Tag Archives: Navigation

Basic Controls – 3

Posted on by vivaclipper

( Status Bar, Check Box )

We are continuing with Viva_HMG.hbp, Main.prg and Main.fmg.

While using a table and while navigating between its records, we need some extra info to show to user: Name of table, current record and record count in the table. So user always feels comfortable by knowing where is he / she; which table, which record?

The status bar control is convenient for this purpose and though this is a quite simple control, IDE has a builder for it: Status bar builder.

When you choose this builder ( after open the .fmg file by IDE of course ), a dialog box will open:

By using this dialog box we can define a status bar. We can prefer define status bar manually too:

    DEFINE STATUSBAR FONT "Tahoma" SIZE 9
        STATUSITEM "" WIDTH 300
        STATUSITEM "" WIDTH 40
        DATE         WIDTH 90
        CLOCK             WIDTH 90
    END STATUSBAR

After define status bar, we need assign values to its items. We don’t need assign values to DATE and CLOCK items, because these items will be updated by system (HMG) automatically.

First a little procedure :

PROCEDURE InitEdit()

EditReco.StatusBar.Item( 1 ) := cTableFNam

ReadData()

RETURN // InitEdit()

Change ON INIT event of  EditReco form from ReadData() to InitEdit(.

And add this line at end of ReadData() procedure.

 EditReco.StatusBar.Item( 2 ) := LTRIM( STR( RECN() ) ) + "\" + ;
                                 LTRIM( STR( LASTREC() ) )

Let’s look at the result :

Whenever active record change, Item( 2 ) of Status Bar will be updated ( 5/25 ) in above picture.

In this step, user must use “Save” button every time current record edited.  Whereas “Read” process is different; whenever current record changed, values of text boxes automatically updated. What about automatic save? May be, we can do this; but user may don’t want such automation. Asking a question like “Do you want save?” every change doesn’t a good way.

The better way may be: put a control to form such “Auto save” with On / Off option.

Yes, fortunately we have such control: Check Box.

We can replace a Check Box control to EditReco form with chbAutoSave name and Auto Save caption:

Now, how we will implement Auto Save process?.

By adding a little IF clause to ACTION events of navigation buttons:

Top : (IF(EditReco. chbAutoSave.Value , SaveData(), ), DBGOTOP(), ReadData() )

Next : (IF(EditReco. chbAutoSave.Value , SaveData(), ), DBSKIP(), ReadData() )

Previous : ( IF(EditReco. chbAutoSave.Value , SaveData(), ), DBSKIP( -1 ), ReadData() )

Last : (IF(EditReco. chbAutoSave.Value , SaveData(), ), DBGOBOTTOM(), ReadData() )

To be continued …

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Basic Controls – 2

Posted on by vivaclipper


( Text Box  )

We are continuing with Viva_HMG.hbp, Main.prg and Main.fmg. We have assign real actions other than MsgBox() to our two buttons now : Open File and Edit Record. Open File not required GUI controls ( at least for now ), so we can begin with it: For Open File we need a file ( a table ) first: it’s here; a table with four field: Clients.dbf :

No:  Field Name Type Width Dec
---  ---------  ---- ----- ---
  1  CLI_ID       N      5   0
  2  CLI_SNAM     C     12   0
  3  CLI_NAME     C     12   0
  4  CLI_TLF      C     11   0

And then add a little routine to Main.prg for open (USE) it:

PROCEDURE OpenTable()
   IF FILE( "CLIENTS.DBF" )
      USE CLIENTS
   ELSE
      MsgStop( "Clients.dbf file not found !")
   ENDIF
RETURN // OpenTable()

And assign this procedure to ACTION of  Open File  button.

Now, we can begin Edit Record task. For this task we need a separate form, a sub form.  Then let’s begin. “New form” from tool-bar and assign a name : EditReco. Assign a title : “Edit Record”, a type : MODAL. Our table has four fields, so we need four LABEL first:

Names :  lblCLI_ID,  lblCLI_SNAM,  lblCLI_NAME, lblCLI_TLF;

Values ( Captions ) : ID,  Surname, Name, Tlf

Rows : 60, 100, 140, 180 Col : 60

Cols :  60, 60, 60, 60

Widths : 70, 70,  70, 70

Alignement : RIGHT, RIGHT, RIGHT, RIGHT

We can see our job at work:

Now we need a place  for display the current data and accept user input. The control for this purpose is text box. So we need to define four text boxes for each field in the table.

