Tag Archives: Properties

ListBoxes and TreeListBoxes – Checkbox Items

A recent question on the Revelation forum touched on the subject of using checkbox items in LISTBOX and TREELISTBOX controls, and this highlighted the need to document some of the new properties in OpenInsight v10 that support this functionality. In this post we’ll take a look at how you can use these to make adding checkbox items to your controls a simple task.

In previous versions of OpenInsight adding checkboxes to items was done with “smoke and mirrors”, i.e. actual item images were used to represent the checkbox, and the control itself had no concept of a checked state for any of it’s contents. Usually, when the user clicked on the item’s checkbox image, the UPDATE method was used toggle the image from checked to unchecked and vice versa. The checked state would be obtained by looking at the image number using the LIST property. Unfortunately this technique has two main drawbacks:

  • The code for detecting the mouse clicks can be complex, and when added to the image manipulation code itself the intent of the code can become obscured.
  • The images themselves must be maintained manually and updated to match the current Windows visual styling.

In OpenInsight v10 checkbox items are supported “natively” so that the control itself knows which items are “checked” and exposes the properties described below to support this. This results in less coding and a much cleaner program. 

The CHECKBOXES property

This is a simple boolean property that can be set in the Form Designer or at runtime. Setting it to TRUE$ ensures that all items in the control are drawn with a checkbox – this is all that needs to be done to use checkbox items.

The CHECKED property

This property allows you to get or set the checked state of one or more items using an @fm-delimited dynamic array of boolean flags.

// Set the second and fourth items in the LISTBOX to checked, ensure the
// third item is NOT checked.

CheckedItems = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "CHECKED" )
CheckedItems<2> = TRUE$
CheckedItems<3> = FALSE$
CheckedItems<4> = TRUE$

Call Set_Property_Only( CtrlEntID, "CHECKED", CheckedItems )

The CHECKED property may also be used with the index parameter to get or set the state of a single item at a time:

// Set the ninth item to checked, and uncheck the tenth item
Call Set_Property_Only( CtrlEntID, "CHECKED", TRUE$, 9 )
Call Set_Property_Only( CtrlEntID, "CHECKED", FALSE$, 10 )

The CHECKEDX property

This property is similar to the CHECKED property but only applies to TREELISTBOX controls, and gets or sets the checked state for all items in the fully expanded list. 

CHECKEDLIST property

This property returns an @fm-delimited dynamic array of item indexes that have been checked. This is an optimization property so that you don’t have to iterate over the CHECKED property to find out what has been checked.

AllCheckedItems = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "CHECKEDLIST" )

CheckedCount = FieldCount( AllCheckedItems, @Fm )
For N = 1 To CheckedCount
 CheckedItemNo = AllCheckedItems<N>
Next

CHECKEDLISTTEXT property

This property is similar to the CHECKEDLIST property except that it returns an @fm-delimited dynamic array of text for the checked items rather than their index.

AllCheckedItemsText = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "CHECKEDLISTTEXT" )

CheckedCount = FieldCount( AllCheckedItemsText, @Fm )
For N = 1 To CheckedCount
 CheckedItemText = AllCheckedItemsText<N>
Next

Conclusion

So that wraps up this short post on checkbox items – hopefully you’ll find them much easier to use in your v10 applications.

Bonus Trivia

The CHECKED property name is a synonym for the original OpenInsight CHECK property name, and you may use either as it suits you – Here at Revelation we prefer to use CHECKED as it feels more natural. Note that this convention applies to other controls like the CHECKBOX control too.

WEBVIEW object documentation

First released with OpenInsight v10.2, the WEBVIEW object is a control that wraps the Microsoft WebView2 Edge Browser control and allows you to embed web technologies (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) in your OpenInsight forms.

This is just a quick post to let you know that the full documentation has been uploaded and can be found here:

   495 – WEBVIEW object.pdf

ListBoxes and TreeListBoxes – “in-place” editing

One of the new features that was added to the ListBox and TreeListBox controls in version 10 was the ability to use “in-place” editing on the items in the same manner as the Windows Explorer when you press “F2” or double-click an item. If you’ve done any work with the OpenInsight Menu Designers you will have seen this capability in action.

