Working in the File Designer

The File Designer, accessed through the workspace's Data view, is used to create, view, and modify data layout files. The designer interface consists of five tabbed screens:

• The File Control tab contains most of the information used to generate a SELECT statement.
• The Definition tab contains the information used to generate a file description (FD).
• The Key tab contains key information for the file (if applicable).
• The IO Handling tab is used to determine which types of file handling code, including declaratives, are associated with a data file at the project level.
• The XFD tab is used to add XFD directives and otherwise customize the XFD generated for a file (when needed).

To open the File Designer, you must either create a new data layout file (as described in Creating a DLT from Scratch through Creating DLTs from Multiple FDSL Pairs) or open an existing data layout file. To open an existing DLT, go to the Data view and double-click the DLT name. You can also right-click the project node and select Open data_layout_name from the pop-up menu.