Oracle Forms Developer – Form Builder Reference, Volume 1

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Background Color The color of the object’s background region.
Fill Pattern The pattern to be used for the object’s fill region. Patterns are rendered in the two colors
specified by Background Color and Foreground Color.
Character Mode Logical Attribute Specifies the name of a character mode logical attribute defined
in an Oracle Terminal resource file that is to be used as the basis of device attributes for a character
mode version of your application.
White on Black Specifies that the object is to appear on a monochrome bitmap display device as
white text on a black background.
Not all attributes are valid for each object type. For example, setting font attributes for a window
object has no effect. (The font used in a window’s title bar is derived from the system.)
A new object in a new form has Default visual attributes. The default settings are defined
internally. Override the default font for new items and boilerplate by setting the optional
FORMS60_DEFAULTFONT environment variable. For example, On Microsoft Windows, set
this variable in the ORACLE.INI file, as follows:
FORMS60_DEFAULTFONT="COURIER.10". The default font specified determines the font
used for new boilerplate text generated by the New Block window, and for any items that have
Visual Attribute Group set to Default.
When you create an item in the Layout Editor, its initial visual attribute settings are determined by the
current Layout Editor settings for fonts, colors, and patterns, as indicated by the Font dialog and
Color and Pattern palettes.
On Microsoft Windows, the colors of buttons, window title bars, and window borders are controlled
by the Windows Control Panel color settings specified for these elements. You cannot override
these colors in Form Builder.
When the Use 3D Controls form property is set to Yes on Microsoft Windows (the default), items are
rendered with shading that provides a sculpted, three-dimensional look. A side effect of setting this
property is that any canvases that have Visual Attribute Group set to Default derive their color
setting from the Windows Control Panel (gray for most color schemes). You can override this
setting by explicitly applying named visual attributes to the canvas.
An item that has Visual Attribute Group set to Default, or that has individual attribute settings left
unspecified, inherits those settings from the canvas to which it is assigned. Similarly, a canvas that
has Visual Attribute Group set to Default, or that has individual attribute settings left unspecified,
inherits those settings from the window in which it is displayed. For example, if you set a window’s
Background Color to CYAN, and then leave Background Color unspecified for the canvas assigned
to the window, at runtime, that canvas will inherit the CYAN background from its window. Visual
attribute settings derived through window canvas or canvas item inheritance are apparent only at
runtime, not at design time.
You can apply property classes to objects to specify visual attribute settings. A property class can
contain either the Visual Attribute Group property, or one or more of the individual attribute
properties. (If a property class contains both Visual Attribute Group and individual attributes, the
Visual Attribute Group property takes precedence.)
If you apply both a named visual attribute and a property class that contains visual attribute settings to
the same object, the named visual attribute settings take precedence, and the property class visual
attribute settings are ignored.
Logical attribute definitions defined in the resource file take precedence over visual attributes
specified in the Form Builder, local environment variable definitions, and default Form Builder
attributes. To edit the resource file, use the Oracle Terminal utility.