In-place editing for an item

The READONLY property

Enabling in-place editing is as simple as setting the READONLY property to False – once you’ve done that the user can press “F2” while using the control and edit the text of the currently selected item.  Pressing “Enter” when editing will update the item text (as will losing focus or selecting another item), while pressing “Esc” will abandon the changes.  Obviously that’s a very simple take on the topic and hardly worth a blog post in and of itself, so next we’ll take a look at some of the properties, methods and events that you can use to tailor the editing process.

The EDITING property

This is a simple boolean property that returns TRUE$ if an item is being edited.

The EDITORHANDLE property

This property returns the HANDLE of the editor control if an item is being edited.

The EDITKEY property

By default, hitting “F2” on an item puts the control into “edit mode”, just like the Windows Explorer.  However, if you wish to change this then you may use the EDITKEY property to select another key instead. The edit key is a Windows virtual key code and constants for these codes can be found in the MSWIN_VIRTUALKEY_EQUATES insert record.

The EDITOPTIONS property

This property allows you to fine-tune some of the validation options for the editor:

  • TextCase – Specifies if the text entered is lower-case only, upper-case only or mixed (See the EDITLINE TEXTCASE property for more details).
  • ValidChars – Specifies which characters may be entered into the editor (See the EDITLINE VALIDCHARS property for more details).
  • MaxLimit – Specifies the maximum number of characters that may be entered into the editor (See the EDITLINE LIMIT property for more details).

At runtime this property is an @fm-delimited array – constants for use with this property can be found in the PS_LISTBOX_EQUATES insert record.

The INCLUDEEDITORTEXT property

By default getting item text from the ListBox (e.g. via the LIST property) will include the text from an item currently being edited, even if that edited text has not yet been saved.  Setting this property to FALSE$ ensures that the returned item text ignores the value in the editor instead.

The BEGINEDIT method

This method allows you to programmatically put the ListBox into edit mode, as if the user had pressed “F2” (or whatever value the EDITKEY property is set to). You may specify the index of the item to edit, otherwise it will default to the current item.

RetVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "BEGINEDIT", itemIndex )

The ENDEDIT method

This method allows you to programmatically stop the item editing process, optionally allowing any changes to be accepted as if the “Enter” key had been pressed (the default is to reject any changes as if the “Esc” key had been pressed).

RetVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "ENDEDIT", bUpdate )

The ITEMEDITING event

This event is raised when an item it put into edit mode, and passes the index of the item as a parameter:

bForward = ITEMEDITING( CtrlEntID, CtrlClassID, ItemIndex )

The ITEMCHANGED event

This event is raised when the item is updated via the editor, i.e. the user hit the “Enter” key, the control lost the focus, or the EDITEDIT method was used with the bUpdate parameter set to TRUE$. The event passes the index of the item that has changed as well as the old and new data:

bForward = ITEMCHANGED( CtrlEntID, CtrlClassID, ItemIndex, |
                                                NewData,   |
                                                PrevData )

The ITEMUNCHANGED event

This event is raised when an item leaves edit mode without being updated, i.e. the user hit the “Esc” key or the EDITEDIT method was used with the bUpdate parameter set to FALSE$. The event passes the index of the item that was being edited:

bForward = ITEMUNCHANGED( CtrlEntID, CtrlClassID, ItemIndex )

So that wraps up this short post on ListBox editing – we’re sure that you’ll find many useful ways of implementing this new feature when expanding your application’s functionality.

The HTTPSERVER control

OpenInsight 10.2 introduces a new control type called HTTPSERVER, which provides a lightweight HTTP web-server control for use in your applications.

Using the control is a simple process:

  • Drop a “HTTP Server” control onto a form
  • Set the port number to listen on via the PORT property
  • Use the START method to start the server, or set the STARTUPMODE property to “Automatic” if you want the server to start when the form is created.
  • Listen for requests via the HTTPREQUEST event and respond to them using methods such as the SETRESPONSECONTENT and SETRESPONSEFILE methods
  • Return the response using the SENDRESPONSE method

So, if you set up a HTTPSERVER on port 8089 and execute the form you can use a browser to communicate with it via a URL something like this:

http://localhost:8089/path1/path2/test?arg1=this&arg2=that

The HTTPREQUEST event

As you can see, setting up the control is fairly easy, but the bulk of the work needs to be done in the HTTPREQUEST event where you examine the contents of the request and return the appropriate content.

