Hints on easing the pain in the datawindow painter.

[Former Member]

Take a look at the attachment.  I would like to create a freeform datawindow  (or whatever is easiest) that is similar to the attached form. In excel I could create this in an hour or so. Looking at the task in the DW painter this may be a keg of my favorite beverage task.

Any ideas on how to go about this.  The data comes from a dozen database tables and the majority of open fields will be drop down datawindows so the user can auto populate . I will probably have stored procedures that extract the data from the base tables and to make updates back.

Thanks

TPS

[Former Member]

Does this have to be a single DW?  If the user is entering data then could you make it a window with multiple DW controls and each control has its specific DW.  You can data drive everything - column description (you deliver) and column data (user entered).  This way your DW becomes very simple.  We do this for a lot of our application settings.

Just another thought.

Chris Craft

[Former Member]

I think Christopher has the right answer to your question

3 or so dataobjects of style grid on 5 or 6 datawindow controls.

Then when you get to print!!!

You will need a composite dataobject with the reports arranged same way and just ShareData() from the controls to the datawindowchildren.

[Former Member]

Hi Tom;

  FWIW: To me this looks like a great place to try & use GRID based DataWindows within either a Composite or Nested based parent DataWindow.

Food for thought.

HTH

Regards ... Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Tom,

For this one, I would

Create external with some of the columns you need using the number convention on the form for col names.  c001

Use pixels rather pbus as this will ease x and y when working in edit source.

Have one row in the detail band with everything.

Start in the dwPainter from the top with the first couple rows of field. Spend time alligning and colouring.  Save

Edit source.

Cut and paste, paste, paste... to duplicate the second row. Also cut paste to expand the table part of the datawindow then replace the id= for the pasted, the name= and y= to move each pasted down to the right place

Sounds laborious but more fun than dw painting for at least at many hours.

I would probably assign the dropdowns, leading texts etc in script at runtime.

Just some thoughts.

Lars