Tuesday, March 12, 2013

ssUltimate/ssClasses Sample Video

For the first time, I decided to show by way of video how one of my apps look like.  This one is a very small app I called Easy ID Creator which is what I develop to be used here on our end in creating  IDs on-the-ply.  I plan to later  enhance this to be used in Daily Time Recording by scanning the IDs (that is why the barcode) and thereby calculating the employee time; to replace the old Bundy Clock.

I would like to show how it really looks like but I am forced to convert said video from .avi to .wmv format which has lower resolution as uploading of the .avi takes time due to size.  Here though is how it looks near, near because this is likewise a jpeg resized image so it still do not actually show the real appearance.




This one uses HTML Browser by studying the sample shared to us by Cetin Basoz and then tweaking it further to suit my needs.  I favor that here over the Native Grid approach (Various Images on Grid blog) I have shown last time being  scrolling here is smoother and not like the jerky movement shown by Native VFP Grid.  But unlike the Native VFP Grid where we can manipulate several objects (fields) in a cell via Dynamic Fake methods, this one can display only a single field per cell, and so needs some tricks to generate the IDs in actual images so it can be shown properly on the browser.

And to complete the tricks needed, this uses FoxBarCode of Maria Luis Guayan and the late Guillermo Carrero for the barcode images, ImageCapture.prg of Gelson Bremm for capturing images needed for the ID, and some tricks I gleamed from Cesar Chalom's weblogs posts in manipulating images via GDI+ like saving the image of the ID and on converting the scanned document from bitmap into jpeg behind the scene as my scanner can only save it in bitmap format.  You will be surprised that it only needs a few lines to do those. Not to mention that HTML Browser has a hard time displaying bitmap images.  This also uses the free Eztw32.dll for the simple scanning needs and some WinAPIs for showing video via webcam.  And oh, I adopted Bernard Bout's Windows 8 Live Tiles approach in a small portion of the form just to give some effects on smooth scrolling up/down on a container for some minor info of staff.  Many thanks to you guys!

Well, I guess the reason for this video and post is to show what VFP can do even while support is discontinued.  And likewise to prove that VFP can really do cool things.  And with the help of the above plus ssClasses (ssUltimate in this case) library to spice up the look, does this app looks derelict to your taste?

Actually, ssBattery is likewise used here to show progress but it appears the recording tool I use do not capture forms running on top level because that and my login form do not appear on the video.  Oh well!

I have tried repeatedly to upload said video on youtube but since we really have poor internet service here plus when I was about to finish uploading it suddenly rains (shucks! we are on VSAT), I gave up on the 7th attempt and instead uploaded this to my dropbox.  Surpisingly, dropbox acts just like you tube on videos.  Click this link:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15025358/Video3.wmv

Better run it full screen (right-click, FullScreen) so you can see objects best.  Cheers!





2 comments:

  1. Hi Jun,
    This is great man, i would like to do something like this, actually i don't need the pictures in their id, but i will need the id printed with their id # the barcode and their name and lastname, also i am exactly looking for this to be implemented "Daily Time Recording by scanning the IDs and thereby calculating the employee time; to replace the old Bundy Clock and also the time the spent working on a job #. please can you help me on this ?
    Thanks a lot
    Ernesto from the foxite forum

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Ernesto, I hope our email exchanges can help you attain these. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete