Formatting Data

For more comprehensive data formatting options, from the Data Display window, click on View > Amend Layout or click on the Layout button. This will take you to the Data Layout window. Within this window you can:

set the caption for the display grid
change the order of the columns in the display, by clicking on Move Up, Move Down or Move To...
display the columns in alphabetic order. To do this, click on the Column header to sort by the column name. This will cycle between sort ascending, sort descending and no sort.
specify the alignment of the data in the columns.
specify a customized Format for the column (this is described below)
specify whether columns are hidden by checking the Hidden checkbox
specify whether columns are fixed by checking the Fixed checkbox
adjust the Column widths
specify the display sort order.

Saving / Loading the Display Formatting

Once you have formatted the data in the way you want, you can save the data layout. See Saving / retrieving the display Layout for more on this.

Sort Order

Use this column to specify the columns the display is to be sorted by.

Sorting by multiple columns

You can sort by multiple columns.

When you are sorting by multiple columns, the sequence that they will be sorted by is the order the columns appear in the display. For instance, if you wish to sort by ColumnA, then by ColumnB, you need to have ColumnA appearing before ColumnB in the display.

Format

This specifies the data format AQT uses to display the data in the grid. Note that this determines how the values are displayed - the underlying data value is unchanged.

For character columns, AQT uses a format of General.

For numeric columns, by default AQT will use a format of General. You have the choice of a number of a number of other options:

Currency	Display data with thousands separator, currency symbol and with two digits right of the decimal place. Based on the system locale settings.
Percent	Display number with thousand separator, at least one digit to the left and two digits to the right of the decimal separator.
##0.00	This, and the following item, are examples of custom numeric formats. These are described later.
#,###,###,##0.00

For date and time columns, by default the values are displayed as per Options > Display Format > Format of Date Time columns. The following other formats are available:

Short Date	Display a date/time according to your system's short date format.
Long Date	Display a date/time according to your system's long date format.
Full Date	Display a date/time according to your system's long date format plus the time.
yyyy-MM-dd	This, and the following item, are examples of custom date formats. These are described later.
MM-dd-yyyyy

Custom Formats

For numeric values and date / time values, you can also use custom-formats, for example

$###,##0.00
dddd MMMM yyyy
(000)000-000

In these:

#	digit placeholder, Display a digit or nothing
0	digit placeholder. Display a digit or 0.
.	decimal digit
,	thousands separator
%	percent indicator. When this is specified in the format-string, the value will be multiplied by 100 and the % placed where indicated.
-+$()	if any of these characters are specified, they will be displayed as is.
"ABC"	display other literal string
yyyy	year
dd	day. Can be specified as dd (numeric day), ddd (short day name) or dddd (full day name)
MM	month. Can be specified as M (without leading zero), MM (with leading zero), MMM (short month name) or MMMM (full month name)
yyyy	year. Can be specified as yy or yyyy
hh	hour. Can be specified as h (without leading 0) or hh (with leading zero)
mm	minute. Can be specified as m or mm.
ss	second. Can be specified as s or ss.