Creating Your Own UI

ComponentOne Query consists of the query engine, C1Query control, and the user interface control – C1QueryFrame. C1QueryFrame provides a built-in user interface, which can be easily customized, see Customizing the User Interface. However, in many cases, developers need to create their own user interface to satisfy user requirements. For example, you may need to provide a series of combo boxes where the user will be able to choose fields, conditions, and so on.

C1Query allows you to create your own user interface and connect it to the powerful C1Query SQL generation engine. This option is demonstrated in Tutorial 8.

Create a user interface form using any controls you need. Then write code filling a C1QueryFrame control with query items specified by the user in that form. Make the C1QueryFrame control invisible at run time, since you need it only as a programmatic container of the user-specified data and a conduit between your UI form and the engine, the C1Query control. C1QueryFrame object model allows you to set query fields and conditions, see Accessing and Modifying Query Items, so that they become available to the C1Query control. Then you call C1Query.BuildSQL to generate SQL from the user input.