Adam


Whilst I have no intention of buying the DevEx stuff (too expensive for a hobby) I'd be interested in seeing what you've accomplished with DevEx Datalayout. If you have a few moments to spare can you post some screenshots to the binaries?

Roy Lambert

I've done this Roy .

Honestly there's nothing at all flashy about what I've done, its pretty simple. But what is nice is the fact that whenever and wherever I create a data-editing window the look is consistent & I don't have to do the work of laying stuff out.

Also this approach means that all my user-data-entry controls are created dynamically, so I can extend these controls (drop-downs etc.) fairly easily without having to do a lot of work at the application level.

Roy: I am a member of UK-BUG (Delphi user Group) ... I don't know where you are based, but if you can make it to London we meet regularly & I think its worth the trip to meet with other Delphi-ites. I can put you in touch with them if you are interested. Their web-presence is a bit rubbish

Adam

>I've done this Roy .

Thanks

>Honestly there's nothing at all flashy about what I've done, its pretty simple. But what is nice is the fact that whenever and wherever I create a data-editing window the look is consistent & I don't have to do the work of laying stuff out.

I'll agree with you - they do look nice, and are consistent sort of along the lines of a property editor. It was interesting to see a couple with pages on them so a step up from a simple form. There are a few places in my main app where I could use such an approach (not via buying DevEx I hasten to say) and I'll have to have a think about it

I'm never sure at which point the "ease of use" suddenly becomes "fighting against" which is one reason I gave up on TMS. I was having to put a lot of effort into getting their controls to do what I wanted.

>Also this approach means that all my user-data-entry controls are created dynamically, so I can extend these controls (drop-downs etc.) fairly easily without having to do a lot of work at the application level.

Are you talking about writing your own controls here or just using different ones.....

>Roy: I am a member of UK-BUG (Delphi user Group) ... I don't know where you are based, but if you can make it to London we meet regularly & I think its worth the trip to meet with other Delphi-ites. I can put you in touch with them if you are interested. Their web-presence is a bit rubbish

I'm about 30 miles south of John O Groats. Going to the smoke would be a three day event and costly. Last time I went down to meet a client I had little change from £1000

Being up at the arse end of nowhere has lots of benefits and some disadvantages. When I want to go Christmas shopping its either the internet or a 95 mile drive.

Roy Lambert

Roy

>>I'm never sure at which point the "ease of use" suddenly becomes "fighting against" which is one reason I gave >>up on TMS. I was having to put a lot of effort into getting their controls to do what I wanted.

It can definitely be a struggle working with 3rd party components that have particularly complex or arcane logical architecture.

I usually start by creating a sub-class of the 3rd party component & overlaying my own properties and methods on it where I need to. Usually only a few, but it means I don't have to worry about the component's own interface. this also means less work if I do swap it out & replace it with a different component.


>>>>Also this approach means that all my user-data-entry controls are
>>>>created dynamically, so I can extend these
>>>>controls (drop-downs etc.) fairly easily without having to do a lot of
>>>>work at the application level.

>>Are you talking about writing your own controls here or just using different ones.....

In the screen shots all the actual controls on the form are my data-edit descendents of other components. The DevEx LayoutControl will plug DevEx components onto itself if you ask it to, but I have overridden this behaviour. It means all the search-combos, lookups etc. work with logic I am happy with.

>>I'm about 30 miles south of John O Groats. Going to the smoke would be a three day event and costly.

Pity! There used to be BUG meetings in Edinburgh, but that was the 1990s or 2000s ...

Adam


>Pity! There used to be BUG meetings in Edinburgh, but that was the 1990s or 2000s ...

Even that's a 250 mile drive

Roy

Roy:
In my research before starting the program I found GExperts, which has tons of useful tools, including a 'Replace Components'.

I am familiar with the RAD Data tools in the IDE. However, the thing is there are several Object Properties present in the components that would not be available for the custom components in the TMS or any other pack.

As simple as it looks, this small program has saved me tons of time as I use the database table Description field to hold the 'Label' value. That way when I run the program I simply set my desired label position in the drop-down column of the grid, and am able to quickly create a basic starter form with lots of fields set.

I then just rearrange the fields on the created form and get into the coding.

Just a time saver really as these are non-standard components.


Roy Lambert wrote:

Trinione


I appreciate that you're going to be using the TMS component set but are you aware that the IDE (at least as far as D2006) already provides very similar functionality?

Drop a table on a form, Double click to open the fields editor, ctrl-F to populate with all the fields, click the fields you want on the form, drag'n'drop and the IDE will populate the form.

If you want to change from TEdit to TAdvEdit then a very simple program can do a bit of search & replace (StringReplace(xx,'TEdit','TAdvEdit',[rfREplaceAll])

Roy Lambert