With an app I'm starting I'm thinking of building in a personalisation (not internationalisation) facility for labels, columns headers etc.

What do you lot do?

Roy Lambert

Roy,

I've done that for one of my applications. The way I did it was to
create a table with fields identifying each label, etc. I would allow
to be changed/personalized. In the case of this one app I placed the
values in a configuration table (tblConfig). Then on each form's
FormActivate event I used code like the following line (LEADS was the
application name, hence dmLEADS is the data module):

lblDistrictName.Caption := dmLEADS.tblConfigDistrictName.Value;

The only caveat is to make sure the length of the string/varchar is no
longer (obviously) than the space you have for the label, etc. I
initially wrote that app in 2000 and it has worked well for me through
all the changes since, and is still running strong and correctly with
the personalizations.

HTH,

Jan Ferguson

--


Roy Lambert wrote:

> With an app I'm starting I'm thinking of building in a
> personalisation (not internationalisation) facility for labels,
> columns headers etc.
>
> What do you lot do?

Roy,

<< With an app I'm starting I'm thinking of building in a personalisation
(not internationalisation) facility for labels, columns headers etc. >>

The new custom attributes feature in 2.04 is ideal for this:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=edb2sql&topic=Custom_Attributes

You can store all of the personalization information as XML, etc. in the
attributes for the relevant table, and then read it/use it right before
displaying the form(s) used for editing the table.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim


>You can store all of the personalization information as XML, etc. in the
>attributes for the relevant table, and then read it/use it right before
>displaying the form(s) used for editing the table.

Interesting approach but I'm not sure it will be suitable for what I'm thinking of.

Something I am thinking of using it for is to totally replace my users table. Just need to see if I can easily store the data I want in there. There's a few CLOBs which are no problem is using XML but there's also a couple of BLOBs which have a table stored in them.

Roy Lambert

Interesting.

I can see this working well for a single-user application, but not a
multi-user one.  In the latter case, that information would have to be in a
table referenced by user (if not stored on the user's local system).

Did this new feature come about by special request?  Or was it the easiest
way to save column widths and such in EDB Manager?  I'm trying to think of
an example beyond this, something applicable in my own development but
having difficultly seeing creative uses of it.  Perhaps storing some SQL
that could be used on that table or something...

--
David Cornelius
Cornelius Concepts

"Tim Young [Elevate Software]" <timyoung@elevatesoft.com> wrote in message
news:A3A9F74F-A9B3-4964-A9EC-4513FACF6754@news.elevatesoft.com...
> Roy,
>
> << With an app I'm starting I'm thinking of building in a personalisation
> (not internationalisation) facility for labels, columns headers etc. >>
>
> The new custom attributes feature in 2.04 is ideal for this:
>
> http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=edb2sql&topic=Custom_Attributes
>
> You can store all of the personalization information as XML, etc. in the
> attributes for the relevant table, and then read it/use it right before
> displaying the form(s) used for editing the table.
>
> --
> Tim Young
> Elevate Software
> www.elevatesoft.com

David,

<< I can see this working well for a single-user application, but not a
multi-user one.  In the latter case, that information would have to be in a
table referenced by user (if not stored on the user's local system). >>

Think of a situation where a particular application needs to be customized
for a given installation.  That's really where it's useful.

<< Did this new feature come about by special request? >>

Yes, as do most of the new features.

<< Or was it the easiest way to save column widths and such in EDB Manager?
>>

No, we don't use it at all.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com