Problem with PB Forms

[John Petty]

I guess people in Power Basic have a sense of humour. It seems you can only use PB Forms 1.51 to design Dialogs that are capable of running on the computer you use to design the Dialog. Tried to create a Dialog 1600 pixels wide on my 1280 pixel wide screen. It wont let me, keeps reducing the Dialog to 1280 pixels HUH that limitation isn’t part of the sales specs nor does it give any warnings or options.
My clients that don’t have modern wide screens are all buying to match the data they need to see, actually I did too but the integrated Graphics of this 4YO computer can’t use it so tomorrow will get new add in graphics card.
As it is urgent I tried to spend the night getting a head start writing the program. Can’t lay out the screen.
Program I am updating already has many hundreds of controls but I want to add another hundred.
Sent an email to support, am I missing something etc and got a classic two line response I quote “PB Forms will not let you create a dialog box that is larger than the current screen resolution. You can change these sizes in the PBWin after saving the source from PB Forms.”
First part of the answer is accurate and informative, the second part perhaps the programmer should try laying out a thousand controls when you can’t see where they will finish up.
I had two other questions, is there a fix? No answer.
Will the next version (which Bob has posted will be soon) have the same limitations? No answer.

[Bob Zale]

There is no problem with PB/FORMS. The way it works is the way it works.

1- PowerBASIC FORMS creates dialogs up to the resolution which can be displayed on your monitor. If you'd like a higher resolution, just change your monitor to a higher resolution. You were given a polite, businesslike, and accurate response.

2- You claim you were given no response to "Is there a fix". That simply is not true. The "fix" is explained in item 1.

3- You claim you were given no response to "Will the next version be the same". That simply is not true. I have a copy of your email and you never asked that question, nor any other question other than the items mentioned above. Our tech support engineers responded to your questions quickly, accurately, and with normal business respect. They don't deserve this disingenuous remark just so you can add a little impact to your disappointment. Please tell only the truth about them.

This forum is provided so you can obtain support from your peers and also from PowerBASIC staff. Please cooperate in the future.

Best regards,

Bob Zale

[John Petty]

Bob
Copy and paste out of my email
"am I doing something wrong or is there a fix? This is an important project I can't wait for version 2 assuming this does not happen there to."
I know we speak a different version of English.
PB is my compiler of choice, using it since 1.1.
This is not the first time you have refuted my support claims and I just let it go. Nor do I now want a public argument on a great product, though I felt the community should be aware of the unpublished limitation. Perhaps I didn't do it as light heartedy as you would like.
May I suggest that we continue with PM's or emails as there are some support issues that could be improved. It is now 3:46 am for me so I shall get some sleep.
John

[Bob Zale]

John,

If you wish to continue to use our support facilities, you must treat our employees with normal business respect. That means, among other things, you must tell the truth about them. Anything less is unacceptable.

Your email contained no question other than those I listed in items 1 and 2. You asked NOTHING about features in version 2.

We do not allow arguments here. We offer support here. So far, you have not asked for support. You have only made disingenuous statements about very nice folks who tried very hard to help you.

If you have a question regarding support of PowerBASIC products, please ask it. Ask it here, or ask it of our free one-on-one support. Unfortunately, if you just continue in your current mode, I'll delete the thread entirely. That would sadden me.

Bob Zale

[Bob Zale]

John,

There is another option available to you: Create your forms in Dialog Units rather than pixels.

When executed later under a different resolution, Windows automatically adjust the sizes to fit the target resolution of the monitor.

Bob Zale

[Michael Mattias]

I was going to ask how you test a program which features a 1600-pixel wide display on a 1280-pixel wide screen.

Only answer I could come up with was, "Poorly."

But I guess this could be, "I'll just get the basic stuff done on my laptop before moving it to my desktop." It's just that in this case I can't see choosing "screen design" as the part to do on the laptop.

[Marco Pontello]

John, maybe you can try using one of the utilities that let you use a virtual desktop larger than the phisical one, and scrolling around.
One of them, for example, is SDesk: http://www.nearestexit.com/sdesk/
Of course I have no idea if it works with PB Forms, because I never used it, but it may be worth a try.

Bye!

[Simon Morgan]

PB Forms is about designing visually what the app will look like. Of necessity that means you need to be able to see the full extent of dialogs and therefore need hardware that can at least emulate the target machine.

If you just want to write and compile code theoretically (i.e. not visually) for different hardware, PB/Win on its own will let you create any size of dialog. Or you could do most of the work in PBForms and tweak the dialog size and control positions later.

[Steve Rossell]

PB Forms is about designing visually what the app will look like. Of necessity that means you need to be able to see the full extent of dialogs and therefore need hardware that can at least emulate the target machine.

This is precisely why PBForms, VB, and others do not let you in design mode create a form that is larger than the systems resolution.

[Gösta H. Lovgren-2]

Do REAL men use PB Forms?

Really?

==================================
"Achievements,
seldom credited to their source,
are the result of
unspeakable drudgery and worries."
Richard Wagner
==================================

[Steve Rossell]

Do REAL men use PB Forms?

Real men, such as quality programmers, use whatever tools are available to make them more productive.

[John Petty]

John,

There is another option available to you: Create your forms in Dialog Units rather than pixels.

When executed later under a different resolution, Windows automatically adjust the sizes to fit the target resolution of the monitor.

