Looking at PB

[Rick Kelly]

Pardon the wall of text...

I've been a long time Paradox developer and Corel has no further interest in advancing the product. I've stretched PDX far beyond it's inherent base functionality via the win32api and my own custom DLL's which I've written with MASM32. For the curious, see http://www.crooit.com or http://www.thedbcommunity.com (search my name).

I like what I've read so far. Stand alone exe's without dependencies is very appealing to me and I have a large and complex PDX application that I've decided not to deploy beyond my test client since I don't want to hassle with current and future PDX compatibility problems. I'd rather pay the price and port it to another technology.

I like the forms functionality and the 3rd party add-on's I've read about.

I like the various database options. The whole SQLLite series is what I'm used to having. I'm also accustomed to performing a series of queries and using intermediate tables from one query as the source for the next. Is this directly supported?

In my apps, each user/application instance has a local and unique folder that I can work with for temporary file/table/db storage. Will I to have to build this functionality myself?

I assume that forms I might design and generate include skeleton event handlers that are available to customize. Is that the case?

What is the status for report designs - particularly bound to a data source? I've seen that DDOC is available for preview/print which I would use.

I'll probably have more questions later. TIA for taking time to assist me here...

Rick Kelly

[Fred Buffington]

In my apps, each user/application instance has a local and unique folder that I can work with for temporary file/table/db storage. Will I to have to build this functionality myself?

If you have a way of identifying each user with some unique pin number, there will not be a problem using unique folders.

I have a rather simplistic way by simply putting a number as a command variable when calling the main menu of my program.
Example: in the lnk file, the command line might read
c:\programpath\menu.exe 1
to designate user 1
then in the menu.exe i would capture the '1' with user&=val(command$) for example


DDOC is a great print/print preview add-on, and dllprint also has that capability. I used to use dllprint exclusively but with the addition of graphic/xprint i have developed my own print/print preview using those commands/statements in a separate dll. It's working out great.

The best thing, of course, is the support. The people here are very giving and
help and examples are just a click away. Hope to see you soon as a user of PB for Windows.

[Rick Kelly]

Thank you Fred for taking time to share information with me. I like hearing how others solve like problems. There always seem to be more than one way that works. Myself, I like to create a file in the folder with a set name that contains the process ID of the owner. If that file is present and the process ID is also still running in the system, I abort, otherwise create/update the "lock" file.

I look forward to what others may have to say. The economics seem very good - I can easily get started for around $500 USD which seems a bargain indeed.

Rick Kelly

[Michael Mattias]

In my apps, each user/application instance has a local and unique folder that I can work with for temporary file/table/db storage. Will I to have to build this functionality myself?

You can get a user's assigned "temp" folder which is guaranteed writeable using the WinAPI GetTempPath () function.

However, this folder is shared with other applications which request it.

If you need 'excusive' use of a folder what you CAN do is get the temp path, then request a Tempfilename in that path with GetTempFileName.. but instead of creating a FILE with that name, create a subfolder of the 'temp' folder with that name. Unique, temporary and per-user.

Or, you can get the user's designated "application data" folder usung ShGetFolderPath with the CSIDL_APPDATA constant and either use that or set up a subfolder to that folder.

I don't know if "temp" or "application data" is the "preferred" location these days. I use Application Data myself. Here's some code to get you started using that:
Move That INI File!and Get That Ini File Name!

MCM

[Michael Mattias]

What is the status for report designs - particularly bound to a data source? I've seen that DDOC is available for preview/print which I would use.

The publisher of ddoc Print & Preview recently posted here a threat to create a 'report designer' as an add-on/upgrade/enhancement (not clear which) to ddoc P&P. You should be able to find the thread in the third-party products forum.

On the "data bound control" ... I recently was looking at an old book - Peter Norton's Guide to VB6. No, I've never seen a "PB migration" of that control, but unless I am mistaken there are several examples each of the required "pieces" here, most under "grid" control references.

Also, I can see that the new COM capabilities of the v9 compiler would make developing one of these for PB programmers a heck of a lot easier than it used to be. Don't be surprised if some ambitious person comes up with one in the relatively near future.

[ADDED]
For that matter, I recently did a 'generic' function to execute a SELECT from a database using ADO/OLE. That demo is here: Generic 'ADO' Connection and Query Tester (CC 5+/Win 9+) 11-02-08 . That will cleanly get you the query data as a string array, which is a good start to a 'data bound control.'

But now just yesterday I found another "column type" which can be returned : 8209 (decimal), which is VT_ARRAY|VT_UI1.... which is what Microsoft SQL Server returns for an "nVarchar" column. I'll have to add some code to the demo to handle that.