Who needs the Control Panel anyway

[G Gabriel]

This is in response to this. I thought it warrants more exposure, hence the post.

Control Panels get cluttered and look pretty arcane pretty quickly. But more importantly, sometimes you can't tell right off whether this form is based on that table or that set ..etc.

So why not have your own Control Panel?

I haven't quite finished this project as it is not top priority for me right now, but for those who care, the concept is simple:

1-You can obtain information about all tables, layouts etc in your DB with the numerous alpha enumeration functions

2-From that point on, it's really entirely up to you. You could present this information in a:
a-Tree format (menu style)
b-Toolbar
c-xdlg
d-A form
e-Popup menu
f-A browse


3-How do you compile the data is also up to you. You could:
a-Create a physical table to hold all these information
b-Initialize an array a list a collection, whatever.

4-And more practically and importantly, open any of these layouts or run any script..etc from your own Custom Control Panel.

I understand some has asked for this in the wishlist. But how much of a wish is this? How do you suppose alpha will do it, if not in one or another of the above mentioned format?

I neglected to mentioned perhaps the best feature of having your own Control Panel:

Documentation.

So many threads recently about the best naming practices, long names, short names, what's in a name, ...etc.

How about just adding a memo to each record in your control panel documenting what is this script meant for, what the names mean, what the names of the fields in the table refer to..etc.

Not to mention, a custom table presented say as a tree, will allow you to have folders, subfolders etc.

Is it worth the hassle
I think so and it is not a lot of work either.

Now, if you don't want to do things retrospectively (i.e. using the enumerations functions), you could do things prospectively:
Each time you add a table, a form, a browse, a report, a script..etc. enter a record in a table Cust_CP to reflect the pertinent information.

[jjfcpa]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

This is in response to this. I thought it warrants more exposure, hence the post.

Control Panels get cluttered and look pretty arcane pretty quickly. But more importantly, sometimes you can't tell right off whether this form is based on that table or that set ..etc.

So why not have your own Control Panel?

I haven't quite finished this project as it is not top priority for me right now, but for those who care, the concept is simple:

1-You can obtain information about all tables, layouts etc in your DB with the numerous alpha enumeration functions

2-From that point on, it's really entirely up to you. You could present this information in a:
a-Tree format (menu style)
b-Toolbar
c-xdlg
d-A form
e-Popup menu
f-A browse


3-How do you compile the data is also up to you. You could:
a-Create a physical table to hold all these information
b-Initialize an array a list a collection, whatever.

4-And more practically and importantly, open any of these layouts or run any script..etc from your own Custom Control Panel.

I understand some has asked for this in the wishlist. But how much of a wish is this? How do you suppose alpha will do it, if not in one or another of the above mentioned format?

I neglected to mentioned perhaps the best feature of having your own Control Panel:

Documentation.

So many threads recently about the best naming practices, long names, short names, what's in a name, ...etc.

How about just adding a memo to each record in your control panel documenting what is this script meant for, what the names mean, what the names of the fields in the table refer to..etc.

Not to mention, a custom table presented say as a tree, will allow you to have folders, subfolders etc.

Is it worth the hassle
I think so and it is not a lot of work either.

Now, if you don't want to do things retrospectively (i.e. using the enumerations functions), you could do things prospectively:
Each time you add a table, a form, a browse, a report, a script..etc. enter a record in a table Cust_CP to reflect the pertinent information.

I'm coming from Visual Foxpro and just for reference, VFP uses a Project Container to hold all the elements (different type so files... reports, forms, program files, libraries (collections of re-usable routines), text files, and any other files you want embedded in your distributable EXE.

In a small app, it's not too hard to distinguish what the file is used for, but there is no way to tell what tables or functions are used by the form, report, etc.

A couple of versions ago, they created a feature called Code Reference (it's actually written in VFP) that will search your entire project and find searchable references that you type in. Such as, perhaps you want to find all forms, reports, program files that call a function called "MYFUNCTION". You can type this in and after searching all your files it will return all the files that have this function in it. You can use it to search for any string that you want and you can restrict it to searching certain type of files (just forms).

