Tag Archives: COMBOBOX

The EDITSTATECHANGED event

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One of the requirements we needed when developing the new IDE was the ability to detect when the state of a control changed in such a fashion that might affect the operations that could be performed on it.

A classic example of this is highlighting text in an edit control so that it can be cut or copied, or perhaps replaced with a paste operation: At this point an item like a Cut or a Paste button might need enabling so the UI is in sync with the state of the control.

To enable this functionality several controls now support a new event called EDITSTATECHANGED, which is fired when the “edit state” is changed.  The edit state is defined as one of the following operations:

  • Undo
  • Redo
  • Cut
  • Copy
  • Paste
  • Select All

So, if a user takes an action in the control that enables or disables one of these options you can respond to it via the EDITSTATECHANGED event.

The EDITSTATECHANGED event passes a single parameter called “EditState“, which is a dynamic array of Boolean flags with the following structure:

<1> CanUndo      : TRUE$ if the control allows an UNDO operation
<2> CanRedo      : TRUE$ if the control allows a REDO operation
<3> CanCut       : TRUE$ if the control allows a CUT operation
<4> CanCopy      : TRUE$ if the control allows a COPY operation
<5> CanPaste     : TRUE$ if the control allows a PASTE operation
<6> CanSelectAll : TRUE$ if the control allows a SELECTALL 
                 : operation

(You may notice that these flags closely follow the items in a standard “Edit” menu).

Here’s a simple example to set the state of some Cut/Copy/Paste buttons:

   objxArray =        @window : ".BTN_CUT"
   propArray =        "ENABLED"
   dataArray =        editState<0,3>

   objxArray := @rm : @window : ".BTN_COPY"
   propArray := @rm : "ENABLED"
   dataArray := @rm : editState<0,4>
   
   objxArray := @rm : @window : ".BTN_PASTE"
   propArray := @rm : "ENABLED"
   dataArray := @rm : editState<0,5>

   call Set_Property_Only( objxArray, propArray, dataArray )

The following controls support the EDITSTATECHANGED event:

  • COMBOBOX
  • EDITLINE
  • EDITBOX
  • EDITTABLE
  • LISTBOX
  • PROPERTYGRID

(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).

(EDIT: 8th May 2018 – Variable name changed from NewEditState to EditState to match released version)

The AUTODROPDOWN property

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One of the areas in which dropdown comboboxes have always been lacking is the ability to fully control when the list is populated in a visually pleasing manner.  Under most circumstances the contents are loaded well before the dropdown button is clicked, and this is fine, but in situations where the items are context -sensitive it is necessary to load them just before the list is shown, and in previous versions this can look a little messy.

You can see an example of this in the OI9 System Editor++: there is a very handy pair of dropdowns at the top if the form that allow you to navigate your source code using inserts and labels, but when you use them you see the list contents loaded just after it has been dropped; this looks somewhat jarring and usually causes issues with the vertical scrollbar too.

Of course, the reason for this is that OpenInsight events are normally fired in an asynchronous manner, and the DROPDOWN event won’t run until after the list has been shown.  While you do have the ability to fire events in a synchronous fashion, this can introduce other complications and is something that should be avoided whenever possible.

So, in order to fix this, OpenInsight 10 provides a new property called AUTODROPDOWN that allows the list to be loaded during the DROPDOWN event and then displayed precisely when needed.

AUTODROPDOWN is a boolean property and is set to TRUE$ by default.

  • When set to TRUE$ the combobox behaves in exactly the same way as previous versions.
  • When set to FALSE$, the list is not shown until you explicitly set the DROPDOWN property to TRUE$. This gives you ability to load the list contents and then show them when ready.

Here’s an example of loading a list of STPROC repository items in a DROPDOWN event when AUTODROPDOWN is FALSE$

  // Get a list of items
  reposIDs = get_Repos_Entities( "", "STPROC", "", FALSE$, |
                                 TRUE$, FALSE$, "" )
  
  // Load them into the combobox LIST property
  call set_Property_Only( ctrlEntID, "LIST", reposIDs )

  // Now show the list
  call set_Property_Only( ctrlEntID, "DROPDOWN", TRUE$ )

Comboboxes as options buttons?