Bob Zale

Actually that is exactly what I first tried to do editing an existing Dialog that had been created in PB Forms 1.51 which produced the following

    DIALOG NEW hParent, "Bet Calculator", 20, 50, 786, 569, %WS_POPUP OR _
        %WS_BORDER OR %WS_DLGFRAME OR %WS_SYSMENU OR %WS_MINIMIZEBOX OR _
        %WS_CLIPSIBLINGS OR %WS_VISIBLE OR %DS_MODALFRAME OR %DS_3DLOOK OR _
        %DS_NOFAILCREATE OR %DS_SETFONT, %WS_EX_CONTROLPARENT OR %WS_EX_LEFT _
        OR %WS_EX_LTRREADING OR %WS_EX_RIGHTSCROLLBAR, TO hDlg

So bringing it back into PB Forms 1.51 I changed the width to 980 Dialog Units, PB Forms changed it to a width of 853 Dialog Units.

[John Petty]

This is precisely why PBForms, VB, and others do not let you in design mode create a form that is larger than the systems resolution.

Yes Steve but that is the reason I buy PB products, as rather than telling me what I can program like VB I thought it allowed that the programmer might know what he is doing. Windows lets you partially or fully drag a dialog off screen so I merely tried to widen the dialog, drag it off screen to the left and correctly visually locate the new controls in the newley created region of width.

[John Petty]

I was going to ask how you test a program which features a 1600-pixel wide display on a 1280-pixel wide screen.

Only answer I could come up with was, "Poorly."

But I guess this could be, "I'll just get the basic stuff done on my laptop before moving it to my desktop." It's just that in this case I can't see choosing "screen design" as the part to do on the laptop.

Do you actually read posts Michael? I repeat what I posted "My clients that don’t have modern wide screens are all buying to match the data they need to see, actually I did too but the integrated Graphics of this 4YO computer can’t use it so tomorrow will get new add in graphics card.
As it is urgent I tried to spend the night getting a head start writing the program. Can’t lay out the screen." I had the sceen and now have a video card to drive it. Thank you for another useless lecture.

[Walt Thompson]

Hi John;

The programs I write are required to run on 1280 x 1024 and larger displays. The resolution of the display on my desk is 1920 x 1200.

To meet the size requirements I scale the dialog as shown in this code snippet:

    DESKTOP GET CLIENT TO ClientX, ClientY
 
    DIALOG NEW PIXELS, 0, "Scalable Dialog Example", 0, 0, ClientX, ClientY, %WS_CAPTION OR %WS_SYSMENU TO hDlg

The values of ClientX and ClientY may be reduced if you don't want the dialog to fill the screen.

[Rodney Hicks]

This code:

 DIALOG NEW hParent, "Bet Calculator", 20, 50, 786, 569, %WS_POPUP OR _
        %WS_BORDER OR %WS_DLGFRAME OR %WS_SYSMENU OR %WS_MINIMIZEBOX OR _
        %WS_CLIPSIBLINGS OR %WS_VISIBLE OR %DS_MODALFRAME OR %DS_3DLOOK OR _
        %DS_NOFAILCREATE OR %DS_SETFONT, %WS_EX_CONTROLPARENT OR %WS_EX_LEFT _
        OR %WS_EX_LTRREADING OR %WS_EX_RIGHTSCROLLBAR, TO hDlg

is in between the following two lines, is it not?

#PBFORMS BEGIN DIALOG %IDD_DIALOG1->->

#PBFORMS END DIALOG

And the help states

To ensure that PowerBASIC Forms can reload an existing project from disk, manually added code to the generated code template must not be placed or altered within the #PBFORMS metastatement blocks (named blocks). That is, editing code within the marked blocks may prevent PowerBASIC Forms from reading the source code back into the design environment at a later date.

Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you don't.

[John Petty]

Rod
The code I showed was generated by PB Forms and was no there was no extra code added or edits made between the two PB Forms meta statements.
Yes I have read the manual and have been using PB forms since 1.0, so what is your point.
John

[John Petty]

Hi John;

The programs I write are required to run on 1280 x 1024 and larger displays. The resolution of the display on my desk is 1920 x 1200.

To meet the size requirements I scale the dialog as shown in this code snippet:

    DESKTOP GET CLIENT TO ClientX, ClientY
 
    DIALOG NEW PIXELS, 0, "Scalable Dialog Example", 0, 0, ClientX, ClientY, %WS_CAPTION OR %WS_SYSMENU TO hDlg

The values of ClientX and ClientY may be reduced if you don't want the dialog to fill the screen.

Thanks Walter I have been resizing screens with dragging etc for years. In this case however the minimum resolution required to display over 700 data values plus graphes readably is 1650 *1050. The clients are quite happy to buy specific hardware to display it as it is real time info, so no I have not included resizing code as it already takes considerabe CPU speed just to handle the update speed.
John

[Rodney Hicks]

so what is your point.

The point was I was offering a suggestion as to why this occurred to be helpful, because the way you first brought it up was it was ambiguous to me.
If you had read my post you would have realized that I was only raising a possibility, not stating a fact, and if that is how you want to treat individuals that offer you assistance then count on getting inadequate assistance in the future(none).

[John Petty]

Thanks Rodney, understood and accepted, after all Power Basic staff had already posted this was a limitation of the program.