about displaying images

[porjoe]

Premises:
I'm a newbie to Alpha so be gentle. I'm hoping I made all of this clear enuf to reproduce.
V9 Build 2095
Filename - directory names of pictures, but not the same as the 3rd field (image)
Filename - names are descriptive and not some record-related number (i.e., billybob.jpg or 507 Clearlake Drive.jpg)
IFR = Image File Reference

Create a table consisting of 3 fields:
SomeText character 10
Filename character 50
image Image File Reference 10

Now... add some data to this table
sometext --> anything you want
Filename --> the actual file name of a picture on your system (billybob.jpg)
image --> IFR opens a directory window where you may chose an image file.

Fine business, but here's a problem. Once you're past this point, I don't see any way to retrieve the file name of the image. You can display the image in a table, but not its name. You need another field telling something about the image.

Continue on. Create a web project --> web coponent --> grid. Display the 3 fields as follows:
field control type display format
===== ============ ==============
Sometext label -----
filename image -----
image Image <Image File Reference Field>

Now the fun begins. Providing you have the datafiles are in the proper locations, both pictures will show up in the preview window. I think filename must be relative to the project while image is relative to the table (I think).

And the questions flow:
Why should I bother with Image File Reference when just placing the file name will do the same thing? (i.e., display a picture but store the picture in the database and essentially do what IFR is supposed to do) The advantage being that I can have another grid where filename is displayed as a label and it will show the character text. This way I can display both the file name and the picture it refers to.

I can also see where an existing table could be populated with pictures using xbasic to simply read a directory.

What am I missing about "Image File Reference"? It appears I can do the same and more without it.

It appears from the generated code of the .a5w page, that images could be selectively referenced based upon a particular session when logins are used (like a shopping cart), but couldn't entire records be just as easily referenced? Maybe there's another place this would be applicable.

TIA for the comments
~Joe

[Stan Mathews]

Re: about displaying images

Not familiar with the web side but....

I don't see any way to retrieve the file name of the image. You can display the image in a table, but not its name. You need another field telling something about the image.

On a form you can define a calculated field with the expression

name = filename_decode(image_file_reference_field)

substituting an actual image_file_reference_field name.

[ColinJD]

Re: about displaying images

Joe, Don't know If I can answer all your questions
IFR is not stored with regular data in the dbf file,
The reference to it is in the dbf, but the data is stored in the fpt file.
My assuption is that this is to protect against dbf bloat.
-
I prefer to make a 255 C File and use this to reference the File,
And I use this to make absolute references,
I guess if I wanted the filename I would just read the C field from the right up to the first chr(92) character.
Personally I would not use a name such as billybob.jpg as there is to greater chance of a a second billybob.jpg being added. But you could still store the old_name in its own field.
-
If you were to rename the jpgs to be associated with there unique record reference, you could in fact just calculate the Field for the jpg reference.
In this case I would add another field jpg_exists as type logical.

What am I missing about "Image File Reference"? It appears I can do the same and more without it.

Exactly !!

[peteconway]

Re: about displaying images

Some NEW V10 Video's will be relased soon that will fully explain how these images work and the advantages in V10 - much work has been done on this.

You can check the names here.

where IMAGE is the IFR field in the table.

folder = image and 
fn = eval(substr(image,2))

folder will show the encoded filename
fn will show the actual (unencoded filename)