Stackrunner and Databases

[Ken Ray]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:28:51 -0500, Len Morgan wrote:

> Ken - thanks for the reply in a message I sent that probably crossed 
> yous, I fixed the problem.  I didn't have the "Database Drivers" 
> folder on the workstation.  Since those are unlikely to ever change 
> (unlike my stacks) I don't have a problem including them with the 
> stackRunner installation.

This is actually a good thing, Len... I am going to be adding the 
Database Drivers folder to the StackRunner installation with a note 
about database access so that others won't have to figure out what you 
had to figure out.
 
> The platform is Windows by the way and that brought up another 
> question: Do they externals have to be truly external because Windows 
> won't look for them in the exe file?  

Yes.

> Would it not be possible (and 
> I'm not suggesting that you try this) to include zipped dlls in the 
> exe and if they are not found at run time, unzip them into whatever 
> folder stackrunner was started in?  If they are already there, this 
> step could be skipped.  I know that Tcl "starpacks" do this but their 
> stackRunner.exe equivalent has a virtual file system built in that 
> makes all the included libraries and dlls look like they are on 
> another "hard drive."  It just happens to be in the same file as the 
> exe.

Hmm... well, I certainly *could* do it, but one of the things about 
StackRunner is that it is to be generic in nature; if I were to bundle 
in the database DLLs with it, it would include a bunch of stuff that 
others not using SR wouldn't need. However perhaps I should make two 
"editions" - a databse edition with the DLLs in it, and one without... 
I'd have to check with RunRev first though to see if that's OK...
 
> While I've got you, since you seem to know a lot about the internals 
> of Rev, do you know if it's possible for an external to do drawing in 
> the Rev window?  

Yes; in fact the altBrowser DLL does just that - it draws to a region 
on a card.

> The reason I ask is because I've been waiting for 
> almost 3 years for Rev to do a table field that is at least somewhat 
> useful (i.e., editable at the cell level for color, alignment, font, 
> etc).  There is a great table package for Tcl that is available as C 
> source, it's cross platform, completely open source.  As long as it 
> is allowed to "draw" in Rev windows, it should be a simple matter to 
> get this working as a Rev external.

You might want to check with Chipp Walters about this -  to see if 
there's something special that needs to be done.


Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/