Programming Developers Diary – 10

February 8, 2017

Hello again. The last couple of days have been spent doing administrative functions and nothing in the way of programming. This morning I started a review of my current projects to see what needed the most attention and the project manager wins.

When I started this project my intention was to provide an application which would automatically build a code library for each program the developer was working thus giving a simple method to share code between applications. The more I worked on it the less I felt it had any real value so I am changing the focus of the application to one similar to any business which manufactures goods for resale. This application will now have all the modules of my original concept with the exception of the auto updating global library. This will be replaced with a simple code writer memo form which allows for documenting code and a simple clipboard method for copying code between applications.

In the last post of my TC App Manager I stated we would look at the Time and Billing Event Dialog form.

There is nothing groundbreaking about this form. It is functional and simple to use. Since the form is loaded as a popup and the alpha 5 application is hidden I created my own tool bar which consist of a frame with individual buttons (which is grouped together) for form controls. Unlike an alpha5 toolbar the code for sorting and querying data by field is slightly different. For example on an Alpha5 toolbar, the code for sorting A to  Z is

topparent.command(“SORT_ASCENDING”)

on our form I use

If obj(topparent.active()).class() = “button” then
obj(topparent.active_prev()).activate()
End If
sys_send_keys(“{^a}”)

Here the code checks to see if the last object selected is a button. If so it activates the previous object (the field the user wishes to sort on ) then uses key commands to sort A to Z. Works great. (I may expand this form to include some calculated fields such as total billable time and extended dollars by rate.  )

The next logical item to work on would be a method of linking the billable time to our invoicing package. Since I am currently writing the invoicing package this may be a while. In the mean time we will work on other modules such as our clock calendar and file manager.

That’s all for today. If you are a business and need help with an Alpha Software program, contact us. Are rates are reasonable and our work is guaranteed.

Phone:713 417-6831

EMail: NLawson@cdc-takecharge.com