Displaying Records in a Multiline TextBox

[mark pruitt]

I ran accross something I didn't realize today.

I have a small app I'm writing. One portion has a multiline, read only textbox for display. There are only three fields for each record, Name, Registration #, and support email.

To save the records from the dialog, I dim three fixed length strings

DIM a AS STRING * 35
DIM b AS STRING * 30
DIM c AS STRING * 30

Then I load the data into the variables, and save them as below:

apprecord = a + "," + b + "," + c
Then, I save apprecord.

To display the records in the multiline text box, I dim 3 strings of the same lengths, use PARSE$ and the field number I want to pull the data from the record, and store them in a variable like this:

FOR count = 1 to n (value of n obtained w/FILESCAN command)
displayrecord$ = displayrecords + a + $TAB + b + $TAB + c + $CRLF
NEXT n

Then to display CONTROL SET TEXT blah, blah, displayrecord$

What I've found is the display of the records isn't linear, even though the records are the same size. Here is what I mean; if my company name is 26 characters, the reg code 10, and the email whatever. Depending on the name of the company, and the length of the registration code, the records are not linearly displayed, even though the exact same number of characters are in each comparative field (assume a $TAB inserterted between the company and reg code, and the reg code and email:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890 [email protected]
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 [email protected]

Is there a relatively simple way to overcome this? I've been scratching my head for a few hours, now I'm turning to the big dogs. Thanks in advance.

[Chris Holbrook]

Either use tabs in the listbox and insert them into the string you are displaying, or use a non-PS font such as courier and pad with spaces.

I can't guarantee that this code will work but it points the way.

        local sz as asciz *64

        CASE %WM_INITDIALOG

            REDIM tbs(0 TO 2) AS LONG
            ' sets tabs, units are pixels/dialog units
            ' Note: negative values makes tabs stops right aligned,
            '      positive values makes them left aligned
            tbs(0) = -50 : tbs(1) = -100 : tbs(2) = -210
            CONTROL SEND hD, %IDC_LISTBOX1, %LB_SETTABSTOPS, UBOUND(tbs)+1, VARPTR(tbs(0))
      CASE something else

                sz = "HELLO" + $TAB + "MOTHER" + $TAB + "WHERE IS SUPPER"
                CONTROL SEND hD, %IDC_LISTBOX1, %lb_insertstring, 0, VARPTR(sz)

[mark pruitt]

Changing the font to Courier did the trick. Thanks again Chris, you've been resucing me alot lately.