The event has the following interface:

   bForward = HTTPREQUEST( CtrlEntID,     |
                           CtrlClassID,   |
                           RequestID,     |
                           RequestHeaders )

And the following parameters:

NameDESCRIPTION
CtrlEntIDID of the HTTP Server control firing the event
CtlrClassIDType of control firing the event – this is always “HTTPSERVER”
RequestIDUnique identifier for returning a response to the client – this is used with the various “SETRESPONSE” methods that set response data.
RequestHeadersAn @FM delimited dynamic array of data that describes the request. The format is similar to the HTTPRequest argument used in OECGI programming. The full format is described in the PS_HTTPSERVER_EQUATES insert record.

As mentioned above, the RequestHeaders parameter describes the details of the request using a format similar to the format used in OECGI programming. There are some differences that are worth highlighting however:

  • For a GET request the query values are already parsed into their own fields (<37> and <38>) as an associated multi-value pair. They are not found unparsed in field <1> as per OECGI.
  • For a POST or PUT request the content is obtained using the GETREQUESTCONTENT method (see below) – it is not passed in the RequestHeaders variable.
  • Cookies are already parsed into their own fields (<39> and <40>) as an associated multi-value pair.
  • Headers are already parsed into their own fields (<35> and <36>) as an associated multi-value pair.

Note that out of the box we do not enforce any restrictions or framework on how you handle the request – compare this to classic OECGI programming where the “PathInfo” field is used to determine which “INET_” procedure is executed to fulfill it (via the RUN_INET_REQUEST stored procedure) There is no such requirement with the HTTPSERVER control, and you may create your own framework if you wish (although see the note on RTI_RUN_HTTPSERVER_REQUEST below).

Returning a response

There are several methods described below that you may use to process the content that you return to the client.

  • GETREQUESTCONTENT
  • GETRESPONSECONTENT
  • GETRESPONSECOOKIE
  • GETRESPONSEFILE
  • GETRESPONSEHEADER
  • GETRESPONSESTATUS
  • ISPORTINUSE
  • SETRESPONSECONTENT
  • SETRESPONSECOOKIE
  • SETRESPONSEFILE
  • SETRESPONSEHEADER
  • SETRESPONSESTATUS
  • SENDRESPONSE

Note: With each of these you must use the unique RequestID parameter passed to you in the HTTPREQUEST event.

E.g. Returning HTML in the HTTPREQUEST event

ReposID = @AppID<1> : "*DOC*HTML*INDEX_PAGE" 
HTML = Repository( "ACCESS", ReposID )
Call Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSECONTENT", RequestID, HTML )
Call Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SENDRESPONSE" )

E.g. Returning a file in the HTTPREQUEST event

ReposID = @AppID<1> : "*DOC*HTML*INDEX_PAGE" 
FilePath = Repository( "GETSUBKEY", ReposID )
Call Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSEFILE", RequestID, FilePath )
Call Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SENDRESPONSE" )

The HTTPSERVER methods

GETREQUESTCONTENT method

Gets the raw content sent to the server by the client as part of a POST or PUT request.

 ReqContent = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETREQUESTCONTENT", RequestID )

GETRESPONSECONTENT method

Returns raw content for the response as set via a previous call to the SETRESPONSECONTENT method.

 RspContent= Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETRESPONSECONTENT", RequestID )

GETRESPONSECOOKIE method

Returns details for a response cookie as set via a previous call to the SETRESPONSECOOKIE method (see below for the CookieVal format).

 CookieVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETRESPONSECOOKIE", RequestID, |
                                                          CookieName )

GETRESPONSEFILE method

Returns the name and path of the response content file set with a previous call to the SETRESPONSEFILE method.

 RspFile = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETRESPONSEFILE", RequestID )

GETRESPONSEHEADER method

Returns the details for a response header as set via a previous call to the SETRESPONSEHEADER method.

 HeaderVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETRESPONSEHEADER", RequestID, |
                                                          HeaderName )

GETRESPONSESTATUS method

Returns the HTTP status code of the response (defaults to 200).

 RspStatus = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "GETRESPONSESTATUS", RequestID )

ISPORTINUSE method

Returns TRUE$ if the specified port is in use on the local machine.

 InUse = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "ISPORTINUSE", Port, IPv6 )
  • Port – Identifies the port to check
  • IPv6 – if TRUE$ then check the IPv6 bindings, otherwise check the IPv4 bindings

SENDRESPONSE method

Sends the response back to the client. This method should be called when you have finished setting the response details (Note that this is called by the promoted system HTTPREQUEST handler in case you forgot to do it in your own code!).

 RspSent = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SENDRESPONSE", RequestID )

SETRESPONSECONTENT method

Sets the content to return to the client, such as a string containing an HTML page.

 SetOK= Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSECONTENT", RequestID, |
                                                      Content )

SETRESPONSECOOKIE method

Sets a cookie that is returned to the client via the “Set-Cookie” header.

 SetOK = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSECOOKIE", RequestID,  |
                                                      CookieName, |
                                                      CookieValue )

CookieValue is an @fm-delimited array formatted as follows:

    <1> Value
    <2> Path
    <3> Domain
    <4> Expires (internal date format)
    <5> Max Age (seconds)
    <6> Secure  (TRUE$/FALSE$)
    <7> HttpOnly (TRUE$/FALSE$)
    <8> SameSite

SETRESPONSEFILE method

If you have a file that contains the content you wish to return then you should use this method to let the server read the file and return it to the client itself. This offers better performance than reading the contents via Basic+ and using the SETRESPONSECONTENT method as it avoids any unnecessary copying of data.

 SetOK = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSEFILE", RequestID,  |
                                                    FileNamePath )

SETRESPONSEHEADER method

Sets a response header and value to be returned to the client.

 SetOK = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSEHEADER", RequestID,  |
                                                      HeaderName, |
                                                      HeaderValue )

SETRESPONSESTATUS method

Sets the HTTP status code for the response (200, 404, 500 etc).

 SetOK = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETRESPONSESTATUS", RequestID, |
                                                      StatusCode )

Example HTTPREQUEST handler

As part of version 10.2 we have included a sample HTTPREQUEST event handler called RTI_RUN_HTTPSERVER_REQUEST which you can examine and copy for your own applications if you wish. It emulates the core behavior of the OECGI RUN_INET_REQUEST handler in that it uses the “PathInfo” field to determine the stored procedure to fulfill the request. In this case it looks for a matching procedure that has the prefix “HTTPSVR_” and we have included a couple of example “HTTPSVR_” procedures for you to review as well.

Conclusion

With the addition of the HTTPSERVER control it is now possible to provide HTML content directly from your application, and also provide a means of web-development directly from your desktop without necessarily needing to install a dedicated web-server like IIS.

It is also a good solution for when you want to provide local HTML content in your application’s user-interface via an embedded browser control, because it can avoid the usual security restrictions that browsers enforce for such scenarios.

EditTables – Getting multi-select data the easy way

In previous versions of OpenInsight the usual way of accessing data from a multi-row select EditTable control was to get the SELPOS property and then iterate over the data pulling out the rows, e.g. something like this (not optimized, but you get the idea):

   SelPos   = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "SELPOS" )
   DataList = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "LIST" )
   SelList  = ""

   SelRows  = SelPos<2>
   SelCount = FieldCount( SelRows, @Vm )  
   For SelIdx = 1 To SelCount
      SelRow = SelRows<0,SelIdx>
      SelList<-1> = DataList<SelRow>
   Next

However, in OpenInsight 10 we added a couple of new properties that allow you to access data in a multi-row select EditTable in a faster and more efficient way. These are:

  • The SELLIST property
  • The SELARRAY property

Both of these return data in the familiar LIST and ARRAY formats, but they only return data from the selected rows, thereby saving you the step of accessing SELPOS and iterating over the data yourself. So, to rewrite the example above we can now do this:

   SelList = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "SELLIST" )

Likewise, to return the data in ARRAY format we would use the SELARRAY property like so:

   SelArray = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "SELARRAY" )

Ergo, when asked the other day “What’s the fastest way of getting data from a specific column from the selected rows”, the answer was:

   SelData = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "SELARRAY" )<colNum>

(And this question is also what led me to write this post…)

Bonus Trivia

The LISTBOX control also supports the SELLIST property.

