Step 4: Rebuild the view's index
While in the view, hit SHIFT-F9 to rebuild the index of the view. You'll need to do this every time the $FormulaClass of the view changes.

You can see the results in Figure B.

FIGURE B


Here is a view that shows both Forms and Subforms sorted by their titles. Roll over picture for a larger image.

To be honest, this view isn't terribly exciting. But once we dress it up a little, it will not only be really exciting, it will be useful as well.

Separating the design elements
Since both forms and sub-forms appear when $FormulaClass is set to "4"; views, navigators and folders appear when it is set to "8"; and all main design elements appear when $FormulaClass = "1548" -- we need to find a way of differentiating within views between different types of design elements.

Since the design element documents don't have a field called Type = "Form, View, etc.", we have to use the other design element field properties to differentiate. The most useful of all of these is the $Flags field. Table B shows how the value of the $Flags field differs between the design elements.

Once we've successfully differentiated between the different types of design elements, we can sort them in a view. You can see how such a view looks in Figure C.

FIGURE C


Here you can see all design elements in a single view, categorized by type. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Sample application: the Design Element Manager
If you want to see what has been keeping me up at night, you can download it from http://dan.velasco.com. There you can grab a sample database that I've created that I call the Design Element Manager. What I've done is to use the power of the $FormulaClass field to change views to show all design elements in a single view, either categorized by Title, Type or Parent Template.

I've then pasted in design elements from my templates (choosing to keep inheriting the design) into my Design Element Manager database. This way, I can easily add different design elements to my databases and even keep track of what design elements I've added to what databases and when. If I decide I need to delete a certain design element from all of the databases I've added it to, I can simply go to my log documents and delete all of the design elements I've added from there. You'll find all of the code for doing this in the sample database.

Do keep in mind that once you download the database, you'll need to add some design elements of your own to manage. I don't want to get whipped by Goddess (formerly Mistress) Helen for distributing my company's trade secrets.