grdSortLock - Some More...

After adding the capability to hide and unhide column(s) yesterday, I decided to add some more features for this.  I can edit yesterday's post but then those who read it already may not be aware of the additional changes I made after that as they may no longer revisit that other post  so this new post.  Here are what is new (again) on this class:

1.  Cleaner arrow icons representing sort order.  Also I realized some plain users may get confused with the terms Sort Ascending or Sort Descending  so those are replaced with simple terms which are Order Up and Order Down

2.  Added now the locked icons if  a column is locked as additional visual guide.  So here is how it will look like now with locks implemented

3.  Added other more visual Toggling for RecordMark, Theme, GridLines, ScrollBars and Views. It means your users now can change those on-the-ply based on their taste

As for Views, this allows you to change something like this

Into this:

But while those other toggling are cool to give users a chance to change the looks of the grid based on their taste, those are half-baked so to speak being those are not retained by the class right now.  So when I have another more extra time, I will give this class that capability to remember a grid's last settings, per machine, so a user can personalize their grids and keep those preferences.

Well that is all for now! Cheers!

Hide/Unhide Grid Columns

This is actually per request of my very first subscriber MK Sharma.  So he was looking for a tool to hide/unhide grid columns on-the-ply that he asked me if this can be incorporated on the ssUltimate library.   I said okay I will look into it but I was busy with simultaneous projects these days that I kept shoving it at the back of my mind.

Finally I became a bit free of my workload and so I decided to work on this one today.  I did not realize adding this feature will not require a lot of my time that I kept unnecessarily putting this request on hold thinking I will do it later when I am free, which happens today; as it is hard to concentrate on extra things when you are already working on 3 projects simultaneously.

Anyway, that feature now is part of GridSortLock class.  So this means said class can now Sort, Lock and Hide/Unhide columns of the grid.  Here are some images of it:

MariaDB - Speeding Up Records Migration

I started testing MariaDB as my new backend and while it is simple enough to do the switch onto that, there are some things that I need to adjust on my VFP codes.  Some of those are the field types, for logical fields I have to use TINYINT (for MySQL ODBC 5.1 or later) or BIT (for MySQL ODBC 3.51), for dates it does not accept {} for an empty date, etc.

However, this post is not about that. It is more on the speed of migration approach.  Bear in mind I am new with this, only less than a week but I think regardless of it, this can help some who might be using MariaDB or MySQL as backends.

One way to connect from VFP to MariaDB is via SPT (SQL Pass-Through). With a code like this:

If SQLExec(gomyapp.DbBaseConn,'INSERT INTO MyTable (MyField) VALUES (?m.lcMyValue)') <= 0

      Aerror(laError)

      Messagebox(laError[2])

Endif

xBox on MySQL Backend

One of my subscribers is using MySQL as his backend so I requested him to provide a tutorial, as I do not use that backend myself, on how to use xBox on that one.  This guide can be useful to others too who has a different backend aside from that of VFP.  So here it is, it is quite simple actually:

Author:  Glenn Palic
Date: April 1, 2017

How to use xBox on MySQL Backend

1.  Make a connection with your mysql backend using ODBC in load event of your form

Example:

Public pnConnectionHandle,oConn

oConn= "Driver={MySQL ODBC 5.1 Driver};Server=localhost;Database=Yourdb;Port=3306;uid=username;pwd=password;Option=3;"

SQLSetprop(0,"DispLogin",3)

pnConnectionHandle = Sqlstringconnect(oConn)

If pnConnectionHandle > 0

      *   successs

Else

      Messagebox("Can't connect to the Server please inform network administrator.",0+32,"Error")

      Quit

Endif

2.  As xBox uses InteractiveChange event, then do it like this now:

Local lcSQL, lcName

lcName =[%]+Alltrim(This.Value)+[%]

TEXT TO lcSQL NOSHOW

  Select LastName, FirstName, CustomerID From customer WHERE LastName like ?lcName

ENDTEXT

SQLExec(pnconnectionhandle,m.lcstr,"junk")

If !Eof()

      TEXT TO lcSQL NOSHOW  

            Select * From junk ORDER By 1 into Cursor junkemp NOFILTER

      ENDTEXT

      This._searchgrid(m.lcSQL,'junkemp.LastName','junkemp.CustomerID')

Endif

And that is it!

The only difference between using VFP table is it does not need that first transfer to junk above.  The second transfer to junkemp is necessary for the _SearchGrid method to kick in.  I guess there won't be too much difference too on another backend such as MSSQL.  Cheers!

TitleBarX Color Cycling Trick

What is TitleBarX again?

It is a class to replace the form's titlebar.  It has these features:

1.  Two captions
2.  Ability to change on-the-ply its color and the objects on a form, and retain those via a popup colorwheel

To take a thorough glimpse on what this class is, click here

A subscriber emailed me just now and asked if we can change its default behavior of picking up the last color scheme.  What he wanted instead is to dictate to the class the color cycling which is based on the day of the week.  So for Monday, a color, Tuesday another color and so on...

Well, the trick is simple enough so I will show it here in case some of those who use it wants to do the same.  The trick is to put something like this on its Init Event:

* TitlebarX Init

DODEFAULT()

Do Case

      Case Dow(Date()) = 1

            This.BackColor = Rgb(0,128,128)

      Case Dow(Date()) = 2

            This.BackColor = Rgb(128,255,0)

      Otherwise

            This.BackColor = Rgb(138,176,66)

Endcase

This._swapcolor()

And that is it!  Cheers!

EditX 2017.02.20 Version

Okay. So for new readers, what is this EditX again? 

EditX is a dropdown editbox control class to save space on forms and grid. This is especially designed to show and handle contents of memo fields. 

Another new subscriber seems to be very much interested in this especially on grid usage so after a long time, I dug this one out again. And decided to do a major overhaul to satisfy them, and of course to make it better further. 

So What is New? 

• More responsive. Unlike on the previous versions where when inside a grid cell, you need to click twice, first on that cell to activate it then next on the arrow to fire the dropdown section, with this one you can click on the arrow straight from anywhere and it will fire outright
• Added ReadOnly. This allows us to use this on Grid to show memo notes and to either limit it to viewing purposes only or to allow direct editing of underlying ControlSource's value
• Cosmetic adjustments. Adjusted objects positions and sizes depending if it is on form or inside a grid. Changed down arrow to a better one.
• Finally, cleaned up old codes and other objects and replaced those with better and leaner ones. 

Advantages of EditX vs native EditBox? 

DropSwitch

February 13, 2017

Added MultiSelect capability.  It is controlled by two properties:

• MultiSelect
• .F. (Default), only a single switch can be selected each time from the dropdown list.  The caption of the selected switch will be reflected outright on the class
• .T. or allow multiselect.  When this is set to .T., the caption will reflect the number of switches turned on (see image below)
• mValues = are character values representing which switches are turned on.  On the image below, I set the initial mValues to 1,3,5.  mValues change on-the-ply, or when you turn on and off available switches.  Showing new Theme 17 I created just now too.

=====
February 9, 2017

Well, I've been meaning to do this for a long time but can't find much time to work on it.  But yesterday, I decided to finally do this.

What is DropSwitch?

It is a Control class with a commandbutton that has a dropdown form with several switches based on your desire.  You can think of the dropdown portion like an OptionGroup on a dropdown form, except that it does not use radiobuttons but my switches.

It is more like my OptionSwitchX class but this one hides the selection until you click the button.  So if you want to change the value, click on it, click anew on the popup selections (change will reflect on-the-ply), and click outside.

Some more differences with OptionSwitchX: