The panels at the left of Stonefield Query Studio are presented in a Microsoft Outlook-like control. Unless you have Studio configured to load the last project at startup, when you open Studio, it displays only the Start Page panel. When you load a project, additional panels appear.

The following panels are available:

• Start Page, which displays options such as creating a new project, a list of recent projects, and access to the Options page.

• Databases, which displays the structures and other metadata for an application's databases.

• Application Views, which displays the application views you've created for the application. This panel only appears in the Ultimate version of Studio.

• Data Groups, which allows you to segregate your tables into specific groups or modules (this panel may not appear as "Data Groups;" the Description for data groups configuration setting determines what text is displayed).

• User Groups, which displays the roles used in role-based security.

• Configuration, which provides customization settings.

• Scripts, which allow you to code the exact behavior you require.

Working with Panels

• To select a panel, click the panel bar in the panels control. That panel then appears at the top of the panels control.

• To change the height of the selected panel, click the splitter that separates the selected panel from the panel bars and drag it up or down. Dragging it down increases the height of the selected panel and reduces the number of panel bars while dragging up does the opposite. Another way to do this is to click the panel options button (see the image below) and select Show More to show more panel bars or Show Less to show fewer panel bars.

• Panel bars that were removed because you increased the height of the selected panel are still available: they are displayed as icons at the bottom of the panel control and in the panel options menu.

  

• To select a panel, click its icon or click the panel options button and select the desired panel from the menu that appears.

• To change the width of the panels control, click the splitter that separates it from the properties pane at the right of Studio and drag it left or right.

• Studio includes several color themes. To select a theme, click the panel options button and choose it from the menu. The following image shows the Office 2003 Olive theme:

  

• You can collapse the panel control by clicking the panel collapse button at the top of the panel control. Click it again to expand the panel control.

  

Start Page

The Start Page has three collapsible task panes: Recent Projects, Tasks, and Getting Started. To collapse a pane, click the button at the right edge of the pane; click it again to expand the pane.

• Recent Projects: this displays up to seven of the most recent projects you've opened, in reverse order so the most recent project appears at the top. The Application Name for the project is shown as a hyperlink; click the link to open that project or right-click and choose Open Project from the menu. The Application Name and path of the project's files are shown as a tooltip when you hover your mouse over the link.

  To remove a project from the list, right-click its link and choose Remove Project from List.

  This doesn't delete the project's folder or its files; it just removes the project from the list.

• Tasks: three options are available in the Tasks pane: New Project, which opens the New Project Wizard; Open Project, which displays a dialog in which you can select the folder containing the files for the project you wish to open; and Options, which displays Studio options in the properties pane at the right.

• Getting Started: this task pane provides items that help you get started using Stonefield Query. Videos navigates your browser to the videos page of our web site, where you can watch videos showing various aspects of Stonefield Query. Help opens the first page of the Studio help file, while What's New opens the What's New topic in the help file. Support navigates your browser to the support page on the Stonefield Query web site and Stonefield Query Blog takes you to our blog. Open Sample Project opens the sample project that comes with the Stonefield Query SDK, in the Sample Project folder.