Use the Grid View if:

• The data you need to view all comes from one Entity (e.g. was imported from a SD file) and does not contain any Relationships.

• You want to see multiple records at a time.

• You want something really simple

Use the Form View if:

• The data you need to view comes from multiple Entities and contains relationships.

• You have lots of fields that you want to fit onto the screen together.

• You are more interested in a record-by-record view of the data

• You want more control over how your view of your data e.g. you only want to see the structure of the selected row.

• Some of your text data is lengthy and needs lots of space to display, or would be better displayed using scrollbars.

• You want to display structures at a larger size than is practical in a tabular view.

Creating a View

To create a new view for a selected table, right-click a selected Data Tree node ( ) in the Projects window and choose New View. The New View dialog opens:

1. In the View Type drop-down box, select either Default Grid View or Empty Form View.

2. In the New View Name text box, enter a name for the View.

3. Click Finish. A new View is generated and a View node displays under the selected data tree in the Projects window.

Working with View functionality

When working in a view, supported functionality includes:

• Switching between Views using the tabs at the top of the window

• Closing a View by clicking in its close icon located in the view's tab at the top of the window

• Reordering tabs by dragging them within the window

• Moving a View to a different position by dragging the tab to that window.

• Displaying the tab in a different part of the window (north, south, east, west, centre) by dragging it to that location

• Maximizing a View to occupy the full window space by double-clicking on the tab. Restore the other windows by double-clicking the tab again.

View Ownership

Unlike most of the other artifacts that you deal with in Instant JChem ( Schemas, Entities, Fields, Data Trees etc.) which are shared between all users, a View belongs to an individual user. This means that you can make whatever changes you want to a View, and you will not affect other users Views. This is important when using a remote database in multi-user mode, where each user might only have read-only access to the core data model components, but will wish to create and modify their Views, even if they can't modify the underlying model or the data within it.

IJC allows views to be shared between multiple users in two distinct ways:

1. A user can take a copy of a view from another user. This is a true copy and subsequent changes to the original and the copy are independent of each other.

2. A user can allow sharing of a view, which allows other users to use the view, but changes are not saved so the original is unaffected. This allows an administrator to distribute a set of forms to all users. For more details see Sharing items with others