The DIRWATCHER control

With the release of version 10.1 a new control type called DIRWATCHER (“Directory Watcher”) has been added to OpenInsight. This is a fairly simple control which allows you to monitor one or more directories on your system and then receive notifications when the contents are changed.

Using the control is very straightforward:

  • Use the WATCHDIR method to add a directory to monitor for changes.
  • Handle the CHANGED event to receive notifications of directory changes.
  • Use the STOP method to stop monitoring directories.

We’ll take a quick look at each of these methods and events below along with a couple of important properties:

The WATCHDIR method

This method allows you to specify a directory to monitor along with some optional flags. It may be called multiple times to watch more than one directory.

bSuccess = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "WATCHDIR", DirName, bSubtree, Flags )
ParameterDescription
DirName(required) Specifies the name of the directory to watch. It should be a fully qualified, non-relative directory path.
bSubtree(optional) Set to TRUE$ to monitor all sub-directories beneath DirName as well. Defaults to FALSE$.
Flags(optional) A bit-mask value containing a set of flags that denote the events to monitor in the directories. It defaults to the following flags:

FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_FILE_NAME$
FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE$
FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_CREATION$

The flag values are specified in the MSWIN_FILENOTIFY_EQUATES insert record,

This method returns TRUE$ if successful, or FALSE$ otherwise.

The STOP method

This method stops the control monitoring its specified directories.

bSuccess = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "STOP" )

This method returns TRUE$ if successful, or FALSE$ otherwise.

(Note – to resume directory monitoring after the STOP method has been called the WATCHDIR method(s) must be executed again).

The CHANGED event

This event is raised when changes have been detected in the monitored directories.

bForward = CHANGED( NewData )

This event passes a single parameter called NewData which contains an @vm-delimited list of changed items (i.e. notifications). Each item in the list comprises an “action code” and the name and path of the affected file, delimited by an @svm.

Action codes are defined in the MSWIN_FILENOTIFY_EQUATES insert record like so:

   equ FILE_ACTION_ADDED$               to 0x00000001   
   equ FILE_ACTION_REMOVED$             to 0x00000002   
   equ FILE_ACTION_MODIFIED$            to 0x00000003   
   equ FILE_ACTION_RENAMED_OLD_NAME$    to 0x00000004   
   equ FILE_ACTION_RENAMED_NEW_NAME$    to 0x00000005 

Remarks

If a monitored directory experiences a high volume of changes (such as copying or removing thousands of files) it could generate a correspondingly high number of CHANGED events, which in turn could produce an adverse affect on your application and slow it down. In order to deal with this potential issue it is possible to “bundle up” multiple notifications with the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD property into a single CHANGED event so they may be processed more efficiently.

The NOTIFYTHRESHOLD property

The NOTIFYTHRESHOLD property is an integer that specifies the maximum number of notifications that should be bundled before a CHANGED event is raised.

CurrVal = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "NOTIFYTHRESHOLD" )
PrevVal = Set_Property( CtrlEntID, "NOTIFYTHRESHOLD", NewVal )

By default it is set to 100.

The NOTIFYTIMER property

The NOTIFYTIMER property is an integer that specifies the number of milliseconds before a CHANGED event is raised if the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD property value is not met.

CurrVal = Get_Property( CtrlEntID, "NOTIFYTIMER" )
PrevVal = Set_Property( CtrlEntID, "NOTIFYTIMER", NewVal )

By default it is set to 50 (ms).

Remarks

If the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD property is set to a value greater than 1 then the control will try to bundle that number of notifications together before raising a CHANGED event. However, when this is set to a high value it is possible that the threshold may not be reached in a timely fashion and the CHANGED event not actually raised.

