You work with display formats in the Database painter and the DataWindow painter.
When you place a column in a DataWindow object and have given it a display format (either the default format from the assignment made in the Database painter for the column or a format assigned in the DataWindow painter), no link is maintained to the named format in the extended attribute system tables.
If the definition of the display format later changes in the extended attribute system tables, the format for the column in a DataWindow object does not change. If you want to use the modified format, you can reapply it to the column in the DataWindow painter.
