Adding New Tabs

How Can I Create New Tabs?

Types of tabs.

There are two kinds of tabs in SeedCode Calendar; there are the Main Navigation tabs at the top of the screen, things like “Day” and “Week”, and then there are the Native tabs within each section; the tabs “Appointments” and “To-Do List” on the Daily view are Native tabs.

Adding New Native Tabs

This is pretty easy. Enter layout mode and double click near the tab’s border to edit it. You’ll see the Tab Control Setup dialog for the tab. If the options in that dialog are dimmed, you may need to unlock the tab by selecting “unlock” from FileMaker’s Arrange menu. Once unlocked, simply double click on the tab control area to bring up its editor. There you can change the name of the tabs, change their order, or add and delete tabs.

The only thing you want to be careful of is that you don’t accidentally move the tab area itself (this is why we lock it in layout mode—to prevent accidental nudging). If part of an object is in the tab and part is out, you can see some unexpected behavior in browse mode.

Adding New Navigation Tabs

Enter layout mode on almost any layout and you’ll see that the main navigation tabs across the top of the screen (things like “Day” and “Week”) are just layout objects. To make new ones you can simply copy an existing tab ad paste in back on your layout before editing its label and the script or button action associated with it.

Here are a couple of tips that should help you edit these successfully:

Each tab is really a collection of layout objects. The image of the tab itself is comprised of two instances of a container field which holds the tab image. We use a separate contained field for the “active” tab (these are white) and for the “dim” tabs (in gray). To make a tab longer or shorter, drag the outside edge of one or both of the container fields to get the size you need.

The names of the top level tabs (things like “Day” and “Week”) are stored in fields on the Settings / Interface tab, so you can edit all instances of these names at once. The second row of tabs on the Settings screen have their names as text objects right on the tab.

The script or button action associated with each tab is attached to a clear layout object placed over the tab image. This is so we can have the “highlight” of the depressed tab match the shape of the tab image. So, if you change the size of the tab, you’ll want to change the size of this object as well. Note that “active” (i.e. white) tabs don’t have an action associated with them and lack this clear object.