Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xbasic

[Willard]

With regards to forms has anyone been successful with manipulating the fields fontequation and colorequation properties. They are listed in the code editor and will give the actual code listed in the properties of each field. However, I cannot seem to replace or add an expression via xbasic. Is this possible? Jack

[martinwcole]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Yes, here is a snipit from an onfetch event for a form
the "explorer" has all these features available for drag and drop - you can change size, position, color, display text, etc. the explorer is a great learning tool.

parentform.restrict_change=.t.
Button13.text="Edit"
Button13.fill.forecolor="dark yellow"
Button13.font.size=8
Button13.font.color="white"
button13.refresh()

if parentform:amount_due.value

[Willard]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Thank you Martin, but the question did not have to do with individual properties, but rather group of properties which are evident in the colorequation and fontequation properties on the forms. These are available from the code editor but If I try to apply my own properties via xbasic on the forms onit or onfetch event, Alpha will not find my xbasic script as far as this goes. Right now I have a form with 400+ fields and each one has a color and font property. The form loads slowly using the xbasic method and although it is faster when the field properties are individually entered in each field directly from the form, I have seven of these forms and the loadup time let alone the programming time is almost suicidal

[martinwcole]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Well, this is obviously out of my league. I looked, but couldn't find access to a color equation anywhere in the explorer.

I will add, although this may not relate to the question, that Steve Workings talked about how you could write a script to set all of the color/font properties for a form. I think he meant that you would have a sort of loop:
like for all form children that were class type 1, make properties 1; for all that were class 2 make properties 2.

but this wouldn't really be an equation, where you normally say if(field 1="a","white on black", "black on white")

but with a form with that many fields, I have great sympathy. Bill Parker has one with over 800, if that will make you feel any better.

[Stan Mathews]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

I'm not sure what your objective is and I've never tried it, but it might be possible to base font and color equations on form variables and manipulate the variables.

[csda1]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Jack & Stan,

I have not used variables, but I have used a form's calculated fields to store an expression that produces the color value. Then I just place the calculated fieldname in the color expression of every field. This way I need only change the calculated field's expression to change all the field's that reference it.

As far as Alpha 5's expression evaluation method, I would bet that it calculates the expression once (actually probably a couple of times due to it's internal methods) per record, rather than once for each reference of the field by the color expressions. This means that when you have 100's of fields, the evaluation should be much faster. Testing this should prove my point pretty quickly.

If this is too slow, then you must parse through all fields that you want to change and then set them whenever you desire to change them to. This could be automated to a degree by parsing through a list of names or possibly having object names that all start with the same name, so you can compare them as you enumerate through the child objects

Regards,

Ira J. Perlow
Computer Systems Design & Associates
[email protected]

[Willard]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Ira, I will try your idea with the calc fields.
I have one form with all 400+ fields containing coding in the font eaquation properties and/or field color equation. This took me about 4 hours.

I then created duplicate form without the coding on each field and simply coded the form in the onfetch event with an xbasic code that loops through all the fields and depending on the substr(field_namd,1,1) a5 fills in the foreground, background color as well as font attributes (all these are global variabels that are set and changed by the user-->Attempt to create small application that each user can customize somewhat)

The problem is that although the first form loads considerably faster, it is not bast enough when there are 7 subforms all with similar coding. It takes 5 seconds to resynch. VERY SLOW AND CUMBERSOME.

I was trying to figure a way to speed this process up without sacrificing any of the fields on the form.

[Stan Mathews]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Jack,

Nice article at learn alpha on allowing a user to set the background color. Could be adapted to your situation?

[csda1]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

Jack,

While this may not help for every record, when you use Onfetch to change the values, you should compare the current values to the new values you want to set. If they are the same, then there is no reason to change them, and you are done.

The next point is that if an object is not visible, there is no reason to update it until it is visible. E.g. if you have a tabbed form, only those objects on the current tab need to be set. The rest can be changed if the user changes tabs in the OnTabChange event. If you the values are already correct (because the user was previously viewing the tab for the current record), then you don't have to change them either.

You should make your code more efficient, e.g. use LEFT(field_namd) instead of substr(field_namd,1,1).

Also, while I'm not sure this matters, and may vary from version to version, I believe A5 may do a refresh after any setting of a displayable property (like, color, font, etc.). So what I do is read the value 1st, and compare it to what I am setting it to. If different, then I actually set the value. This may or may not be the best way to do it for your case, but if there is more overhead for writing (even if the value does not change), then you want to attempt to minimize these changes.

Regards,

Ira J. Perlow
Computer Systems Design & Associates
[email protected]

[Willard]

RE: Manipulate *.colorequation-*.fontequation w/xb

thanks all. Well------ the answer really seems to lie within the mere number of fields and the total number of characters within the tables. I must say that I have tried to use (current) 9 table set for a total of 2600 fields or using 4 table set with a total of 2600 fields. Surprise, the nine table set is faster since alpha maniuplates the data internally. The application is a scheduler/planner application (fine tuning the one I have on Learnalpha.com) and I have reduced the refresh time from 5 seconds to a solid 3 seconds. I maximmized the number of characters where I could and removed unnecessary fields. Seems to have made a difference. If I did not have the heavily coded forms, alpha resynchs the forms within a blink of an eye. Quite bothersome but Interesting stuff.

Thanks Ira for the tip on left() verses substr() functions. I love great time saving tips. Jack