Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

[EJR]

OK, I've been hoping for this for some time, and now Martin Heller just posted a wiki page on how to trap the mouse events on an Xdialog! He posted an example put together by the Alpha Software team, and it's slick.

See http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/How+to...+in+an+xdialog

For some reason (see the comment at the bottom of the page) there's a '<x>' in the middle of the function name of a few of the functions, so you can click on File Attached at the bottom to get a clean copy of the code (or just delete the <x> manually).

With a little experimenting, I found it easy to add OnRButtonDown and OnRButtonUp functions -- just copy the OnLButtonUp() function and change the name -- but OnMouseWheel() and OnMouseEnter() weren't recognized. I'd love to see more documentation - I've used ui_bitmap_draw() but never heard of ui_generate_quick_draw, which seems virutally identical -- but I'll have to test it to make sure. But it's nice to be able to get left and right mouse button up/down events with the x/y pixel positions, and it's very fast and smooth - much better than using the timer event.

BTW, if you haven't used the bitmap drawing functions, you're missing a lot. Enter "bitmap and graphic functions" in the wiki search box and click on Titles (or find it in the local help). I've used these extensively to create a graphic-design module in 100% A5 code, and was just missing the full mouse package (kinda lame to not be able to directly select graphic objects with the mouse!). With this functionality, I should now be able to rewrite my modules to move and resize graphic objects.

In running the example (just copy/paste it into a new script) I noticed that key events are passed to the control you click on, but you have to click on it first.

For me, this is huge. And it completes the package for anyone needing full mouse and/or graphics abilities all from inside AlphaFive.

- Eric

[Raymond Lyons]

Re: Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

Hi Eric,

I suspect that I am one of very few A5 users to have ever done and charts and graphs using the bitmap drawing functions. I did it a few years ago to create a bar chart on a form and in a report simply because I wanted the chart not to have to rely on any third party software. I remember it requiring a lot of learning and experimenting but it was pretty powerful once I got the basics down. That was years ago though and now I'd have relearn a whole to do anything new. I do periodically have to tweak my chart though, and doing so is not a big deal. Kind of fun actually.

Anyone else ever produce A5 charts and graphs this native way? Just curious.

Raymond Lyons

[CALocklin]

Re: Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

I've done a few.

[Peter.Wayne]

Re: Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

from 2003, A5V5:

http://www.learn alpha.com/ShareWare...reGraphing.htm

[Raymond Lyons]

Re: Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

from 2003, A5V5:

http://www.learn alpha.com/ShareWare...reGraphing.htm

Yeah, all the functionality has been there for a long time, but with the possible exception of people using Peter's aex. file, I just suspect very few developers have done anything with what is there waiting to be used. I also did my chart work in 2003 with A5V5 but without the benefit of Peter's work. In my case, users can only produce one bar chart, one version for screen display and another for use in a report. To do this I just used a couple of fairly long and (for me) complex scripts and did not make use of Peter's contribution. The chart is still being used 8 years later with only occasional, cosmetic tweaking.

I would love to see what others have done that did not make use of Peter's aex. file. In that regard, I'll include a screen shot of my one and only chart.

Raymond Lyons

[MikeC]

Re: Trapping mouse events on Xdialog!

I created a fairly generic function that will generate bar, line, or pie charts for reports/forms using the included SimpleChartLite that comes with Alpha...It did what I wanted back when and would like to add a few more things to it for ease of use/more user variance of how it would be wanted.

This is close to the latest rendition of it when I left off....pretty much most parameters can be chosen dynamically with it (drop downs for chart type, table/set names, field names, filter expression builder, etc)

FUNCTION Charts_Create as C (ChartType as C,Setname as C,Col_tablename as C,Col_fieldname as C,Row_table as C,Row_field as C,Tabulation_table as C,Tabulation_field as C,Filter_table=tbl_curr as C,Chart_Filter="" as C,Order_table=tbl_curr as C,Order_expression="" as C,ActiveX_Num="1" as C)
'Description:Choose ChartType of "Bar", "Line--'choose Style' "---the number suffix determines the line thickness in pixels (change if wanted), or "Pie"--Only the Row_Table and Tabulation_Table are used for a Pie chart....(defaults to "Bar" when left blank).  Choose Set (if exists),Column Table (Parent/Master), Column Field (must be character and is the X-axis), Row Table (Grouping/Legend Names), Row Field, Tabulation Table (Y-axis), and Tabulation Field.  Optionally choose Filter and Order fields. ActiveX_Num is the ActiveX Object Number-Used when more than one ActiveX object is present (a character value such as "1" with quotes - which is the default)--The ActiveX object's name that is ON the report must be in the default naming format such as: activex1, activex2, etc..