Undepress button in tool bar

[Bill Warner]

I've created a customer toolbar, in which I attached a script to one of the buttons. It works fine the first time, but the button remains depresses, and it will NOT play the script a second time. If I close the form and re-open it, all is fine again.

I tried putting PARENTFORM.RESYNCH() at the end of the script, but that didn't help.

Any ideas??

[whanigsberg]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Hi Bill,

That's a bit odd. The only thing that occurs to me is that the process run by the button (that is, the script) doesn't finish properly so the button doesn't reset. How about putting the debugger to work on the script itself. Or have you done that?

Bill

[Mick Magnuson]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Hi Bill
A little trick I do with longer scripts that don't seem to work right is to put a ui_msg_box statement periodically through the script. Sometimes scripts will either end themselves due to an error which may not display, or loop indefinitely. Try putting a ui_msg_box("","Test") right before the parentform.resynch() to see if the script is getting that far. If not, move it up the script until it displays, then you can figure out where the script is bombing. Debugging works well too, but this just a different way to test the script. Once the script is working, remove the msg_box's.

Mick

[Bill Warner]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Mick, I tried your suggestion, and the script runs just fine.

Here's the script:

obj = parentform.this
frmname = obj.name()
brname=substr(frmname,1,at("_",frmname)-1)+"_LIST"
form.view(brname)

(I've attached this to the BROWSE button on the toolbar, so the user goes to a form with an embedded browse, rather than a true browse)

[Bill Warner]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

I tried one more thing, to see if this is a script problem or a button problem:

I put a simple ui_msg_box in the script, with nothing else. Same results - it fires properly the first time, the button stays depressed, and will NOT fire again.

BTW, this is 4.5 build 266

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Bill, I tried a simple example to see if I could duplicate your problem.

I couldn't. My custom toolbar works repeatedly. Maybe if you compare it to yours you can spot the difference.

This example was built with Alpha Five Version 4.03

As usual unzip this to a separate folder. Do not mix it with your development work.

-- tom

[whanigsberg]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Hi again Bill,

Perhaps a context issue is causing a little hiccup.

Your script's first line:

obj = parentform.this

makes me wonder because if the code were attached directly to the button the alias "parentform" would have no meaning as the context of the button is the form itself. So the line would have to read

obj = this.this (right?)

But in your case the line appears in a script attached to the button so to what does "parentform" refer?

Seems to me that if the code were on the button directly you could write

frmname = this.name() 'new element
'everything below is unchanged
brname=substr(frmname,1,at("_",frmname)-1)+"_LIST"
form.view(brname)

Whether this would work in a script attached to a button I do not know.

Obviously I'm just thinking out loud here in the hopes of jogging somebody's thinking.

I use scripts attached to buttons to refer to forms' properties and to avoid this issue (that is, referencing) I create pointers as I load my application's forms. The pointers are in global variables (only four) and I use them all over the place. It gives me complete control over the referencing issue and is the one feature of a complex application which has literally never failed me.

Bill

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Bill, I follow a simpler but potentially more dangerous course and just use the absolute address for the form object, itself. -- tom

[Bill Warner]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Bill, Thank you for the exhaustive reply! I believe that this is an issue that relates to the buttons in the toolbar, because I don't have these problems with normal buttons.

Tom, I'll give your's a look, and let you know. Thanks for the file.

Bill

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Bill

A couple more ideas. One area that I think has caught many people is that xbasic script errors do not always create an error message in all conditions. I have found this to be true in scripts on menus and toolbars and on form events on dialog forms. If an error occurs, the only hint is some sort of odd behavior, like a button "sticking", or form lockup. I always use error trapping code during developement to check for these kinds of errors. On the first line of the script place

on error goto err ' or whatever

At the end of the script, place this code

end
err:
ui_msg_box("Error", this.name()+" - "+error_text_get(error_code_get())+chr(10)+chr(13)+"Error occured at line "+str(error_line_number_get(),4,0))
end

This will give an error message with the name of the object that generated it, the error type, and the line. After development, I either remove the trapping entirely or comment out the on error line.

Another cosideration is the length of time a script takes to run. I have seen buttons on forms seem to "stick" down if the script takes some time to run as happens if there are loops in the script or untrapped errors that run for a while.

Jerry

[Bill Warner]

RE: Undepress button in tool bar

Jerry, thanks for the input. Howwever, keep in mind that, as a test, I put a single message box on the button, and got the same results. The message appeared, and the button remained depressed. All other functions remained operational.

Tom Cone sent me an example of opening another form from a toolbar button, and that one worked fine. So, I'm not sure what's going on.

Thanks again to all that responded.