datagrid scrolling question

[Douglas Ruisaard]

Many thanks to one and all for the interesting responses ... particularly to Zryip for the extensive reply!

I may be coming at LC from a somewhat unusual direction.  The vast majority of my programming background was in very large, distributed servers running dedicated medical applications and system and instrumentation interfaces.  My specialty is interfacing various disparate systems with each other and the amount of "user-interactive" processing I have to do in that environment is extremely minimal.

Initially, I very successfully employed LC to develop background (i.e. NO user interaction whatsoever) tasks and used its marvelous cross-platform abilities to the fullest.  So, in essence, user-interaction is fairly "foreign" to me.

You all point out that datagrids *are*, fundamentally, a user-interactive device.... where I am looking for a way to use them as a processing tool, in and of themselves.  I *do* employ the user-interaction as well... as I initially mentioned, using the controls on each row (interactively) works very well.  But, due to my nature, I want to be able to optionally "automate" any user-level function and remove the "human" component for consistency and reliability.  Yes, I can process all of the wi-fi modules first and then populate the grid; but, if I may be flippant, it's FUN to watch as each row triggers, fetches and populates each row, one at a time.  Since I made the task capable of being interactive, this is similar as to why someone would use any animation to make their display interesting to a user.  Animation often does not contribute to actual functionality but it is FUN to watch.

Many times in this group, I read how users and contributors reference aspects of LC "under-the-hood".  I found it interesting that most of the responses primarily referenced WHAT *I* was doing, rather than WHAT the DG was doing... which is what I tried to emphasize... and I apologize if that intention wasn't clear.  I understand and am sincerely grateful for the goal-orientation of the responses.  However, topically (not necessarily typically), this group is no stranger to investigating and constructively criticizing how LC performs a function.  I'm OK with my wrapping pseudo-group name method ... I was simply wondering if anyone had an alternative to using the "send mouseUp" approach of calling rows outside of the DG, itself.

My challenge now is to find a way to "calculate" the number of "visible" rows displayed (particularly if I want to make the visible portion of the datagrid dynamically sizable), so I can formulate the "break" point for the group name wrapping.  I, again, would appreciate any help for that function.

I genuinely appreciate the assistance and look forward to future involvement with this group.  I also look forward to the day I can contribute solutions to some of the very challenging issues discussed... many of them still leave me in the dust.

Douglas Ruisaard
Trilogy Software
(250) 573-3935