number of columns in a table field

[Bill Marriott]

Richard,

You're saying that Rev's existing table object is just spiffy? Oh my, my 
ribs hurt from the laughter!

I mentioned the limit raising in Excel to illustrate that along with the 
overall eye candy in Office 2007, reworking Excel's already generous limits 
(vast, compared to Rev) was a major undertaking and clearly one of the most 
important changes made to the product in years. Doing so required them to 
really get deep into the code and rework some fundamental structures in the 
program. And they did this because people want/need and use many thousands 
of rows and columns when they are analyzing data sets. I suppose they didn't 
have to make such an enhancement, given their market share, but look how 
much a priority it was.

Converting so-many pixels to feet and inches that boils down to 2000 rows 
maximum before Rev starts corrupting your display -- and saying that's just 
fine? C'mon, that won't be taken seriously anywhere.

What if you were limited to 2000 records in a FileMaker database? Or your 
word processor documents could contain no more than 40 pages? (Heck, that's 
more than 38 feet tall! No one reads nowadays anyway!) What if your MP3s 
were limited to 3 minutes in length? Or the maximum size of a JPG was 
640x480? (I suppose you'd say no one really needs more than .3 megapixels 
for on-screen display?)

Or is it your point that because Rev is not the size or age of Microsoft 
that we should be happy to have any kind of table capability whatsoever?

I also take issue with your claim that you'd have to pay a lot of money to 
get "any library that provides a weak one in C." Even the lowest-end 
development packages these days (whether C++, Java, or other languages) 
include table objects of capability an order of magnitude above what is 
available in Rev.

Download Visual Basic Express. It's free. Add a new Data Grid control to a 
new form. Here's what you'll see:

- You can format strings in Numeric, Currency, Date/Time, Scientific, and 
Custom formats... you know, cool stuff like placeholders for percentages, 
dollar signs, negatives, commas, fixed digits. Kind of the beginnings of 
that in Rev table objects but a pity they don't work.

- Nine different options for data alignment within cells

- Specific control of cell padding along any edge

- Ability to specify the width of column dividers

- Wrapped text within cells

- Column re-ordering/resizing, auto-resizing to contents of a column

- Locked column headings and row headings (actually the ability to "freeze" 
any arbitrary column or row)

- Automatic or programmable sorting when clicking on column headings

- Ability to specify a column as a button, a check box, a combo box, an 
image, or a link

- Ability to select/cut/copy/paste rows, columns, or any region you like

- Built-in, disable-able icons for indicating active rows, collapsible rows, 
etc.

[Note: The Data Grid in Visual C++ Express, also free, is very similar.]

It might surprise you to know that I haven't built a proper BASIC program 
since my days with the Sinclair ZX81. Yet, without writing a single line of 
code, I have a *beautiful*-looking table that scrolls *instantly* with 
extremely large data sets, sorts automatically, aligns numbers properly, 
formats cells individually, has embedded checkboxes and drop-down lists, 
etc. It took me all of 5 minutes! If that is "weak" then what word is best 
used to describe the Rev table object?

No one is saying that Rev has to incorporate a spreadsheet object on par 
with Excel. But I certainly am saying that more is expected than what is 
provided.

I know you'll next be asking me how many millions MSFT has spent on Visual 
Basic over the years. But in my opinion the VB Data Grid is a very nice 
example of what the table object should be, and it ain't Excel by any 
stretch. It's not even as if the data grid in VB is the "Rolls Royce" of 
table objects. It's simply "good." I also believe that with effort, the 
people who publish Rev could provide a better-than-crap table object. If it 
isn't a priority, it should be.

If you think it isn't fair to compare to Microsoft then take a look at the 
wonderful (by comparison to Rev) ListBox facility in RealBASIC. Actually, 
after a quick survey of the many free C++ compilers listed at 
http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cpp.shtml I'm wondering where you 
got the idea that weak grid add-on controls cost a lot of money, since I 
could find anything weaker than the table object in Revolution ($299). Can 
you point some out to me?

Does the current "multi-column list" (i.e., glorified tab stops with 
borders) "prevent" database apps from being built in Rev? No, it just makes 
*quality* high-performance database presentation applications extremely (and 
needlessly) difficult to build!