Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

[LukeS]

I have spent the last six months on the web application side of alpha and am pretty comfortable creating interfaces and writing custom xbasic code on the web end of alpha but am pretty clueless on how to do anything on the desktop side. I need to create a small desktop app to handle some tasks on the server and manage order files created by the application server. I am going to do all the tasks in Xbasic which I am comfortable with now I just do not know how to display the results of that xbasic in a GUI form.

I created a form called "main_menu" which will display the status of the order file management app that will run on the same server that runs the application server. I am trying to figure out how to set the contents of a control located in the "main_menu" form I created from a Xbasic function on the code tab. I have read the getting started and Xdialog tutorial (which does not seem to apply to this since I am not creating the form in code) on the wiki but did not see anything on this. I am sure it is really simple once you know how, can someone point me in the right direction.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

I am trying to figure out how to set the contents of a control located in the "main_menu" form I created from a Xbasic function on the code tab.

You set the value of a control (object) on a form by assigning a value to it in response to some event. You refer to the control by its object name (revealed by rightclicking on it and examining its properties).

IOW, you could use the onpush event of a button to set the value of field (character) on a form whose object name is field1 with.....

field1.value = "LukeS"

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

Luke, there's a pretty decent tutorial "learning xbasic". You can find it in the wiki, contents panel. Among the various chapters, this one on Object Addresses may be the key to climbing to the next rung on the learning curve.

[LukeS]

Re: Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

Thanks for the reply guys. Stan, unfortunately that does not work because the function that is trying to set the controls is outside the variable scope (container) of the form, that was what I was trying to figure out how to address the form's controls from code executing outside of the form. Tom, that helped, I got the first step which is basically hello world working..

DIM pMainMenuObj as p
pMainMenuObj = obj(":Main_Menu")
pMainMenuObj:CONTROL_FIELD1.value = "test_value"

If I have the "Main_Menu" form open in design mode and open it in view mode the name changes to "Main_Menu0" which causes the above code will no longer work. How do get the name of the open form so I can set it to a global variable and then I will be able to referenced it by my global functions on the code tab. I was thinking of setting the global variable on the OnInit event of the form but how do I get the name of the form open. I saw the "topparent" var but that is pointer and none of the members of the pointer seemed to return the name.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

Luke, during development I suggest you do one thing at a time. Do not open a form in design mode and also open another instance of the form in view mode. Instead, open one instance, and toggle back and forth between design and view modes, saving frequently.

BTW, if you use the "Go Advanced" button while editing a quick reply here, you'll get a better editor for your posts. Among the options you'll find is the ability to select text and then wrap it in [code] tags, to preserve indents and tabs. i.e. formatted code.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Controlling a form's controls for a xbasic function, how?

how do I get the name of the form open.

this.name