The point is, when your project gets so big, you need these kinds of tools just to maintain it because you just can't remember where everything is or where it's being used.

I'm just wondering if you will be including anything like this in your Control Panel. Perhaps there is already something like this available, but I know this is something that we will need because we use it all the time.

[G Gabriel]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

I'm just wondering if you will be including anything like this in your Control Panel.

You could just about include anything you want. One of the alternatives I suggested is to include information about your DB in a physical table. In that table, you could include as many or as few information as you wish.

By the way, searching for what script uses which function could be done in alpha. It is not a direct process but you would have to obtain all scripts by the enumeration function and then search the output for the function.

[Tim Kiebert]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

A couple of versions ago, they created a feature called Code Reference (it's actually written in VFP) that will search your entire project and find searchable references that you type in. Such as, perhaps you want to find all forms, reports, program files that call a function called "MYFUNCTION". You can type this in and after searching all your files it will return all the files that have this function in it. You can use it to search for any string that you want and you can restrict it to searching certain type of files (just forms).

I think this utility by Cal Locklin pretty much does this.
AIMS App Analyzer

[csda1]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

Hi John,

As Tim says, Cal's AIMS App Analyzer Utility does this.

In a different way, so does Bill Parker's A5DOC.

And of course, my CSDA Code Utility for Alpha Five operates somewhat as a user control panel, allowing user definable buttons to be created.

With the CodeJump feature of the CSDA Code Utility, and the various Global Searches of the Web App files, Global Script/Functions or Table Data it pretty much has the features needed for most users on-the-fly searches, with AIMS App Analyzer and A5DOC doing more extensive searches.

An unreleased Code Select feature of the CSDA Code Utility which I use internally does in fact show you information about each code object on the code tab (e.g. descriptions, syntax,date created, date accessed, sizes in lines, action script lines, # of menu items, # of toolbar buttons etc, password protected) and allows you to filter and sort those items, but requires a lot more work to be ready for users.

But as I've said so many times before, if you want tools like these to be made, people need to buy them! Otherwise add-on/add-in utilities will not be worth it's development time.

[jjfcpa]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

Hi John,

As Tim says, Cal's AIMS App Analyzer Utility does this.

In a different way, so does Bill Parker's A5DOC.

And of course, my CSDA Code Utility for Alpha Five operates somewhat as a user control panel, allowing user definable buttons to be created.

With the CodeJump feature of the CSDA Code Utility, and the various Global Searches of the Web App files, Global Script/Functions or Table Data it pretty much has the features needed for most users on-the-fly searches, with AIMS App Analyzer and A5DOC doing more extensive searches.

An unreleased Code Select feature of the CSDA Code Utility which I use internally does in fact show you information about each code object on the code tab (e.g. descriptions, syntax,date created, date accessed, sizes in lines, action script lines, # of menu items, # of toolbar buttons etc, password protected) and allows you to filter and sort those items, but requires a lot more work to be ready for users.

But as I've said so many times before, if you want tools like these to be made, people need to buy them! Otherwise add-on/add-in utilities will not be worth it's development time.

Thank you for the worthwhile information. I'll definitely save this for later. Right now I'm just trying to get acquainted with A5 to see if it will satisfy our needs for future development.

[G Gabriel]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

I could have summarized everything I said in one sentence:
Think of the Control Panel as a database of your database. If you can create a database, you can create a custom control panel.

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Who needs the Control Panel anyway

Think of the Control Panel as a database of your database. If you can create a database, you can create a custom control panel.

The problem is, that "forces" one to do "double-entry" bookkeeping. i.e. one creates the object, then one has to document it. If you delete or rename or change functionality, you have to change your documentation. For a lazy bum like me, at least, that's a real P.I.T.A! Years ago, one of Alpha's top programmers told me that a new controlpanel had essentially been completed, but it never saw the light of day for whatever reason. A new CP would be nice (I think - depends on what you end up with, I guess), with a brief description field, and a memo field, as well as date of creation and date of last edit fields - attached to the object in the CP.