Any tips for creating buttons to Enter,Change, Save, Cancel records?

[mbmonk]

OK I am trying to create buttons on my form for users to work with the records in a table. I have Enter, Change, Save, Cancel, and Main Menu buttons. The key is I want to enable/disable buttons depending on the state of the record. So for example if the user presses the "Change" button, all the remaining buttons are disable except "save" and "cancel".

The code I have create *(SO FAR)* to the function is at the bottom of this post. This is comming along OK, but there just seems like there could an easier way.

I got to looking at the wizard and how it creates buttons and I ran across this code:

topparent.command("RECORD_COMMIT")

I was unable to find any documentation on this "command" method. I was interested in using it if it would make my life easier :).


*Any* tips regarding creating a buttons for this type thing is appreciated. Also any information on the command method is appreciated. Thanks :)

FUNCTION TestButton AS V (ButtonPressed_par AS C, form_par AS P )
	
Dim CurrentFormMode as C

CurrentFormMode = form_par.mode_get()

select
    case CurrentFormMode = "VIEW"
    	select
    	    case ButtonPressed_par = "btnEnter"
    	    	'put the form in Enter Mode
    	    	
    	    	'disable buttons
    	    	form_par:btnEnter.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnChange.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnMainMenu.Disable()
    	    	'Enable save and cancel buttons
    	    	form_par:btnCancel.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnSave.Enable()
				end   	    	
    	    case ButtonPressed_par = "btnChange"
    	    	'Put the form in Change Mode
    	    	
    	    	'disable buttons
    	    	form_par:btnEnter.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnChange.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnMainMenu.Disable()
    	    	'Enable save and cancel buttons
    	    	form_par:btnCancel.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnSave.Enable()
				end  	
    	    case ButtonPressed_par = "btnMainMenu"
    	    	'Close the form
    	    	form_par.close()
    	    Case else
    	    	'the user pressed an invalid button
    	    	'Reset the buttons to what they should be in "VIEW" mode.
    	    	form_par:btnEnter.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnChange.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnMainMenu.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnCancel.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnSave.Disable()
    	    	end
    	end select
    
    case CurrentFormMode = "ENTER" .OR. CurrentFormMode = "CHANGE"
    	select
    	    case  ButtonPressed_par = "btnSave"
    	    	'We try to save the record, if successful
    	    	on error goto SaveErrorHandler
    	    	IF CurrentFormMode = "ENTER" then
    	    	    
    	    	end if
    	    	IF CurrentFormMode = "CHANGE" then
    	    	    form_par.change_end(.T.)
    	    	end if
    	    	
    	    	
    	    	
    	    	'we go back to view mode and reset the buttons to what they should be in VIEW mode
    	    	form_par:btnEnter.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnChange.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnMainMenu.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnCancel.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnSave.Disable()
    	    	end
    	    	
    	    	SaveErrorHandler:
    	    	
    	    case  ButtonPressed_par = "btnCancel"
    	    	'We cancel the new/editted record
    	    	form_par.cancel()
    	    	'we go back to view mode and reset the buttons to what they should be in VIEW mode
    	    	form_par:btnEnter.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnChange.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnMainMenu.Enable()
    	    	form_par:btnCancel.Disable()
    	    	form_par:btnSave.Disable()
    	    	end
    	    case Else
    	    	'the user pressed an invalid button
    	    	'Reset the buttons to what they should be in "Enter" mode.
    	   
    	end select
    case CurrentFormMode = "QUERY"
    	form_par.query_exit()
    	'kill query mode
    	'then recall the function with the parameters and quit
    	
    case CurrentFormMode = "FIND"
    	form_par.find_exit()
    	'Tell the user they were in query mode and exit
    case else
    	'Serious error, The form is in a state that Alpha says it cant get into.
    	
end select
END FUNCTION

[Tom Cone Jr]

Mike,

If you want to see an xbasic example showing one approach to this sort of thing, check out the Basic Data Entry Form examples in the Code Archive Forum. Though written for earlier versions of Alpha Five, they will work just fine with A5v7.

-- tom

[Scott Emerick]

.Command()

Mike,

The best of my undersatnding about the .Command() method is that it uses "A5 Built in Actions"

You can follow this better if you edit a menu or toolbar. You will see the list of Built in Actions (see attached pic).

Hope this helps,

Scott

[Cheryl Lemire]

one way to disable buttons using OnPush event

Hi Mike,

This is what I use in the OnPush event of my Edit Record button:

'show cancel and save buttons, hide other buttons
parentform:cancelchanges.show()
parentform:savechanges.show()
parentform:newrecord.hide()
parentform:editrecord.hide()
parentform:deleterecord.hide()
parentform:closeform.hide()

'enable the cancel and save changes buttons
parentform:cancelchanges.enable()
parentform:savechanges.enable()

Don't know if this is easier for you or not. Just another means to the end.

Cheryl

[mbmonk]

Thanks for all the help. I stole something from each post :).

I looked up .command() method and the help file says its for internal use only. So I am probably going to try and stay away from it. Not knowing the return types and such is to much risk to put that method in app and give to a customer when I dont know what it is really doing.


Just wanted to say thank you to all. It is appreciated.

Thanks again,
Mike

[Ronald Anusiewicz]

All the above examples work, but to me are very tedious to enter.
Being the lazy person I am, and have a form with over 50 buttons to disable, I was looking for a less tedious solution.

The following code seems to work quite well and is easy to write. The only down side I can see, if you would name your buttons something other than 1,2,3 or you would like to use a note by each button, ie. 1 'save 2 'enter , then I do not believe this will work.

I just started playing with this and so far it seems to be working quite well.

Ron

Disable button onpush code:

list = <<%a%
2
5
7
8
9
14
27
28
29
30
31
34
%a%

FOR each foo in list
eval("parentform:button" + foo + ".disable()")
NEXT

[mbmonk]

That is a slick littel trick. The only downside to that trick is you have to know what button32 is as opposed to button 35 for example. But I am going to try to use that trick for some other scenarios.

[CALocklin]

How about combining Ron's method with the use of something like the following command in the Interactive Editor to get a list of all the buttons:

?Menu_main.Child_Enum("f=button")
= Customers_btn
Billing_Status_btn
Expenses_btn
Vendors_btn
Reports_btn
Quit_btn
Backup_btn
Indexes_btn
Contacts_btn
Phones_btn
Customers_btn0
Customers_btn1
Ctl_pnl_dsn_btn

Once you have the list, just copy and paste the results into your script. You can easily remove any buttons you don't want to hide/disable. (Obviously, the "=" sign in the first row has to be removed as well.)

Then change the eval() command to:
eval("parentform:" + foo + ".disable()")

For anyone not familiar with constructing a command like this (a) "Menu_main" is the name of my form and (b) the form has to be opened before running the command.

As you can see, I agree with mbmonk, buttons, or any object type, with names like Button1, Button2, Button3, are pretty hard to work with. That's why I use my Group Format command to rename them. Just select every object on the form (Ctrl-A), open the addin (click the icon in the menu bar), and click the "Rename Buttons" button. The complete process takes a whole couple of seconds. Browses, field objects, and text objects can be renamed just as easily.

For the really observant among you, the Ctl_pnl_dsn_btn was renamed manually. That button doesn't have any text on it at all so it would have been named simply "Btn".