Creating Custom Event Handlers

When a form displays to the user, Encompass360 provides opportunities, called "events," for which you can execute custom code. For example, an event occurs whenever the user clicks a button control or modifies the contents of a text box. By adding your own custom functionality to these events, you can add significant functionality to your form beyond the simple fill-in-the-blanks default behavior.

Within the Form Builder, different controls provide different events. The button control provides a click event while a text box control provides a change event.

In order to add your custom code to any event you must author an "event handler." An event handler is the code that Encompass360 will execute at the time the associated event occurs. For example, you can create an event handler for a button's click event that instructs Encompass360 to copy the value of one loan field into another.

Custom event handlers are written in either the VB.NET or the C# programming language, as determined by the EventLanguage property on the Form. You do not, however, need to be fluent in either language to write basic event handlers.

Macros

The Form Builder provides multiple "macros" that you can use to invoke predefined pieces of code to perform common actions, such as copying a value from one field to another. Users who are fluent in one or both programming languages can author far more complex event behavior using the full power of Microsoft's .NET Framework.

Event Arguments

During the execution of certain events, such as the Format event which is used to perform on-the-fly formatting of user input, data you will need to control the outcome of the event is made available to your event handler.

For example, consider the case where the Format event is being used to force the user to input only characters in the range A through E. With each keystroke, a Format event is triggered on the text box control in which the user is typing. Within your event handler, your code needs to know the text that the user has typed and, if appropriate, needs to reformat it to remove invalid characters.

The following code snippet demonstrates what this code may look like.

 

Dim i as Integer

Dim NewValue as String = ""
 

For i = 0 to EventArgs.Value.Length – 1

Dim C as String = EventArgs.Value.Substring(i, 1)

 

If C >= "A" And C <= "E" then

NewValue = NewValue & C

End If

Next

EventArgs.Value = NewValue

 

You can create event handlers for the following events using the Editor:

 

To Write Code To Trigger an Event:

Note: To create a new custom event handler, you should first know the control on which the event will occur.

  1. Select a control on the workspace.
  2. On the Properties window, click the Events button (lighting bolt).
  3. Click the event name, and then click .
  4. Type the code, and then click OK.

 

Using Macros to help create custom code.