The SAS/AF Development Environment

The SAS/AF development environment (also called the build environment) has four main windows:

A frame is where you build the graphical user interface to your application. Frames are displayed in Build windows. When you save a frame, it is stored as a Frame entry in a SAS catalog. One application can use several frames, and you can have several frames open at the same time.

The Components window lists commonly used components (controls and models) that you can drag onto a frame. By default the Components window appears when you open or create a frame. Alternatively, you can select a type of control and then double-click on the frame where you want to place it.

To access Help on a component in the Components window, right-click on the component, and then select Help on Class.

The Properties window displays all of the properties of all the components on a frame (including the frame itself). From the Properties window you can view and edit properties.

Properties are the defining characteristics of a component. Properties are the attributes, methods, events, and event handlers that are defined on a component. Although events and event handlers are important for more complex applications, the example later in this document focuses mainly on attributes and uses only one method.

Attributes define information about a component, such as its name, height, and width. Methods define what a component can do, such as selecting or deselecting all the items in a List Box.

You use the Properties window to manipulate properties at build time, and you use programming code to manipulate properties at run time.

With a frame open, you can open the Properties window by selecting ViewProperties Window. You can also open the Properties window by right-clicking a component and selecting Properties.

You can open only one Properties window, and that window is shared between all open frames. The Properties window can only be opened when a frame is open.

Source windows contain a text editor for creating and editing programming code. You can have several Source windows open at the same time. The programming language that is used in SAS/AF is examined in Adding SCL Programs to Frames.