, procedures and reports.
Each type of document is represented by an icon. You can use the + and - to expand or collapse the list to see the document names, or you can access them from the corresponding tab of each type. If you want to open a document from the Catalog, you can just double-click the document's name.


Let's talk about each tab and the type of document inside it:

Tables tab:  List of tables in the current application. The data in the tables are stored in a tabular format (columns and rows).

Forms tab: List of forms that act like the User Interface of the data stored in the tables. In other words, it is the way of how you would like the information (data in tables) to be presented. You use forms to easily view, enter, modify, delete, and save data in the application.

So, you can customize the design/layout of the form but not the table.

This is an example of how the same data looks like in the table and form:




ODBC/OLE Links: List of the links/connections you create to connect the application with other databases through the ODBC driver or OLE DB.

QBM (Query By Model)/Quick Reports: List of reports or forms (live reports) that are created using the QBM dialog. We will talk about it in details and how to create/use it.

Checked DQLs (DataEase Query Language): List of the procedures you create in your application. We will explain what DQL is in more details in a separate article, but to imagine what DE DQL procedures are about and what they are for; the simplest processing can be done using DE procedures, is to enter, modify, or delete sets of records instead of processing each record individually in the form/table. Another example, you can create a procedure to call a chain of procedures to print several summary reports (that can be done either by another procedure or a QBM report).

Menus: Custom menus are a special type of document (looks like a form) that helps you navigate to different forms and/or execute procedures in the application, i.e it performs specific tasks by creating group of buttons with customized and specified actions you want. 

An example:



Users: List of users you create to access the application. DataEase stores information about users like names, passwords, security level, and the startup-document. 



Custom Defined Functions (CDF): List of the external custom functions that DataEase let you to define inside your application. There are already plenty of predefined functions in DataEase that you can use with no need to define it in your application. This is a list of them:
http://www.dataease.com/help_functions/

An example of a CDF definition: Function FileDelete() which allow you to delete a specified file in your computer. 



Now after explaining each type of DataEase document.. let's show you how to create and use them.