The control-frame widget is a field-level widget, and as such it establishes the relationship between the ActiveX control and other ABL widgets in the user interface. Thus, it is the control-frame widget attributes (like ROW and TAB-POSITION) that maintain the relationship between the ActiveX control and other field-level widgets. For example, the spin button control in the figure ActiveX control example has a location and tab order that is determined by the control-frame widget location and tab order in the CustomerInformation dialog box.

The control-frame widget also allows you to handle widget events that interact with other field-level widgets (like TAB and LEAVE) or that have special ABL significance (like GO and END-ERROR).