iTunes-type alternate colored lines in scrolling list field

[Jan Schenkel]

--- Greg Saylor <gsaylor at net-virtual.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was very interested in this, because it's exactly
> what I want to do...
>  But, I am wondering how can you do this so that it
> is even more like
> iTunes?...  What I mean is, I need to be able to
> sort the various columns
> with the little vertical arrows depending on which
> field was sorted and
> how it was sorted...  The fields I have are going to
> be either numeric,
> alphanumeric, and a date in the format of
> "03-02-2003"...
> 
> Thanks so much!
> 
> - Greg
> 

Hi Greg,

While I can't give you a complete stack to play around
with at the moment, I'll give you a few hints:

- set the script of the field to something like this:

  setProp uSortColumn pColumnAndDirection
    -- pColumnAndDirection form ::
<number>,<direction>
    put item 1 of pColumnAndDirection into tColumn
    put item 2 of pColumnAndDirection into tDirection
    set the itemDelimiter to tab
    sort lines of me tDirection by item tColumn of
each
    -- pass so you can retrieve this info later
    pass uSortColumn
  end uSortColumn

- create rectangular buttons above the field

- set their labels, change the alignment to left so
you can have icons on the right side of the buttons

- set their scripts to something like this:
  constant kAscendingIconID = "123456"
  constant kDescendingIconID = "654321"
  -- better find suitable icon IDs for this
  on mouseUp
    -- this assumes it's the second column
    switch the icon of me 
    case kDescendingIconID -- a triangle pointing down
      -- sorted descending, so we must sort ascending
      set the uSortColumn of fld "TheList" to \
          "2,ascending"
      set the icon of me to kAscendingIconID
      break
    case kAscendingIconID -- a triangle pointing up
      -- sorted ascending, so we must sort descending
      set the uSortColumn of fld "TheList" to \
          "2,descending"
      set the icon of me to kDescendingIconID
      break
    default -- no icon set for this button
      -- hasn't been sorted on this column yet
      -- so we'll set it to our preferred initial sort
      set the uSortColumn of fld "TheList" to \
          "2,ascending"
      set the icon of me to kAscendingIconID
      break
    end switch
  end mouseUp

- you can add things for numeric sorts, and the like 

- have a look at the stack Chipp Walters made for
resizing columns ; it's available at :
http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/RunRev/Downloads.htm

- however, things can get complicated if you want
different alignments per column ; in such cases, you
might want to overlay those columns with opaque fields
with the correct alignment, and adapt the script of
the field :

  setProp uSortColumn pColumnAndDirection
    -- pColumnAndDirection form ::
<number>,<direction>
    put item 1 of pColumnAndDirection into tColumn
    put item 2 of pColumnAndDirection into tDirection
    set the itemDelimiter to tab
    sort lines of me tDirection by item tColumn of
each
    -- update the fields with different alignment
    -- this assumes column 3 is right-aligned instead
    repeat for each line tLine in me
      put item 3 of tLine & return after tColumn3
    end repeat
    -- update, char 1 to -2 to avoid the trailing
return
    put char 1 to -2 of tColumn3 into fld "Column 3"
    -- pass so you can retrieve this info later
    pass uSortColumn
  end uSortColumn
  
  on selectionChanged
    -- update the fields with different alignment
    set the hilitedLines of fld "Column 3" to \
        the hilitedLines of me
    -- don't forget to add a similar
'selectionChanged'
    -- handler to those fields !
  end selectionChanged

Making a nice sample stack for these purposes is on my
ever-growing "to do"-list, but I hope these hints got
you started.

Best regards,

Jan Schenkel.

=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/