ssClasses Update

ssGridSorter Enhancement

I realized that it is annoying for the users of ssGridSorter that it kept on toggling back and forth from ASCENDING to DESCENDING every time they click a header.  So I decided to remove that auto-toggling.

The class will run from now on by default in ASCENDING order and users can click any header of the grid (excluding those with .controlsource of General, Memo and Blob) and they will all have that order (it won't auto-toggle anymore).  To toggle the order, users now need to right-click on any header.  So if the current order is ASCENDING, right-clicking on any header will turn the order into DESCENDING; and vice-versa.  Once it is on DESCENDING order, user can click (left-click of course) on any header of the grid's column and that current sort order will be followed.  To toggle, right-click again.

I also added the necessary tooltip text to guide the users.

ssExcel Pivot

a.  Changed the default font from Arial 10 to Calibri 8.
b.  Added the ability to change the font to be used. This._font = 'Calibri-10'
c.  Added row freezing

Facts about a country!

Well, I have constant visitors of my blog site but I believe most of you do not know one hidden feature here? Which is you can know some facts about your country or other countries as well. How is that then?

Grid Tricks#4- Clearer Search Results

Where is numbers 1, 2 & 3 Tricks?  We can simply treat #1 as the More Objects inside a Cell blog, #2 as the Various Images II blog and #3 as the Transparent Grid blog.

I decided to start showing some more tricks I do on my side using grids which I deem will be useful for others as well.  This is about making the search result clearer or more visible by highlighting the cell contents where a near match can be found.  If not, it is very tiring for the user's eyes to trace where exactly those near matches are.

Block Breaker Tool

I have been converting image files into HexBinary values, manually breaking those into acceptable blocks and enclosing those with TEXT... ENDTEXT, then finally embedding the codes within ssClasses.  The purpose of that is so I can make my library self-sustaining for its images need. 

I wanted the codes to be embedded inside because I want better control of the class and of course to minimize the unnecessary maintenance which will not be possible should I save those binary values inside a table or a text file; and ship those along with _ssclasses library.  Those outside files will be prone to content alteration and with binary values, a single character changed will mean inability to convert the images back properly later.

Not to mention that when I ship the library, I only wanted to ship these two files:

_ssclasses.vcx
_ssclasses.vct

and nothing else.

Transparent Grids - Now & Then

I have been wondering whether I can make my grid transparent and indeed I found a way.  However, said transparency can only be attained when there is no RecordSource and yes it suits me just fine because who, in his right mind, would want a transparent grid with data?  That is not only painful to the eyes but is likewise annoying, LOL!

Here is a sample how we can achive that:

A small Listbox appearance trick!

Another question has been raised by a foxite member inside the forum about a listbox not looking totally disabled when Enabled=.F. is set.  While the items in the listbox becomes disabled, the background color remains to be white.  And really it do not look cool that the rest of the other objects in a form like a textbox, when disabled changes color, while a listbox still remains white.

I have not seen this because I almost don't use Listboxes in favor of Grids. However, for those of you who may be wondering how this attitude can be circumnavigated, the trick lies between two properties:

a.  DisabledBackColor
b.  ItemBackColor

Why Pivot Report? Why not Crosstab?

A pivot report is among the underrated and underused powerful feature of Excel.  So I want to give some lights onto its importance because this is really helpful, not only to the end users, but also to the developers.

What is a Pivot Table?

In data processing, a pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets or business intelligence software. Among other functions, pivot-table can automatically sort, count, total or give the average of the data stored in one table or spreadsheet. It displays the results in a second table (called a "pivot table") showing the summarized data. Pivot tables are also useful for quickly creating unweighted cross tabulations. The user sets up and changes the summary's structure by dragging and dropping fields graphically. This "rotation" or pivoting of the summary table gives the concept its name.

- wikipedia