E.g. If the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD is set to 1000, and only 200 notifications are received then the CHANGED event would not be raised.

To prevent this problem the NOTIFYTIMER property may be used to specify the amount of time after receiving the last notification before a CHANGED event is raised even if the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD is not met.

E.g. in the example above, if the control had a NOTIFYTIMER of 50, then a CHANGED event would be raised 50ms after the last notification (200) was received, even though the NOTIFYTHRESHOLD of 1000 has not actually been met.

Developer Notes

The DIRWATCHER control is intended as a “non-visual” control and should probably be hidden at runtime in your own applications. However, it is actually derived from a normal STATIC control so all of the properties and methods that apply to a STATIC apply to the DIRWATCHER as well, and you may use them as normal if you wish.

The Case of the Extra Pixel

In the current OpenInsight 10.1 Beta program, Martyn at RevSoft UK had reported a bug about the Height property creeping up by a pixel each time he opened a form. This was traced to the point when the menu structure was parsed and created: it was actually inserting an extra pixel, so this was fixed and the form Height now stayed the same between each opening.

However, a little more testing against a form without a menu revealed another issue – in some cases a pixel was added to the Height but it didn’t creep up on each subsequent opening:

E.g. when set to a Height of 400 and saved, the form would re-open with a Height of 401, but it would stay at the same value afterwards; not the same bug as before but it did need investigating

The Height and the ClientHeight properties

As some of you will know, Windows forms are split into two areas (1):

  1. The “Nonclient area” which contains items such as the borders, menus and title bars, and
  2. The “Client area”, which is the part that contains the controls.

When an OpenInsight form definition is saved the actual Width and Height properties are not used. Instead, the ClientWidth and ClientHeight properties (i.e. the dimensions of the Client area) are saved because Windows can change the size of the Nonclient parts when a form is run on different systems with different visual styles, and this can make the form’s Client area the wrong size when created from a saved Width and Height (as we all found out many years ago when Windows XP was released). In our particular case above, when the form was saved and reopened, the ClientWidth and ClientHeight properties were correct, but the Height had gained a pixel.

E.g. When set to a Height of 400, the saved form ClientHeight was 365. When the same form was reopened the ClientHeight was still 365, but the Height was now reported as 401.

Height, ClientHeight and High DPI

I run my primary and secondary monitors at different DPI settings to ensure that scaling works correctly, and in this case, at 192 DPI (i.e. scaled to 200%), it transpired that the integer rounding used during scaling was the issue because:

  • Setting the Height to 400 resulted in a ClientHeight of 365.
  • Setting the Height to 401 also resulted in a ClientHeight of 365.
  • Setting the ClientHeight to 365 resulted in a Height of 401.

I.e. setting the ClientHeight to a specific value, and then retrieving the form’s actual height in real pixels, and then scaling it back to 96 DPI (all values in the Form designer are shown and stored at 96 DPI), gave the extra pixel. Because we don’t record the Height in the form definition we have no way of knowing that the ClientHeight was set from a value of 400 rather than 401 when the form was reopened in the designer, so we have to go with the 401. Mystery solved!

Of course, this looks odd, but it’s just an artifact of the scaling calculations. The crucial value is the ClientHeight because this is the value that is recorded and used, and this is what needs to be preserved when forms are saved and reopened. To help put your mind at ease about this, the ClientWidth and ClientHeight properties have now been exposed (for forms only) in the Form Designer, so you can be confident that the correct size is always being maintained (ClientWidth and ClientHeight are normally runtime only properties).

E.g. In the following two images (saved and reopened) you can see that the pixel height has increased, but in both cases the ClientHeight (365) is preserved and is correct:

Image of form with a saved Height property of 400
Form saved with a Height of 400
Image of reopened form with a Height property of 401
Form reopened, now with a Height of 401

Conclusion

  • Windows XP taught us many years ago that the Width and Height properties are not reliable when creating a forms as they can produce inconsistent results on different systems, so we always rely on the ClientWidth and ClientHeight properties instead.
  • Don’t be concerned if you see a slightly different Height value when you reopen a form if you’re running at a high DPI setting – the crucial property is the ClientHeight value – as long as this is consistent there is no actual problem.
  • To make sure you can monitor this yourself the ClientWidth and ClientHeight properties have been exposed in the Form Designer, and you can edit these directly if you wish.