The button of text box in the IDE tool bar is :

Names :  txbCLI_ID,  txbCLI_SNAM,  txbCLI_NAME, txbCLI_TLF;

Rows : 55, 95, 135, 175

Col : 140

DataTypes : First : NUMERIC, others : CHARACTER

We can see our job at work:

Well …

But where are table data ?

To see table data we need assign field values to text boxes as values.

Again, a little procedure:

PROCEDURE ReadData()
   EditReco.txbCLI_ID.Value   := CLIENTS->CLI_ID
   EditReco.txbCLI_SNAM.Value := CLIENTS->CLI_SNAM
   EditReco.txbCLI_NAME.Value := CLIENTS->CLI_NAME
   EditReco.txbCLI_TLF.Value  := CLIENTS->CLI_TLF
RETURN // ReadData()

and a call command for this procedure to ON INIT event of  EditReco form.

The result :

Everything is OK ?

No !

This is only first record of table; how we will see others ?

Yes, we need now yet another feature: navigation; that is travelling between records of table.

But before navigation, we have a problem: Open Table must be processed before Edit Record.

Otherwise a run time error will occurs: Alias does not exist. 

What we can do?

–       Discard Open Table button, open the table automatically; at beginning of program or at beginning of editing.

–       Before editing, check the table, if doesn’t open,

–          a)  open automatically or

–          b)  warn user and don’t load Edit Table form.

Probably most convenient is : disable Edit Record button until table is open.

First a mini procedure :

PROCEDURE Initialize()
   Main.btnEditRec.Enabled := .F.
RETURN // Initialize()

And then add this procedure ON INIT event of form main:

Last point: enable it after USE table:

PROCEDURE OpenTable()
   IF FILE( "CLIENTS.DBF" )
      USE CLIENTS
      Main.btnEditRec.Enabled := .T.
   ELSE
      MsgStop( "Clients.dbf file not found !")
   ENDIF
RETURN // OpenTable()

Run and see:

Before Open File :

After Open File:

Now we can pass to navigation:

We need seven buttons: Go Top, Go Next, Go Previous, Go Last, Save, Discard, Exit.

Name: btnGoTop, Caption : Top,  Col : 50, Row: 220, Height: 28, Width: 60

Name: btnGoNext, Caption : Next,  Col : 130, Row: 220, Height: 28, Width: 60

Name: btnPrevious, Caption : Previous,  Col : 200, Row: 220, Height: 28, Width: 60

Name: btnGoLast, Caption : Last,  Col : 270, Row: 220, Height: 28, Width: 60

Name: btnSave Caption : Save,  Col : 380, Row: 60, Height: 28, Width: 100

Name: btnDiscard, Caption : Discard,  Col : 380, Row: 140, Height: 28, Width: 100

Name: btnExit, Caption : Exit,  Col : 380, Row: 220, Height: 28, Width: 100

Common: Font Name: Tahoma, Font Size: 9

Actions :

btnGoTop: ( DBGOTOP(), ReadData() )
btnGoNext: ( DBSKIP(), ReadData() )
btnPrevious: ( DBSKIP( -1 ), ReadData() )
btnGoLast: ( DBGOBOTTOM(), ReadData() )
btnSave: SaveData()
btnDiscard: ReadData()

btnExit: ThisWindow.Release

Note that actions of four first buttons include two actions, separated by comma and enclosed by parenthesis.  With this notation we can define more than one action together.

SaveData() is the inverse of  ReadData(): copy values of text boxes to table fields.

PROCEDURE SaveData()         // Save data from text boxes to table
   CLIENTS->CLI_ID   := EditReco.txbCLI_ID.Value
   CLIENTS->CLI_SNAM := EditReco.txbCLI_SNAM.Value
   CLIENTS->CLI_NAME := EditReco.txbCLI_NAME.Value
   CLIENTS->CLI_TLF  := EditReco.txbCLI_TLF.Value
RETURN // SaveData()

Discard is simply re-reading data from table.

The result:

To be continued …

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Mini Agenda

Posted on by vivaclipper

This is a mini application developed primarily to denote some wonderful features of HMG.

Mini Agenda uses:

– A text (csv)  file for data source and Grid as browse of this file

– DEFINE ACTIVEX for “About” page from a .html file

– HFCL library ( Thanks to S. Rathinagiri for GridPrint )

Features :

– File operations: New, Open, ReOpen, Close, Save, Save as, Print

– Record operations:  Append, Delete, Insert

– Three way ( Natural, Ascending, Descending) sorting columns

– Preserve current item after sort

– In_place editing

– Incremental (and “soft” ) Search

– .ini File for keeping record of last used data file

Download : source, executable.