Quick Start with AQT

Layout of AQT Windows

The following picture shows a typical AQT window, and the various components on that window:

the menu bar contains most functions that can be invoked from this window.

• the toolbar provides single-click access to common functions. You can customize the toolbars used by AQT.

• the status bar shows information and error messages. In many cases, if AQT has an information or error message it will not use a popup box (as these can be annoying). Instead the message is written to the status-bar. For this reason, it is often a good idea to keep an eye on the messages that are written to this.

  Sometimes the status bar has a long message that can't all be seen. If you click the status bar you will be shown the message in full.

• the window-list bar provides an easy way of navigating between AQT's windows. Clicking on a button in the window-list bar will take you that window. The window-list bar is described in more detail here.

General usability concepts

This section gives some general explanations about the way the end-user interface works. In some cases these are (slightly) different from the way other Windows applications work. Our focus has always been ease-of-use, and we have aimed to avoid many annoying aspects of other systems.

Message Boxes

These are not used a lot in AQT because having to click on OK to close boxes can sometimes be a real nuisance and interrupt you. Instead, AQT's informative messages are written to the Status Bar at the bottom of the window. Click on a long message to see the full text.

Status Bar

Instead of using message boxes, AQT will place error and informative messages in the status box at the bottom of the window.

If the message is long and doesn’t fit into the status bar, click on the message to see the full text.

AQT Message Box

On the rare occasions when we do display a message box you may see AQT’s own version of a message box. This has the advantages that you can:

• re-size it if it’s displaying a lot of data

• print it

• save its contents

• copy its contents to the clipboard.

Window sizes

Most windows can be re-sized. AQT will remember these sizes, even across AQT sessions. In the Database Explorer window the divider-bars can be moved; these positions are remembered too.

Printing

AQT doesn't provide the ability to print the contents of the screen. If you wish to do this, hit the Print button on your PC, paste into an image editor, and print from there.

Printing Grids

There are two ways of printing grids in AQT:

• Print Grid

• Generate Report

Print Grid provides a basic method for printing the contents of a grid.

Generate Report provides a more fully-feature method for printing the grid. This option is only represent on the Data Display window.