Form opening process needs work

[Chet Sapino]

Hello Developers and Alpha:

When a form is opened, the first field that has focus appears as a black highlighted field on an empty background. If the form background has a couple of frames and you have a colored backdrop, say indigo, the first field that has focus appears in highlighted black on an empty indigo backdrop. Then the rest of the frams and fields display simultaneously. I see this on an 800 mHz Athalon machine with 256MB RAM, and on a 2.2 GHz P4 with 512MB RAM - both having fairly hot video cards.

This behavior is not pleasant to the user to say the least. I have never seen a development language open forms this way. All languages that I have worked with display the window contents immediately, not in parcels like Alpha.

If you have a browse on the screen, the browse will become visible along with the first field that has focus, and then the rest of the frames/fields will become visible. This is even more unpleasant to the eyes of the user.

I have tried various ways to get around this, but is probably an Alpha issue.

I would think that loading the form into memory, followed by a show() would cause the entire window to open immediately, but this process does not cause any improvement.

I am concerned about selling a product with this behavior which is clearly "non-standard windows behavior." The whole window should be displayed immediately, not in two parcels.

If anyone has a suggestion on how this might be improved other than eliminating frames or other cosmetics from windows, please let me know.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Depending upon circumstances, I agree that their can be some screen "flashing" issues. But what you describe does not sound right to me. I just opened a bunch of forms in Alpha Sports and I don't see the behavior that you describe. You have enough ram in either case so i don't know why you are having that issue. As a possible work around have you tried something like this?
[b]
f=form.load("MyForm")
xbasic_wait_for_idle()
f.activate()
f.show()

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

I haven't tried the idle code, but I have tried load and show. I will look at it.

Put a couple of solid frames on the window with an indigo background and then try it.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

I just added 3 solid-indigo frames to the Alpha Sports Invoice form.I put the frames over fields in all three cases. No problem as per your description. See attached screen shot (not that the screen shot would demo the problem)...

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

What is supposed to happen when I click "Attach Files." Is a folder dialog supposed to appear allowing me to select a file?

I have a zip file illustrating the 2 phase form opening phenomena, but I am unable to send it.

Please advise.

Regards,

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Here is the 2-phase sequence of form opening that I am seeing (See attached zip). They display about " 1 sec apart. I was able to catch them with Alt-PrtScrn. I copied them into an RTF and zipped them up.

The first image shows the form with an indigo backdrop and the field with the first tab position. The window then fully opens as shown in the second image which has a dark red frame and a pale yellow frame. This happens with all Alpha 5 V6 forms on both of my machines - my own apps plus three other Alpha commercial apps - e.g., Contact Manager, Order Entry, and Time and Billing. They all show this.

You just have to look for it. It's there. Watch it carefully. It's not a flicker, just a 2 phase opening.

I am used to seeing windows snap open immediately with other development tools that I am using, such as Clarion For Windows. I've never seen this before, so it's readily apparent to me.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Right. If I scroll down in MS-Word I can simulate the effect that you describe. But again, I don't believe that is normal Alpha behavior. I don't have that problem at all. Maybe someone else can chime in?

[Elke]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Chet are you using the most recent patch? See the post http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/alphaphorum/read.php3?num=15&id=21018&loc=0&offset=0&sortby=lastreply&direction=desc&thread=21018

It appears that forms are loading slowly with 2055. I am still using 2051 and do not see the problem you described with forms.

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

I am using the latest 2055 patch, but I see it with 2051 also.

Just duplicate my windows exactly. Select an Indigo background, put a Dark red frame at the top with some text, and an adjoining pale-yellow frame below it and then populate a field with a lookup, for example.

You should see the phenomena I am observing. I cannot believe it cannot be seen by other or duplicated. It's visible enough to get captured by Alt-PrtScrn.

People using Alpha are probably too used to it.

Regards...

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Have you duplicated my example windows exactly as per the zip file? I cannot believe you cannot see it. The delay is noticeable enough to be captured by AltPrtscrn.

What speed CPU do you have?

Regards...

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Why don't you post the dbf file in question? Just zap all the data first & compact before putting it on this board. Then we can see it exactly (or not)!

[Chet Sapino]

RE: Form opening process needs work

It is a huge proprietary database. It's very easy to duplicate. Just design the window that I posted up here in the zip file.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Chet, people want to help you, but they don't necessarily want to do all the work! We only need the one dbf file w. the one form w/o any records. Not to mention it's much better to see your form in case there is something else going on in there.

[Elke]

RE: Form opening process needs work

I see it now. Go to Alpha Sports - Invoices - change the background to Indigo. Same results as Chet. However, if you change the tab order where the first item is not a field, the problem does not occur. Looks like a bug.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Form opening process needs work

Ok, I see that too. Repaint issue. Alpha?