Ctrl Click to select multiple, non sequential Items

[Mike Trader]

In running through a data file I generate a list of about 80 or more file names
I want to offer the user the option of selecting 2 or 3 non sequential items.
Do you guys use a ComboBox for this? It seems kinda akward.

Or lets say that you need to see all the items of a list of 200 items at the same time
and be able to select non-sequentially. How would you go about that?

------------------
Kind Regards
Mike

[Ian Cairns]

Mike, I think there is something wrong with this approach to the problem.
What user is going to want to shuffle through 200 files to select 2 or 3?
Is there some way that you could categorize them? Then have 2 combo boxes.
Use the first one to allow the user to select a category and the second one
to display the files that fit into the currently selected category.
This has worked for me in the past.

regards,

------------------
[email protected]

[Mike Trader]

Hi Ian,
thx for taking the time to answer this one.
Unfortunatly no.
I have no way of knowing what is in each of these files ahead of time.
They are produced by a third party data vendor.
Lets say I was doing this for stocks, There are 10,000 listed stocks.
Now granted not all 10,000 will be in one file, but easily 100 will!

So If I wanted to pick out the Dumpers for that day I would like
to galnce at a large number of them at least, or all of them to do it.

Im thinking a view like a folder with files in it. I can drag out
a folder with 400 files in it and see every one of them.
It takes about 2 sec to do that. Then I can Ctrl click to select them.
Is there anythig equivelent to this in DDT?
Some sneaky way?



------------------
Kind Regards
Mike

[Ian Cairns]

Mike,
I program exclusively in SDK style. I would probably use a Listview or a
Combobox depending if I wanted to display only 1 item of information about
a file, or a set of information about each file.
I am curious. If you can't categorize the files at all, then how would you
decide how to pick one? Like a lady at a horse race who likes the sound of a
particular name? (Bet it all on gumdrop!) If a file contains some information
that is relevant to its selection then you could preview the contents of each
file (or a section of it) that might contain pertinent information for
categorizing it?

regards,

------------------
[email protected]

[Edwin Knoppert]

We use 2 listboxes.
doubleclick places the item in the 2nd box..


------------------

[Bern Ertl]

Mike,

I'm using a grid control with one column consisting of checkboxes to
mark the selections and one column listing the data.



------------------
Bernard Ertl

[Mike Trader]

Bern,

That sounds cool ..
Where do I find one of them? its not DDT right.
Do you have an example?

------------------
Kind Regards
Mike

PS Im not sure i have picked a good example of why I need to do this,
but suffice to say, most users will know which items they want when they
see a full listing

[This message has been edited by Mike Trader (edited July 08, 2001).]

[Michael Mattias]

I like Edwins solution. A lot.

Come to think of it, some of my favorite software uses that technique or a variation of it:

Outlook Express - uses this to select multiple e-mail addressees
Mercator Trading Partner - uses this to select transactions to install (can be 1200-1300 to choose from, and typically you want eight or nine).

MCM

[Bern Ertl]

Mike,

I'm using Farpoint's Spread 3.0 DLL. Check out http://www.fpoint.com (I think).
I am using the DLL in conjunction with DDT.

But, you probably could also use siGrid or perhaps a listview?

At any rate, since I'm using a third party DLL for the grid control,
I can't effectively provide you with a demo/sample.



------------------
Bernard Ertl

[Mike Trader]

bern,
great suggestions!
i found sigrid at http://www.softwareinnovators.com/
this is exactly what im thinking of.
i also found a nice example from chris boss in the poffs forum
searching for "sigrid", but the #include "sigrid.inc" is missing (

'message [url="http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=22788"]http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=22788[/url] 
'forum:  source code
'topic:  sigrid - tab control - layers - ddt !
'name:   chris boss, member
'date:   september 05, 2000 09:30 pm


this example starts out by using the ezgui freeware ddt designer
to make the skeleton code. it contains a tab control with 3 sigrid
custom controls (one on each tab). it uses layers to impliment the
tab control. you can see how easy it is to impliment the sigrid
custom control using ddt.

' *************************************************************
'       code generated by ezgui freeware dialog designer
' *************************************************************
#compile exe
#register none
#dim all          '  this is helpful to prevent errors in coding

 ' remark out the constants for controls you will use in your program !
 %noanimate    = 1
 %nobutton     = 1
 %nocombo      = 1
 %nodraglist   = 1
 %noheader     = 1
 %noimagelist  = 1
 %nolist       = 1
 '    %nolistview   = 1
 '    %nostatusbar  = 1
 '    %notabcontrol = 1
 '    %notoolbar    = 1
 '    %notooltips   = 1
 %notrackbar   = 1
 '    %notreeview   = 1
 '    %noupdown     = 1
#include "win32api.inc"   ' must come first before other include files !
#include "commctrl.inc"  ' the common controls include file !
#include "sigrid.inc"

i didnt know the listbox could be multicolumned! im gonna play with that ...

------------------
kind regards
mike

[Edwin Knoppert]

Hey!
Don't forget my PBSCtrl DLL
Checklistbox and others..


------------------

[David J Walker]

For finding/selecting items from a list , I use something like the
Windows input that tries to select alphabetically. Mine does not
allow anything to be typed that's not there, however. It requires
an alphabetically sorted index, and opens the file in both random
and binary mode, so I can test the substring.

To select multiples, I usa tags (press T! .

I program in console (DOS) mode, yhis may not work as well in W.



------------------

[Mike Trader]

Edwin,
Where do I find all these things???
I would love to check em out!

David,
>I use something like the
>Windows input that tries to select alphabetically.

What is this? Do you have an example?


------------------
Kind Regards
Mike

[Edwin Knoppert]

I suggest people take also a peek at the 3th party section now and then
my site is www.hellobasic.com

PBSctrl and FreeDDT are valuable tools (at least to me)


------------------