Real Software Forums

Just as an informal poll?
What do you guys miss from VB? (Eg Controls, ActiveX, IDE functionality, etc...)

I miss the extensible IDE, being able to make a plugin that can manipulate a projects source.

I would love to see TLB (type libraries), so I do not have to declare every api call in my code. Any equivalent, would be nice, a cross-platform solution even better.

Viewing/listing objects members on a contextualmenu/popup of the selected identifier. Equal to the "List Properties an Menus" option in VB.

QuickInfo (function prototype/declare) as a tooltip not on the bottom of the window.

VB was easier to learn, only because it was closer to QuickBasic that I learned in school. I like the ability to make certain colors invisible. I haven't found that possible in RB. I prefer RB in almost every way.

I have to agree, I'm totally hook on RB.

The ability to make certain colors invisible?

Are you talking about having an alpha (transparency) field for Color objects? I don't get it.

I find there are some controls I miss (yes I know I can use ActiveX, but I want cross-platform equivs) such as the DateTimePicker, ListView (with the List, Report, Icons, Small Icons views). There are others but I don't want to spend an hour looking through VB to find them all

I also miss how source files are stored as separate text-based files. I also wish there was a Crystal Reports-calibre reporting tool for cross-platform development. On-Target Reports is okay, but there are so many things that I can do in Crystal Reports that I can't in OTR.

I also wish there was a simple interface to printers that would be the equivalent of writing to a file. At my day job, we have some dot-matrix receipt printers that connect via parallel or USB ports (depends on the model), but they all do text only and need control codes to trigger the cash drawer.

I also miss using the DataEnvironment from VB6. It sure made things simple. I also would like to see some form of parameterized queries (also called prepared statements) where you define the SQL with either a question mark or a named parameter. For example:

or

And then you use a method to "prepare" the statement, replacing parameter markers with variables. For example you would pass a string variable and it would properly quote and escape the string for the particular database. Or you could send a date var and it would properly escape/encode the date for the database.

That's a problem I'm working at. Hope there will be enough beta-testers once the control-collection is ready...

Although I am too much of a newbie at RB I can say that ActiveX for cross platform would be cool. Also Flash control. And like I said my inexperience will turn to experience but Resource Files I used alot in VB. Even that obnoxious at times Agent control for cross platform would come in handy at least once I guess Planet Source Code will be missed too I also wish I could find a place where all the VB developers went that are mainly working on cross compiles for the Mac And what about those 500 books I have for VB They will be missed eventually

I put a button on a window with a white background. I made white invisible. When I ran the program it appeared as if the button was floating on the desktop with no window. I have only played with recent releases of VB, so I can't really tell you exactly how I did it.

You can try REALDev at http://www.classicteck.com/rbdn.php

It is a code repository and developer community.

ctk,
I already know about REALDev and I visit it alot. Its a great place and its also very up to date. Keep up the good work! Right now there seems to be a lack of Windows to Mac cross platform reading material. Hopefully that area will grow.

That's for the best, IMO. Building "mystery floating button" apps should be something that's very hard, if only to discourage people from doing it.

Crystal reports.

I'm sorry, but printing reports in RB is, well, not that great.

Also, the database template in Visual Studio. It creates add, delete, update and canel buttons with working code for you all tied into the database you choose.

If RB had that, I'd probably dump VS.

[quote="Scott Pawluk"]SELECT *
FROM invoices
WHERE InvoiceNumber = :invoice_number[/code]

I already do this within RB (standard or professional).

Really? It sure doesn't work for me and I see nothing in the language ref or user guide about parameterized/prepared statements. Can you give a code example of how you do this?

Hi Scott,

Normally there is no 'code' it's all done with subclasses.
Sometimes I have to disable a trigger, fill all the triggers, then repopulate the list field.

eg

// designed to work like a filemaker lookup fields
// if there is more than one field required for the lookup
// I normally disable the trigger
EditFieldFrom.safetyCatch = false
EditFieldTo.safetyCatch = False
EditFieldFrom.trigger // the trigger does not work if the safetyCatch is on
EditFieldFrom.safetyCatch = true
EditFieldto.safetyCatch = true

Steps.

