Blocks, Layers and Tools

WorkXpress has five building blocks that are used to create applications.

Forms can be used to get information from users as well as display information. For example, if you sell widgets, you may have an order form customers can use to place orders. Another form would be displayed to employees showing the order information.

Fields are the granular bits of information that you are interested in gathering or displaying on forms. On the widget order form, you may have fields for Order Date, Widget Type, and Price.

Tables contain records. Your widget company wishes to keep track of customers, so you would create a Customer table. This table would have fields about customer information, perhaps Name, Address, and Phone Number. A group of fields about a particular entity, in this case a single customer, is called a record.

Relationship Tables are how tables and records are related to one another. On your widget order form, you may have a field for customer that is related to the Customer table. This allows you to link the record about the order with the record about the customer.

Actions are anything you want the computer to do for you automatically. Actions are executed as part of procedure that was fired by a trigger. As part of a procedure, you may create Actions to send emails, update task statuses, open new pages, or even make SOAP calls. After your customer completes the order form, you may want an action to send a confirmation email to the customer.

Every software application can be thought of as a composition of 3 layers; a data layer, a presentation layer, and a logic layer. A data layer is essentially whats known as a “database”. A presentation layer is the user interface - the actual webpages seen by users. A logic layer is all of the business logic, business rules, workflow and automation that goes on behind the scenes.

In WorkXpress, since everything you build is comprised of the 5 fundamental building blocks(Tables, Relationships, Fields, Forms and Actions), the 3 Layers must be also comprised of the 5 fundamental building blocks as described below.

Data Layer (the database) - comprised of Tables, Fields and Relationships.

Activate the Data Layer overlay in your development environment by pressing the Data Layer button in the Block Creator interface. Use the Data Layer to:

• summarily review data linkages from elements of the current page
• edit data linkages pertaining to elements of the current page

Presentation Layer (the user interface) - comprised of Forms and Fields

Activate the Presentation Layer overlay in your development environment by pressing the Presentation Layer button in the Block Creator interface. Use the Presentation Layer to:

• Add Forms and Fields
• Edit Forms and Fields
• Remove Forms and Fields
• Move Forms and Fields

Logic Layer (the business rules, automation and workflow) - comprised of Actions

Activate the Logic Layer overlay in your development environment by pressing the Logic Layer button in the Block Creator interface. Use the Logic Layer to:

• Review which automation triggers are accessible from the current page, and counts of Actions directly under each trigger
• Click on available triggers to launch that triggers procedure

Main article: Block Creator

Main article: Block Editor

Main article: Query Builder

Main article: Expression Builder

Main article: Action Manager