Global rule change

[Martin]

Hi,

Apologies for the fact that I should know this - I've searched this forum to no avail.

I want to change every field in my application so that, when modifying forms, etc., the cursor goes to the end of unselected text. Obviously, I could spend a few hours doing it field by field, but how can I do this globally? I'm sure I've seen some way of doing it, unless I'm thinking of some other DBMS.

Thanks if you can point me in the right direction.

Martin.

[Stan Mathews]

Do you want to change the table field rules for each field in each table to have the cursor position at end of "unselected text". (I'm confused by "when modifying forms, etc.")

This snippet will do that for a named table.

tbl = table.open("tablename",FILE_RW_EXCLUSIVE)
nFlds = tbl.fields_get()
rul = tbl.rules_get()
FOR i = 1 TO nFlds
	fldname = tbl.field_get(i).name_get()
	rul.change_begin()
	evaluate_template("rul."+fldname+".cursor_pos = "+quote("End_Of_Unselected"))
	rul.change_end(.t.)
NEXT i
tbl.close()

It shouldn't be that difficult to wrap this in something that fed it all the tablenames in the database.

[Martin]

That's brilliant, Stan. Thank you. I'll do that next week. It would be a useful (and easy?) facility to build into a future version, Alpha?

I won't risk it this evening because it's 7.45 pm here in England and although the sun is a long way from setting over the Avon Gorge and Downs (where I live and work) my wife has persuaded me to drink a couple of glasses of cab. sav. - (Australian, actually, although I know Kentucky has a long history of vinyards and wine-making but I've never seen any KY wine over here in the UK. Why not?)

Thanks, Stan.
PS I expect you know that you are only one letter away from being an English Knight -http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/local_heroes/sir_stan/index.shtml

[Stan Mathews]

If heard of that other guy from someone else, I think.

Kentucky is known for bourbon more than wines but I do enjoy wine. I prefer the whites and blushes to the reds. Kentucky is also known for fast horses and beautiful women. (That might be beautiful horses and fast women, I can't keep it straight.)

Enjoy your evening and the weekend.

Here's the global version. It was pretty much a straightforward substitution into the documentation example for A5.table_enum().

table_name = :a5.table_enum("")
IF table_name <> "" THEN
	i = 1
	'While the table_enum method returns nonblank names, get next name
	WHILE table_name <> ""
		:Statusbar.Set_Text("Changing cursor position field rules for: " + table_name)
		tbl = table.open(table_name,FILE_RW_EXCLUSIVE)
		nFlds = tbl.fields_get()
		rul = tbl.rules_get()
		FOR i = 1 TO nFlds
			fldname = tbl.field_get(i).name_get()
			rul.change_begin()
			evaluate_template("rul."+fldname+".cursor_pos = "+quote("End_Of_Unselected"))
			rul.change_end(.t.)
		NEXT i
		tbl.close()
		table_name = :A5.table_enum(table_name)
	END WHILE
END IF
:Statusbar.Set_Text("Done!!")

[Martin]

...and you, Stan. Watch out for those women and horses. They're more than a match for any man, living or dead. (That doesn't make sense, but I've had another glass...)

[Cheryl Lemire]

Stan,

evaluate_template("rul."+fldname+".cursor_pos = "+quote("End_Of_Unselected"))

Is this info in the help docs somewhere? I ask because there are a lot of field rules and I would imagine we can do this with other field rules as well?

[Stan Mathews]

Stan,



Is this info in the help docs somewhere? I ask because there are a lot of field rules and I would imagine we can do this with other field rules as well?

I'll have to get back to you Monday.

If I remember correctly, I used

tbl =table.open("sometablename")
fld = tbl.field_get(1)

? fld.rules_get()
'rules were listed
tbl.close()

and thus got a list of rules and present values.

I then changed the data entry for the first field to reflect "end of selected text"

repeated the steps above and found that the rules value was

"End_of_Selected"

That way I knew the value that should be written to the rule to make the change.

I think much the same would have to be done for all of the field rules possble settings to discover the allowable/pertinent strings to be written.

[Cheryl Lemire]

Thanks Stan. I will play around with it during the week and put it in my toolbox :)

[Martin]

Thanks again, Stan, that works perfectly. I'm surprised it's not possible in Alpha.