1. Define the query, normally with MS Access, sometimes with pgAdminIII
2. Convert the query to a parametised query and store in recordsets.xml
(which mayl be changed the queries.xml before I release the current version )
3. add a reference to listboxes.xml.
4. add a subclassed listbox to any window, name it the same as the reference in listboxes.xml
5. add required subclassed editfields to any window, name the controlField to match the name of a parameter in recordset.xml
5. bind the two together (Thanks to Charles Yeoman for his binding examples)



Compile, Run, Use ...

The opensource version I released that is related, though normally somewhat behind what I use is
http://realopen.org/projects/kjtlframework/
which showed adodb syntax through the use of wrapper classes

Registered Balance-Infosystems.Com developers/users get to see the latest versions of the kjtFrameworks ( now called balanced ) code base as they become available.

recordset.xml snippet which I store all my queries.
Currently supports postgres, adodb and some support for straight text files, adding other connections types would reasonably trivial.
I use the adodb package for mysql, dataflex, ms access including queries and ms excel. The postgres classes are subclassed from the excellent pg4sql classes by Marc Bastin. http://aliacta.com/products/pgsql4rb.htm

The following snippet is emailed automatically to managers each morning as a tab delimited.xls file (which magically opens with excel without the import dialog) showing work recorded for the shop, using the barcode package, for the previous day.

Note the :from and :to within the sql

<Recordset
name="selectDailyWorkReport"
address="scsiier.balance-infosystems.com:5432"
type="postgres"
database="balance"
field-delimiter="#td#"
record-delimiter="#tr#"
sql="
SELECT
divisions_table.id_division_varchar as Division ,
stages_table.id_stage_varchar as Stage ,
resources_tbl.description_vc as Resource ,
to_char( work_tbl.start_dti, 'YYYY-MM-DD') as date,
work_tbl.id_job_vc as job ,
staff_tbl.staff_vc as staff,
activities_tbl.description_vc AS activity ,
to_char(work_tbl.start_dti,'HH:MI AM') as start ,
to_char(work_tbl.stop_dti,'HH:MI AM') as stop,
work_tbl.hours_nl as Hours ,
work_tbl.minutes_nl as Minutes
FROM
work_tbl
INNER JOIN staff_tbl ON work_tbl.id_staff_nl = staff_tbl.id_staff_nl
INNER JOIN resources_tbl ON work_tbl.id_resource_nl = resources_tbl.id_resource_nl
INNER JOIN activities_tbl ON work_tbl.id_activity_nl = activities_tbl.id_activity_nl
INNER JOIN stages_table on activities_tbl.id_stage_nl = stages_table.id_stage_integer
INNER JOIN divisions_table on stages_table.id_division_integer = divisions_table.id_division_integer
WHERE
work_tbl.start_dti&gt;=':from'
AND work_tbl.start_dti&lt;':to'
ORDER BY
divisions_table.sort_integer,
stages_table.sort_integer,
resources_tbl.id_resource_vc,
work_tbl.start_dti ;
"
field-names-row="1"
fieldtypesrow="2"
trailingrows="1"
/>

two listboxes.xml snippets which among other defines the query that is linked to the listbox.

<listbox name="dailyWorkReportListbox"
query="selectDailyWorkReport"
record-delimiter="#tr#"
field-delimiter="#td#"
query-on-open="no"
scroll-bar-horizontal="yes"
column-alignments=",,,,,,,,,right,right"
/>

<listbox name="jobWorkListBox"
query="selectJobWork"
default="yes"
column-widths="0%,0%,12%,0%,3%,10%,0%,0%,10%,5%,5%,0%,13%,5%,8%,5%,5%,0%,5%,5%,5%,5%,0%"
column-headings="job,idstaff,staff,idstage,department,division,stage,idresource,resource,per_hour,per_instance,idactivity,activity,rate,started,hour,min,stopped,hour,min,hours,mins,idWork"
column-alignments="left,left,left,left,left,left,left,left,left,right,right,left,left,right,left,right,right,left,right,right,right,right,right"
column-alignment-offsets="0"
record-delimiter="#tr#"
field-delimiter="#td#"
left="5mm"
top="10mm"
width="100mm"
height="100mm"
query-on-open="no"
scroll-bar-horizontal="yes"
report="Job Work"
/>

note, does _not_ need professional version for adodb or postgres (if using pgsql4rb)