(Note: the ClientHeight and ClientWidth properties are only exposed after builds later than the current Beta 3 release)

(1) If you are not familiar with Client and Nonclient areas in Windows GUI programming you can find out more information here).

The Case of the Jumping Dialog

We recently noticed a new bug in the IDE where a dialog that hadn’t been updated for quite some time suddenly started misbehaving: it would appear at the wrong coordinates (0,0), and then jump to the proper ones.

At first glance this this looked like a classic case of creating the dialog in a visible state, and then moving it during the CREATE event, but checking the dialog properties in the Form Designer showed that the dialog’s Visible property was “Hidden”, so this wasn’t the source of the problem.

Stepping through the CREATE event in the debugger showed that the dialog was indeed created hidden, but then became visible during an RList() call that performed a SELECT statement, ergo RList() was allowing some queued event code to execute (probably from an internal call to the Yield() procedure) and that was changing the dialog’s VISIBLE property.

Checking the other events revealed that the SIZE event contained the following code:

Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", FALSE$ )

// Move some controls around

Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", TRUE$ )

The REDRAW property works by toggling an object’s WS_VISIBLE style bit – when set to FALSE$ the style bit is removed but the object is not redrawn. When set to TRUE$ the object is marked as visible and redrawn.

So, putting all this together: creating the dialog generated a queued SIZE event, which under normal circumstances would run after the CREATE event. However, the Yield() call in RList() executed the SIZE event before the dialog was ready to be shown, and the REDRAW operation made the dialog visible before the CREATE event had moved it to the correct position.

The fix for this was to ensure that the REDRAW property wasn’t set to TRUE$ if it’s original value wasn’t TRUE$, like so:

bRedraw = Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", FALSE$ )

// Move some controls around

If bRedraw Then
   Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", TRUE$ )
End

Conclusion

  • Always protect calls to the REDRAW property by checking its state before you set it, and then only turn it back on again if it was set to TRUE$ originally.
  • Calling Yield() can cause events to run out of the normal sequence, and you should be aware of this when writing your application.

PDF files and the FILEPREVIEW control

The next release of OpenInsight (version 10.1) includes a couple of updates to the FILEPREVIEW control as a result of using it extensively “out in the field”, and in this post we thought we’d look at these changes and why we made them in case you encounter the same issues yourself.

The Adobe problem

As mentioned in this previous post, the FILEPREVIEW control relies on third-party DLLs to provide “preview handlers” that OpenInsight uses to display the contents of files such as Word or PDF documents. However, what we found is that not all of these handlers are created equal and some can be quite problematic – in our case the Adobe PDF preview handler (supplied with the Adobe PDF Reader) proved to be one of these.

When the handler is loaded by OpenInsight one of the things that must be specified is the context in which it is created – this can be “in-process” (which means it runs in the same address space as OpenInsight) or “out-of-process” (which runs as a separate executable). This is done internally by a set of flags, and when you use the FILENAME property these flags are set to their default values which, until recently, had proved sufficient. However, extensive testing (by Martyn at RevSoft) found that the Adobe PDF preview handler had stopped working, and further investigation revealed that at some point recent versions of this had become sensitive to these context flags, so the first change we made was to provide a new SETFILENAME method, which allows you to set the flags yourself if need be:

The SETFILENAME method

RetVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETFILENAME", FileName, FileExtn, |
                      ContextFlags )
ParameterRequiredDescription
FileNameNoContains the name and path of the file to preview (can be null to remove the preview).
FileExtnNoSpecifies an explicit extension to use, overriding the extension passed in the FileName parameter.
ContextFlagsNoSpecifies a bit-mask of “CLSCTX_” flags used to create the preview handler. Defaults to:

  BitOr( CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER$, CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER$ )

(Equates for these flags can be found in the MSWIN_CLSCTX_EQUATES insert record)

If the returned value is 0 then the operation was successful, otherwise this is an error code reported from Windows and can be passed to the RTI_ErrorText stored procedure to get the details:

E.g.

