Explorer Style Menus

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

As I mentioned Ray, it wasn't tidied up. Just an example of using a Dynamic Tree to select Forms, and something for Bob to look into if he thought there was any merit in it.
If you want it to be dockable, and that isn't in Bob's post, then I don't think there is anything in Alpha DT that can do that, but I could be wrong.
As for always being on display on the left hand side, that would be fairly simple, however once the menu was created, it would need to be embedded on each Form.
There is also the Open and Close issue, but it's not insurmountable as evidenced in the earlier suggestion I posted.
Please do a screen shot of what you believe an Explorer menu would look like and I'll try and replicate. My Explorer has very few menu items.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Look at the dockable menu in Alphasports, Navigation Toolbar.
All it won't do is concertina like Explorer.
Just open Windows Explorer, it has nothing to do with what I believe it looks looks like.

[Bob Whitaker]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Thanks all for you contributions - I am away from the office for a couple of days and will review the suggestions on my return.
Ray - I haven't forgotten you - just adding some more features.
Bob

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Look at the dockable menu in Alphasports, Navigation Toolbar.
All it won't do is concertina like Explorer.
Just open Windows Explorer, it has nothing to do with what I believe it looks looks like.

Try adding a new button to the Nav Toolbar, which fires a Dynamic Tree, populated with whatever you want.
BTW I haven't done it yet myself as I have something esle on, but I will get around to it.

Edit.
Done it now. Fully dockable anywhere navigation menu with Dynamic Tree which fires the requisite form from the Node selected.
You could add all sorts of functionality based on the value of the Node Selected.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

That would be interesting to see.

[MoGrace]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Ted,
What if you wanted to display one value in the tree but return another? Where would the '{DATA=value1}value2' syntax go? I am using a table to get my tree nodes but don't want the ID field to show but do want that for the return value.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Can you post an example of where you have gotten to Robin? Use private mail if you wish.
First thoughs are that you could parse the returned string if you don't select the [get from node] option.

I'll post the results of the Dynamic Tree activated from a Dockable Menu Navigation tomorrow morning. Been trying to make it look nice.
It activates a tree from which a Form is selected and runs.
The tree is NOT contained within the floating Navigation Menu so it will always appear under it if the menu is docked top left.

Decided to go with what I've got.
You'll see what I was getting at, and there may be a way of getting the floating menu to display the tree within it, but it's beyond me I'm afraid.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Ted,
What if you wanted to display one value in the tree but return another? Where would the '{DATA=value1}value2' syntax go? I am using a table to get my tree nodes but don't want the ID field to show but do want that for the return value.

Had a fiddle with this Robin. If you use the List Box option in Xdialog Genie, you can display the Data and save the content of another field in the same record into a Variable.
Using Alpha Sports, I showed the Customer names, and Saved the ID - which was not shown - to a Variable.
Not a Tree though.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

You can see from the example that one can go (kind of) three levels down.

It's not a perfect solution because even though the user can still see the selected TAB they have to read sideways to select the right one. If the top tab has all other tabs as first menu item it would be nice to know HOW TO PROGRAMATICALLY SELECT the relevant tab as the next level. That would be usefull - if further levels can't be done.

The difference between a system of menus and Navigator - is that Navigator always shows the path the user took to be where they are right now. You can see my menu also highlights open and current forms and additional options use dropdowns on the menu bar.
That is where Expanding options that remain open and visible, would come in.

Whats this suggestion in aid of Ted?

Can you post an example of where you have gotten to Robin? Use private mail if you wish

[MoGrace]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Hi Ted,
Here is a screenshot of my Menu Tree and the form I use to input the data. A copy of the script is attached that creates the tree.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

Gobsmacked is all I can say Robin.
What an outstanding example.

[MoGrace]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

How sweet of you to say! I would have posted it yesterday but couldn't get it to work for some reason that turned out to be a space in the tree - which was driving me nuts to find out why. I put a note in the code. I originally used this only in my PR_DATA app, but then thought I could use it in others too. And sure enough you can just by changing the data in the table - and of course any buttons you want must change the links.

In the form the lookups are variables that use layout lists based on TYPE to get enumerations to populate the OBJ_NAME which is then put into the ACTION field combined with the UDF or SCRIPT chosen from that list - which can both be edited. After its first selection the OBJ_NAME can be edited for the tree display since it is then only used for that. The unique SORTKEY is used to sort the data in the tree. It is a calculated field in the field rules that combines GRP and ORD. I have another table HELPCHAP that I use to populate the two groups with the same CHAPTER and TOPIC I use for the help file. I also made a function to use the + and - keys in the OnKey event so the ORD field can be reorganized after you get all the entries in place. I am working on a test copy that I will post when I get it finished.

Edit: Oh and the button with the blue execute on the form refreshes the menu tree so you can see your changes.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

I think Selwyn might be contacting you!

[MoGrace]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

I was able to synch all my v10 apps to use this modeless XD tree - and then got the bright idea to try it in v8. I have been testing all the variables in the IW and Trace window, but I can't get the button script to work correctly if at all. I am using the same script that the double click event uses - and that one works. But when attached to the button event, it runs every script found in the ACTION field in the table. So even though the IW shows only one record was returned with this filter, somehow the whole list is being processed. What else might I try instead of this function that is mainly for creating a crlf() list?

Here is the working ev_dblclick script:

IF a_dlg_button = "ev_dblclick" THEN
	vMenuTree = word(vMenuTree,val(menu_lvl),".") 	
	vSortkey = lookupc("F",vMenuTree,"sortkey","act_menu","OBJ_NAME")	
	vAction = table.EXTERNAL_Record_content_get("act_menu","alltrim(ACTION)","sortkey","SORTKEY="+QUOTE(VAR->vSORTKEY))	
	Tln("vAction ev_dblclick: ",vAction)
	evaluate_template(var->vaction)
END IF

I don't actually need the lookupc() for vSortkey since I could filter the next line with
"OBJ_NAME = "+quote(VAR->VMENUTREE))

it was just something I was trying because I know that field is unique. The menu_lvl variable is just something I was trying to see if I could use the same script for a 2 level or 3 level tree.

[MoGrace]

Re: Explorer Style Menus

The change I made that seemed to be the problem, was giving the button an event name that was different than the button label. Once I changed that, the button worked the same as the double click event for the tree. Perhaps because the button only has the one event?

But the other problem was altering the vMenuTree variable value to use for the lookup. And since I didn't need a crlf() list for the vAction, I changed that too. This is the script that works - the button event name change being the last thing I did.

IF a_dlg_button = "GO" THEN    
    vLU_OBJ = word(vMenuTree,val(menu_lvl),".")
    vAction = lookupc("F",vLU_OBJ,"Action","act_menu","OBJ_NAME")
    Tln("vAction ev_GO: ",vAction)
    evaluate_template(var->vaction)
END IF