Browse navigation on first record in embedded browse.... Must be a sequence that will work?

[SNusa]

Embedded browse anomaly/problem: How to navigate a browse via xbasic when there is only one child record and browse initially gets focus.....
The normal ways don't work via events until user navigates (manually) off browse record to a different browse record. (can't do this with only one record)

The following browse methods work fine with the "onRowChange" event, but not with onArrive:..... <browse>.left(), <browse>:<field>.activate() etc......

What I'm trying to avoid/accomplish is: I want to make sure that when the browse gets focus, the user has not selected one particular field. (Because the text in the field is color coded, and the focus on this row overrides the field's conditional text coloring while it has focus.) ~ Any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

Possibly a "hidden button" on these conditionally colored fields would work. But isn't there a more direct way using xbasic with the existing embedded browse events?

FWIW: The onArrive browse event will trigger normal commands like ui_beep() etc. so it should work, but it seems like the browse focus isn't fully resolved until you navigate off record. There's a "for i = 1 to x loop" that a5 uses to place the cursor via <browse>.home() and <browse>.right)() x number of times in the browse onArrive event. (watch script recorder/trace window) ~ And this navigational method (internally used by a5) appears to "inhibit" normal browse navigation via script when the browse initially gets focus. It actually could be an underlying cause of why the browse object events like onArrive are partially broken?

The only "navigational" capabilities (under this one specific circumstance) tied into the onArrive event (first item in browse) I've been able to find is via sys_send_keys() for example: sys_send_keys("{HOME}" I've tried many other things including ON_XBASIC_IDLE() and XBASIC_WAIT_FOR_IDLE() which have had some strange/unexpected consequences. For whatever reason, some of them (and other methods/functions placed within the OnArrive browse event) incorrectly trigger the onRowDoubleClick() event! ~ STRANGE!

[MoGrace]

Re: Browse navigation on first record in embedded browse.... Must be a sequence that will work?

Have you tried a skip field rule using the same condition that you use to change the field color? Or you could remove the Tab in the column properties. Or add a button in the browse that allows the read only property to be toggled. I guess it depends on whether or not you want the user to have any access to that field.

[SNusa]

Re: Browse navigation on first record in embedded browse.... Must be a sequence that will work?

Hi Robin;
Removing the tab stop checkbox for individual fields within the browse (a quick fix I had not thought about) doesn't solve the problem. Unfortunately doing so does not prohibit the fields from getting focus manually. (As per your suggestion, I just tried this workaround thinking it might be a "quick fix!") Could you elaborate a bit more on the "skip field rule" idea? I suspect you're referring to a conditional attribute value within the browse object?

Also, I do have a "doubleclick" event within this browse which brings up an xdialog box with options to edit these particular fields. (So the user does need to be able to select a specific row in the browse.)

[MoGrace]

Re: Browse navigation on first record in embedded browse.... Must be a sequence that will work?

In the AlphaSports Invoice form, highlight the Description browse column (field is Invoice_items->ProductID) and set a dynamic property for ReadOnly - I used ( Quantity > 5 ). I also set a color equation to set the text to Blue with the same expression.

For a Skip field rule use the above expression - the user may still be able to click the field but he won't be able to stay there to change anything.

And if you want to try a CanEditField field rule event for the productID field use:
If invoice_items->quantity > 5 then
cancel()
End if

With all of those set, the user cannot edit any product id that has blue text - but you probably don't need all of them.

[SNusa]

Re: Browse navigation on first record in embedded browse.... Must be a sequence that will work?

Thanks for your help Robin.

It's kind of strange how the browse "onActivate" event works with some code but not other code. It's as if row position in the browse isn't fully "resolved" until user moves off the first selected record in the browse. I wonder whether this is also the case with a "stand-alone" (embedded) browse too? On activate doesn't seem to properly acknowledge that first row. And then the loop (to move to proper field selected) inhibits some (not all) xbasic from executing as expected. I was really surprised that (only within the initially activated row) you can't activate a specific field. (<this>:<BrowseFieldName>.activate())

I wonder if there is some xbasic code/browse function, method etc. that I haven't tried which might (if placed in the browse "onArrive" event): Cause the browse row into being properly/fully acknowledged & resolved when the browse first gets focus? (so that you could control navigation in the first record selected, even if there is only one row)

I successfully accomplished this elsewhere in this application, where I had a button on the browse by adding this.up() and this.down() to the button's event. (At least I think that's the code which accomplished this anyways.) I'd love to find another/faster/easier way to do it without necessitating adding a button (hidden one or otherwise) within the browse.

One other question, is there any way to maintain conditional coloring in a browse field even when it has focus?
I was "messing around" with row color configurations etc, and I actually had to restore. Got to a setting combination that I couldn't undo manually. (Everything looked great with the highlighted row until I remembered I had conditional coloring of cell data in certain circumstances. At that point, I tried relentlessly to restore the prior selected browse row configuration.)

Had something to do with the entire row highlighted in combination with conditional cell text dynamic coloring. When I tried to "undo" the entire row coloring: No matter what I tried..... I couldn't get the browse row back to it's prior configuration. (Only one cell highlighted in the row while maintaining correct conditional text coloring. The closest I could get resulted in when the cell got focus, the text disappeared completely.) I worked on it for 2 hours lol. before finally restoring and reapplying the other changes I had made.