// Load the PDF in an out-of-process context
$Insert MSWin_ClsCtx_Equates

RetVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETFILENAME", "C:\Temp\Test.PDF", "",
                      CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER$ )
If RetVal Then
   // Problem...
   ErrorText = RTI_ErrorText( "WIN", RetVal )
End

Even with this you may still find problems, as the above code was fine for me, but not for Martyn, even though the PDF preview handler worked fine in Windows Explorer itself for both of us! So, we could only conclude that Adobe made sure that the handler worked with the Windows Explorer, but they were less concerned about third party applications (Per-monitor DPI settings are also not supported by the preview handler which is disappointing as well).

The Foxit solution

After some more testing we decided to switch to the Foxit PDF reader which worked as expected, so we would recommend using this for PDF previewing in future if needed.

Removing the FILENAME property at design-time

One other change we made was to remove the FILENAME property from the Form Designer so that it could not be set at design-time due to the following reasons:

  • We had reports that once it had been set it was very difficult to select the control again in the Form Designer, because it basically takes over mouse handling!
  • Document previewing is deemed to more of a run-time operation than a design-time operation.
  • The FILENAME property is deprecated in favor of the SETFILENAME method because the latter provides a more complete API. The FILENAME property is still supported however, and will be going forwards.

Conclusion

So, for v10.1 we have provided a new SETFILENAME method to provide a better interface for file-previewing which gives more feedback and more control, and you should use this in preference to the FILENAME property.

We have also found the Adobe PDF preview handler to be somewhat temperamental in use so would recommend the Foxit preview handler instead if you have problems with the former (Note however, that other preview handlers we use regularly, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint have all worked well without any issues so far).

Methods, Events, and Documentation

In a recent post we provided a preview of the OpenInsight IMAGE API documentation for the upcoming release of version 10.1. As that proved quite popular we thought we’d provide some more, this time dealing with the Common GUI API (i.e. the basic interface that virtually every GUI object supports) and the WINDOW object API – two core areas of OI GUI programming.

Methods, not Events

One thing you may notice as you look through these documents is the addition of many new methods, such as SHOWOPTIONS or QBFCLOSESESSION – this is an attempt to tidy up the API into a more logical and coherent format that is a better fit for an object-based interface.

As we went through the product in order to document it, it became very apparent that there were many instances where events were being used to mimic methods, such as sending a WRITE event to save the data in a form, or sending a CLICK event to simulate a button click and so on. In object-based terminology this sort of operation would be performed by a method, which is a directive that performs an action – the event is a notification in response to that action. So, for example, you would call a “write” method to save your data and the system would raise a “write” event so you could deal with it.

Of course, this distinction will probably not bother many developers – just API purists like myself, but this does have another advantage if you like to use Object Notation Syntax (I do) – you can now perform actions such as reading and writing form data by using the”->” notation, whereas before you would have to use the Send_Event stored procedure which essentially breaks the object-based paradigm.

So instead of:

   Call Send_Event( @Window, "WRITE" )

you would use the form’s WRITEROW method instead:

   @@Window->WriteRow( "" )

which is a more natural fit for this style of programming.

(It is also easier to explain to new OI programmers who are used to other object-based languages and environments where everything is properties, methods and events).

Methods, not Stored Procedures

This brings us finally onto the topic of Stored Procedures and the object API, where several of these also fulfill the role of methods. For example, take the venerable Msg stored procedure used to display a message box for a parent form – a different way of treating this would be to have a SHOWMESSAGE method for the parent form rather than using a “raw” Msg call. Likewise for starting a new form: instead of using the raw Start_Window procedure, the SYSTEM and WINDOW objects now support a STARTFORM method instead.

Of course, none of this changes your existing code, nor is it enforced, it’s just something you can use if and when you wish to. However, even if my API pedantry hasn’t persuaded you to change your coding style, some of the new methods are worth investigating as they provide a better opportunity for us to extend the product’s functionality further – take a look at the WINDOW READROW and WRITEROW methods for an example of this – they support new features that we couldn’t do with just sending events.

In any case, here are the links – hopefully some light reading for your weekend!