Working environments

4D can be used in two distinct environments: the Design environment and the Application environment.

The Design environment is used to design, develop and test your applications. All aspects of your application design are implemented in the Design environment. You use the Design environment to create tables and fields; define relations among tables; create forms for data entry, display, and printing; implement a password access system; create custom menus; or attach methods to database objects.

For example, you might want to keep track of information about each of the employees in a company. In the Design environment, you create an [Employees] table and add fields to that table to store employee data, such as the employee’s name, job title, start date, and salary. You might also add a [Departments] table that contains information about each department in the company. You could then create a relation between these tables that lets you easily determine in which department an employee works and which employees work in each department. 

The Design environment provides access to various windows and editors that allow you to carry out standard operations on the data of your database. You can enter data, search for a particular record, import or export data, print reports or generate labels for a mail shot. This means that you can test the functioning of your database, for example by entering or importing some records, or by executing your methods. The editors provided are the same as those available to users in the Application environment.

You can use the Design environment to do the following:

• Create tables and fields in which to store data,
• Establish relations between tables,
• Create forms for entering, displaying, printing or publishing data,
• Create lists of choices that simplify and control data entry,
• Write and execute methods to automate database operations,
• Create custom menus and associate methods or automatic standard actions with them,
• Create and manage multiple processes, allowing you to perform multiple database operations at the same time,
• Set up a system of passwords to control access to information,
• Launch a Web server or an SQL server to work with the data using external applications,
• Call or publish Web Services,
• Compile the database in order to accelerate its execution,
• Merge the database and the 4D engine in order to build a stand-alone application,
• Set up an automatic backup system including data replication,
• Enter and modify data,
• View and print data,
• Search and sort records,
• Create reports, labels and graphs,
• Import and export data,
• Work with any 4D plug-ins installed in the database.

The Application environment is the environment that you use to run a custom application — an application that uses 4D but has its own menu system and screen design. This is the environment in which applications created in the Design environment are usually distributed. To access it from the Design environment, you just need to select Test Application in the Run menu.

In the Application environment, you control everything in the application, from the menus and forms it uses, to the methods used to accept, process, and display data. You are responsible for providing menu items and associated methods or standard actions that manage basic tasks such as data entry and modification, searching and sorting, and reporting. You can use any or all of the standard editors provided in 4D (order by, label, etc.) or create your own screens and editors. 

The Application environment can be completely different for each application you create. From the user’s standpoint, the Application environment is a complete application for a specific kind of information management. 

The default menu bar generated by 4D includes a Mode menu allowing you to “Return to Design mode.”

If you have windows from more than one environment open at the same time, you can switch between environments by clicking their respective windows. When you click on a window, 4D places this window in the foreground and makes it the active environment.