Database - lists - 1st day

[Andre Garzia]

On Sep 27, 2004, at 9:16 AM, VHD wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am primarily interested in revolution to quickly build front ends  
> with.
>
> I downloaded a trial version and started using the program. I looked  
> through the tutorials and found an example on using revolution with  
> mySQL. I read the pdf file and designed something similar from scratch  
> very quickly using the query builder. I must say that I was impressed  
> with the ease and speed a front end could be made, but things got  
> worse as I went along.
> (BTW: I figured that you have to select the "cache" option in the  
> query builder for things to work properly. Then again I think writing  
> the queries from scratch in transcript is probably the better (more  
> stable) approach.)
>

Ben,

I'll tell things here out of my own humble opnion, they should not be  
take as a consensus (does this word exists in english!?).

Database Query Builder is pretty cool but without some "hidden"  
(meaning not documented) calls you end up doing very hard jobs with it.  
One call is to "update" the SQL of a query, suppose you want a search  
query, you need to change the search pattern each time you want to  
search, right? since Database Query Builder Queries are hard coded,  
this becomes a pain in the "IDE" (replace IDE with your favorite  
curse). The database query builder should be more documented, and  
should present primitives for Database New Records.

Some of us here are ditching Database Query Builder in favor of plain  
RevDB calls, meaning, coding away the database. It gives more control  
to you. I for example, build a little DB lib that will act as Database  
Query Builder for me, in the sense that it can glue arbitrary database  
records to cards and controls. Now I am inspecting libDatabase by  
Trevor DeVore (Trevor, you're the man!) and patching my code to work  
with it.

One of the powers of Revolution is that a stack usually is available to  
other stacks to fiddle, and since all the objects and scripts are in  
default sense, public, you can create your own Database Query Builder  
replacement if you feel like doing it. You can create your own tools  
palletes in Rev in a way you can't do in VB (I am guessing you were a  
VB programmer for I think vbaccelerator is a VB programmer thing). I  
built my own CGI helper palette to help me install CGIs over network  
and stuff... As you learn more about Rev you'll see ho easy it is to  
automate your tasks with new tools you make. Also you'll learn the most  
important and invaluable tool in Rev, this cool mailing list full of  
friends that actually talk about the language and answer emails, no  
matter if the emails are newbie or veteran. Yes, I think the community  
is the soul of Revolution, and if the RunRev team did not put togheter  
such a great tool, this group would never been assembled. But back to  
your email...




> The biggest problem I had was with the list widget that seemed to  
> duplicate its content whenever I started using it. (is this a bug?)

never heard of it, is this reproducible?

>
> I then looked for another list (or grid) control on the palette but  
> couldn't find any. I was surprised that the only list control is very  
> basic and does not *seem* to offer:
> 1) headers
> 2) sorting of columns
> 3) hierarchical display
> 4) embedding radio buttons, or tick boxes inside a cell

Yes, you can! :D
The grid is usually build with a field control, yes, field control is  
the wildcard of Rev, you can build listboxes, fields and grids with it.  
There are many tricks in this topic, one invaluable tool is altToolbar  
from altuit which is a toolbar that sits in Rev and you install  
altPlugins to do cool stuff like for example, sortable grids with  
headers. You can code on yourself this solutions, but altFldHeader (I  
think thats the name...) will pick your field, add the headers and the  
code to sort the grid for you. On the part of radio and tick boxes,  
much was said in here, I think the wisest approach is to use a picture  
inside the field for the tick/radio box, and toogle it when clicked, it  
may sound strange, but it's plain easy, someone here might have some  
more to add, I usually don't make this kind of Grid, but I saw Daniels  
Mara make Wonderfull grids full of bells and whistles during the  
Revolution Masters Sumit.



>
> Am I mistaken? I am still trying to learn as much as I can, and since  
> all this is new to me, I may have missed something.
>
> Now I am not quite sure what to think... I can see that revolution can  
> build GUIs very quickly, but does it work well as a database front end  
> for production, multi-user applications?
>
> If it does, where is the thorough documentation?


Let me point you to the HemingwayPC case studie...  
http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/RunRevCaseStudies/Hemingway.htm
you can also fetch altToolbar from there.

Cheers
andre


>
>
> BTW is there something like vbaccelerator Sgrid2 for revolution?  
> http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Controls/S_Grid_2/S_Grid_2/ 
> article.asp
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben
>
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>
>
-- 
Andre Alves Garzia ð 2004
Soap Dog Studios - BRAZIL
http://studio.soapdog.org