Another area where AUTODROPDOWN may help is for systems that use comboboxes as a combined edit and options control, where clicking the dropdown button loads a dialog box or popup instead of dropping a list.  Again, in previous versions this tends to look a little crude because the combobox shows a very shallow list even though it is empty, but with AUTODROPDOWN set to FALSE$ the list is never shown, and consequently looks much better.

(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).

Listboxes and ToolTips

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Following on from our previous post on the new TOOLTIP property, this time we’re going to look at the new tooltip functionality added to Listbox controls, namely tracking and in-place item tooltips.

Tracking tooltips are small popup windows that appear when a user hovers over a partially obscured item in the control: they display the full item text string instead, and thereby avoid the need for horizontal scrolling, which is always a preferable user experience.

listbox_tracking_tooltips

Offset tracking tooltip

In-place tooltips operate in a similar manner, but rather than appearing at an offset to the cursor position they actually appear over the item itself, hence the term “in-place”:

listbox_inplace_tooltips

In-place tracking tooltip

This behaviour is controlled by the new SHOWITEMTOOLTIPS property which can be set to one of the following values:

  "0" - Disabled : Item tooltips are not displayed
  "1" - Offset   : Item tooltips are displayed at an offset to the cursor
  "2" - In-place : Item tooltips are displayed over the item itself.

When set to “1” (Offset) or “2” (In-place) the SHOWITEMTOOLTIPS property overrides the normal TOOLTIP property, so a “normal” tooltip will not be displayed.

Displaying alternative item text

Sometimes it is desirable to display a different text string in the tooltip rather than the item text itself.  In this case you can set the new SHOWVALUESASTOOLTIPS property to specify that the tooltip should display the contents of the item’s VALUE property instead.

SHOWVALUESASTOOLTIPS is a simple boolean property of TRUE$ or FALSE$.

listbox_tracking_value_tooltips

Displaying the Value property as a tooltip

Note in this case the tooltip is always displayed at an offset, and is triggered regardess of whether or not the item is clipped.

 

Combobox and TreeListbox controls

Both new properties described here also apply to simple Combobox and TreeListbox controls.

(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).

 

The VALUES and VALUE properties

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When working with ListBox and ComboBox controls it can sometimes be a chore to derive an “internal” value from list of visible items.  In many cases this involves creating an associated array of internal values, storing them in the MISC property (or a custom “@” property), and then extracting this array and the SELPOS property at runtime to arrive at the required data.

For example:

// Set up a LIST and internal items
colorNames = "Red"    : @fm : "Green"  : @fm : "Blue"
colorVals  = 0x0000FF : @fm : 0x00FF00 : @fm : 0xFF0000

call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "LIST", colorNames )
call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "MISC", colorVals )

... 

// Then at runtime to access the currently selected internal value
colorVals = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "MISC" )
selPos    = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "SELPOS" )

colorVal  = colorVals<selPos>

...

// Or even more long-winded, find an internal value from the external one:
colorNames = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "LIST" )
colorVals  = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "MISC" )

locate "Green" in colorNames using @fm setting pos then
   greenVal = colorVals<pos>
end

...

// or perhaps setting the currently selected item from an internal code:
colorNames = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "LIST" )
colorVals  = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "MISC" )

locate 0x00FF00 in colorVals using @fm setting pos then
   greenName = colorNames<pos>
   call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "TEXT", greenName )
end

To make this style of coding somewhat cleaner, OpenInsight 10 introduces the new VALUES property, which allows you to set an “internal” value for each item in the control, along with property indexing support.  There is also a new VALUE property, which is the counterpart to the standard TEXT property, and provides access to the currently selected item via it’s internal value.

Here’s the above examples rewritten to use VALUES and VALUE instead:

// Set up a LIST and internal items
colorNames = "Red"    : @fm : "Green"  : @fm : "Blue"
colorVals  = 0x0000FF : @fm : 0x00FF00 : @fm : 0xFF0000

call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "LIST", colorNames )
call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "VALUES", colorVals )

... 

// Then at runtime to access the currently selected internal value
colorVal = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "VALUE" )
...

// Find an internal value from the external one:
greenVal = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "VALUES", "Green" )

// or by position
greenVal = get_Property( @window : ".LIST_1", "VALUES", 2 )

...

// or perhaps setting the currently selected item from an internal code:
call set_Property_Only( @window : ".LIST_1", "VALUE", 0x00FF00 )

VALUES and VALUE apply to both ListBox and ComboBox controls.

(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).