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windowinfo(
windowinfo(
TITLE
,
PROPERTY
)

The windowinfo( function returns information about an open window: its name, type, database, location, etc.

Parameters

This function has two parameters:

title – The title of the window you want information about, or the window ID number (if numeric, see Window ID Numbers). If this parameter is blank, or omitted, the function will return information about the current window.

property – the type of information (name, type, etc.) to return. See below for details.

Description

This function returns information about an open window: its name, type, database, location, etc. This example returns the type of an open window (data sheet, form or procedure).

windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","Type") ☞ Form

If the first parameter is numeric, it specifies the window ID number instead of the window name.

windowinfo(4,"Form") ☞ 5160 Label

Normally you would never specify the window ID number with a constant value like this, instead you would get it from a function: info(“windownumber”), getformoption(, getprocedureoption( etc. See Window ID Numbers to learn about formulas for accessing window ID numbers.

Window Properties

An open window has almost a dozen different properties. The windowinfo( function can return any one of these, or it can return a dictionary with all of them.

ALL

If you specify ALL (or omit the property) the windowinfo( function will return a dictionary that contains all of the properties listed below (except for the rectangle property). You can extract individual properties with the getdictionaryvalue( function or you can convert the entire dictionary to text with the dumpdictionary( or dumpdictionaryquoted( function. Here is a typical example:

dumpdictionary(windowinfo("Fruit Database:Nutrition Information"))

The output from this formula will look something like this:

DATABASE=Fruit Database
VARIABLES=
OPTIONS=NoHorzScroll NoVertScroll
TYPE=Form
LASTTIMEINFRONT=3504361211
NAME=Fruit Database:Nutrition Information
PROCEDURE=
FORM=Nutrition Information

Database

This property is the database associated with the window.

windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","Database") ☞ Mailing List

You may think this property is obvious from the window title, but remember that the windowname statement can be used to change the window title to a name that doesn’t contain the database name. In that case, the windowinfo( function can be used to determine the actual database name.

Type

This property determines the type of view associated with the window – either Data Sheet, Form, Draw, or Procedure.

windowinfo("Mailing List","Type") ☞ Data Sheet
windowinfo("Mailing List:5160","Type") ☞ Form

Form, Procedure and View

These properties determine the name of any form or procedure associated with the window. If you just want the name and don’t care if it is a form or a procedure, use the View property, otherwise use either Form or Procedure for these specific types of views.

windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","Form") ☞ 5160 Label
windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","Procedure") ☞ 
windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","View") ☞ 5160 Label

Clone

This property will be true if the current window was opened as a “clone” window. See OpenForm (which has a clone option), OpenDialog, RunDialog and OpenCloneWindow.

Closeable

This property is true if the window can be closed. If false, the window can’t be closed (the red close circle will be gray, and the Close Window command in the File menu will be disabled). If you want to close a window that is not closeable, you must first make it closeable using the setwindowoptions statement.

Name

This property returns the name of the window. This really only makes sense if you leave the window name empty – otherwise you are just repeating back the name you already know!

windowinfo("","Name") ☞ Mailing List:5160 Label

Note: Another way to get the current window name is to use the info(“windowname”) function.

Rectangle

This property is the location and size of the window. This example calculates the height (in points) of the current window.

rheight(windowinfo("","Rectangle")) ☞ 186

ToolBar

This property is true if the window’s toolbar is visible, false if it is hidden.

VerticalScrollBar

This property is true if the window’s vertical scrollbar is enabled, false if it is disabled.

HorizontalScrollBar

This property is true if the window’s horizontal scrollbar is enabled, false if it is disabled.

Options

This property returns the names of any currently enabled window options. The available options are: notoolbar, novertscroll, and nohorzscroll. If the Mailing List:5160 Label doesn’t have scroll bars, the result would look like this:

windowinfo("Mailing List:5160 Label","Options") ☞ novertscroll nohorzscroll

Variables

This property returns the names of any windowglobal variables associated with the window as a carriage return delimited list.

LastTimeInFront

This property returns the last time this window was brought to the front. This number is an integer superdate (which includes both the date and time).

superdatestr(windowinfo("Mailing List:5160","LastTimeInFront")) ☞ 1/17/15 5:35 PM

See the superdate( function for more information about handling superdates.

See Also

History

VersionStatusNotes
10.2UpdatedNow allows the window to be specified by name or by ID number.
10.0NewNew in this version.