I would have expected these two to work in combination as a form of lookup table for the combo box but I still have to manually fill in the Items property before the drop down will list any records.

What is the purpose of these two properties?

--
Frederick

On 2/28/2018 10:37 AM, Frederick Chin wrote:
> I would have expected these two to work in combination as a form of lookup table for the combo box but I still have to manually fill in the Items property before the drop down will list any records.

That would actually require 2 sets data references - one
dataset/datacolumn to populate the list and 2nd to reference the
Datacolumn value from row you're currently on.

This is not what it does today.

> What is the purpose of these two properties?

You have to populate values yourself (you could do it from lookup table
still but load manually) but then the actual value should reflect the
datacolumn value in the row you're on in dataset


Raul

Raul wrote:

/*
You have to populate values yourself (you could do it from lookup table
still but load manually) but then the actual value should reflect the
datacolumn value in the row you're on in dataset
*/

If I understand it correctly, it means that when the user selects an item from the combo box and if the datacolumn and dataset properties are assigned, the record pointer for the table will be repositioned to match the combo box's text?

Populating the Items property of the combo box is the easy part but I am worried about the length of time to do so. Some of my tables have 4,000 rows.

--
Frederick

On 2/28/2018 5:19 PM, Frederick Chin wrote:
> If I understand it correctly, it means that when the user selects an item from the combo box and if the datacolumn and dataset properties are assigned, the record pointer for the table will be repositioned to match the combo box's text?

No - it's a display control that allows predefined values (for new
record) or shows it for existing record.

See Databound example where this is used for State and Terms with bound
dataset

Raul

Raul wrote:

/*
No - it's a display control that allows predefined values (for new
record) or shows it for existing record.

See Databound example where this is used for State and Terms with bound
dataset
*/

Ok, thanks. I will check the example out.

--
Frederick

On 2/28/2018 6:24 PM, Frederick Chin wrote:
> Ok, thanks. I will check the example out.
>

I remembered it's online as well if you want to see it simply run

http://www.elevatesoft.com:8081/databound/databound.html

You'll notice that "State" uses buttoncombo and is pre-populated with
all the US States - as you move thru the dataset the data binding
matches the entry each time. if you were to change the state then
dataset switches to edit mode (since you modified one of the colum values)


Raul

Raul wrote:

/*
I remembered it's online as well if you want to see it simply run

http://www.elevatesoft.com:8081/databound/databound.html

You'll notice that "State" uses buttoncombo and is pre-populated with
all the US States - as you move thru the dataset the data binding
matches the entry each time. if you were to change the state then
dataset switches to edit mode (since you modified one of the colum values)
*/

Thanks for the link. The purposes of the two properties are now clear. It is an unusual way of using the combo box because of the need to populate the Items property from a table which the combo box will link back to before it will work.

I would have still preferred a lookup combo box where the datacolumn is linked to a field of a table which represents a foreign key of a second table. The combo box will have a lookup datacolumn and dataset which points to the second table and the combo box's text property displays one or more fields of the second table. If I select a different text, the field of the first table changes to the foreign key of the second table.

If I don't set the datacolumn and dataset, it becomes an auto-fill lookup combo box.

--
Frederick

Fredrick,

Your recommended enhancements have been made before in the forum, and are on the list of future possible improvements.  While some of these enhancements may make our lives easier, it is possible to do what you want with what we have.

Tim is one person working on 3 complex products and he gets to choose where he believes his energies will give the best reward to him and us.  So while this kind of additional feature is nice, but there exists a way to make it work, I would rather he devote his time to things which we can't easily do now. My vote is the mentioned "THTMLEditor coming some time after 2.07 is complete."  (Shameless plug.)

Walter

On 3/1/2018 1:28 AM, Frederick Chin wrote:
> I would have still preferred a lookup combo box where the datacolumn is linked to a field of a table which represents a foreign key of a second table. The combo box will have a lookup datacolumn and dataset which points to the second table and the combo box's text property displays one or more fields of the second table. If I select a different text, the field of the first table changes to the foreign key of the second table.
>

As Walter said it's in the enhancement list. Current control does behave
similar to delphi db combo and is very useful in scenarios where you
need to limit user input to known values and actually store the value.

Combo with item lookup would make sense to be a new separate control
(TButtonLookupCombo?) since it would not be compatible with this one -
and would need to store foreign keys instead.

Raul

Walter,

/*
Tim is one person working on 3 complex products and he gets to choose where he believes his energies will give the best reward to him and us.  So while this kind of additional feature is nice, but there exists a way to make it work, I would rather he devote his time to things which we can't easily do now. My vote is the mentioned "THTMLEditor coming some time after 2.07 is complete."  (Shameless plug.)
*/

I have no problem with Tim picking and choosing what he wants to do next but I think this forum allows him to gauge the sentiments of users and what issues they have, however minor.

I haven't been using EWB a lot because of the reporting requiring Delphi XE's web modules to work.

My wish is that future versions of EWB will be able to stand alone and create applications and not depend on using another expensive product like current versions of Delphi.

--
Frederick