World: r3wp

For example, the dialect may be:
#XXX-XX
and produces:
[0 3 numeric 0 1 #"-" 0 2 numeric][3 numeric #"-" 2 numeric]

Any updates here?

Working on a number of 'layout fixes and adding support for a "return-after 
n" type keyword that should reduce the number of 'return's used in 
certain types of displays.

Great.

one question - will there be better list/grid support? My rebol friend 
would use rebgui immediatelly, but is smiling and saying - those 
ppl don't design db releated apps? Wow can they live without multi-column 
text list or proper grid? :-)

I told him those more complex styles will come later ....

there is multicolumn list now.

pretty weak though :-)

I'm using code like the following quite often now:

	display join settings/file " Summary" compose/only [
		...

  records: table 90x25 #W options ["Date" right .4 "User" left .2 "Description" 
  left .4] data (

   sql compose [select [date user description] from sys_records where 
   (id) order by date desc]
		) [
			;	set record path
			record-path: dirize join file-path first face/selected
			...
		]
	...
	]


The table widget is now very DB friendly. I haven't had a need for 
a grid widget, but then again my apps don't require spreadsheet type 
functionality.

Does it handle column resizing already?

that was broken ..

Column resizing and sorting now work correctly. In addition a number 
of useful accessor functions exist to more easily manage the data. 
From the online doco:

5.24 Table


Columns and rows of values formatted according to a header definition 
block.

Specification
 	action	block to execute when an item is selected. 	
 	data 	block of values. 	

  options 	Optional multi word followed by column header entries in 
  the form: 	
		string specifying column title
		word specifying column alignment
		decimal specifying column width as a percentage

Runtime
 	data 	block of values to display. 	
 	picked 	block of currently selected row number(s). 	
 	selected 	block of currently selected data. 	
 	redraw 	function to redraw widget after data changes.

is there a multicolumn text list? Btw - why Carl did not check-in 
his updated and better list style as from VID 1.3 older IOS initiative 
for 1.3?

Plus the latest build lets you assign alt-click and dbl-click actions.

hmm, still the same issues - how they will be adressed? I know that 
event/focus system is not all that easy to change - but drop lists 
still work in non-system friendly manner - can't close it clicking 
away or pressing escape .... text-list does not allow multirow sellection 
(or it is part of its options?) I will better look into docs to stop 
asking what is maybe obvious :-)

Table and multi-column text-list are one and the same. Not involved 
in the VID 1.3 work so can't answer that.

table still needs a lot of work imo .... when you select record, 
move down by arrow down - when hilighted-row reaches the bottom, 
it does not cause srolling and row hilighting vanishes ...

nice work on request-dir!

Thanks, that and table still need a few minor aesthetic improvements 
but the base functionality is pretty solid.

can I have visual cell dividers? I mean - some styling istead of 
flat white design? It is list after all, so I will have to play with 
it ...

another "bug" - maximize demo .... move last column to righ, minimize 
back - you can't see last column and there is no chance how to get 
to it .... I would expect horizontal scroller to appear ...

as for text-list multi-selection - dunno if I was understood incorrectly, 
or it was my fault to provide you with not so accurate description 
of how multi-selection with shift works .... however - it should 
be easy for you to check - just start Explorer and play with shift 
multi-selection ...

when you hold shift, it should remember the "last" press, but it 
means last before you pressed the shift. And that last point should 
not change. So - if you then select some other row, whatever the 
row is, it should still hilite rows between the initial point, and 
the point of your actual selection ...

I selected incorrect word last time .... "last" meant "initial" - 
it should work like anchor ..... simply you have one row selected 
..... once you press shift, no matter what happens, that hilited 
row becomes kind of anchoring initial point. Then when you select 
whatever row, everything in between anchoring initial position and 
the point of your actual selection becomes hilighted/selected ... 
ufff, somehow can't express myself :-)

otherwise ctrl and other multiselection functionality is correct 
...

Why does using alert sometimes close down the window it is being 
called from?

Haven't come across that one before. When it's happened was there 
anything in common between occurrences (I'm assuming its too sporadic 
for a reproducible test case)?

Any plans to write accessor functions like 'get-text ?

I guess what's happening is that 'alert shuts down any modal screens 
showing like this:


display "" [ text "Non modal screen" return button "dialog" [ display/dialog 
"Test" [ text "Modal Screen" retur
n button "Alert" [ alert "hello" ]]]] do-events

display "" [ text "Non modal screen" return button "dialog" [ display/dialog 
"Test" [ text "Modal Screen" return button "Alert" [ alert "hello" 
]]]] do-events

No plans with 'get-text, unless it was to do something over and above 
what face/text does (i.e. trim then show).


The alert problem is related to RebGUI's liberal use of hide-popup 
to cope with drop-lists and edit-lists that need to be closed when 
another one is opened. I figured at the time that having more than 
one non-modal dialog open at the same time probably didn't make much 
sense - although an alert from within one is a valid case [in hindsight].

I just noticed that you can't initialise the data in a table with 
a copy [], but you have to 'clear it instead.

table/data: copy []
append table/data [ ... ]
table/redraw 

does not work

but 
clear table/data
append table/data [ ....]
table/redraw 

does work

Ashley, can we fix it so we can allow alerts within a modal window?

The other thing ( small ) is that rows from a database are normally 
returned like this


[ [ .... ] [.... ] ] whereas table expects it's data like [ ............... 
]

we have to flatten it before sending it to the table.

Alert ... to be fixed.


Table data is normally changed with "insert clear data [...]" - this 
optimization needs to be documented.


The table data representation shows my bias towards a simple flat 
structure and is compatible with RebDB (representing each row as 
a block makes sense for small volumes of data but is wasteful once 
sizable numbers of rows are being managed).

Good observations, keep them coming. ;)

I guess the slight problem with a flat structure is that you have 
more interdepencies in the code


With a flat structure, I have to know that there are 4 elements in 
each row

row: skip face/data first face/picked - 1 * 4

Whereas with blocks for rows I can do this instead

row: skip face/data first face/picked - 1

that should be .. face/picked/1 - 1

From my experience with Cyphre's table style, it makes sense to use 
a name/value block for the data. With this you can throw a block 
in any order and even one, that has more fields than being displayed. 
The latter makes a lot of sense if you just want to get back an internal 
ID.

Also, when removing rows from a table, you have to remove each item 
in a row, rather than just the one block

One problem is sorting; You need to extract the row you need to use 
for sorting, create the sorting sequence and rebuild the block. Or 
is there a faster way?

How does I detect a close event in the main window so I can do a 
clean up ?

Not easy at the moment. This probably needs to be a refinement handler 
block like scroll.

Is there an updated list of the outstanding issues?

Latest build available at: http://www.dobeash.com/files/RebGUI-037.zip

Issue log: http://www.dobeash.com/it/rebgui/issues.html


*** Unzip this file into your existing RebGUI 0.3.0 distribution. 
Requires View 1.3.1 ***

Highlights include:

	- Close handler refinement added to display function

 - Closing the main window when more than one is open now prompts 
 for confirmation

 - New 'after keyword added to layout (helps with displays that arrange 
 widgets in one or more columns)

 - Fixed major bugs with 'at positioning and window size determination
	- Couple of layout 'reverse bugs fixed
	- Documentation updated to reflect above changes
	- Number of minor bug fixes

In the works

	- revamped focus system
	- basic menu widget
	- context menu widget
	- field-level validation
	- stabilize existing code-base for 0.4.0 beta release

Cool.

I owe you my opinion on field level validation probably, so here 
we go ...

As I already said, it is imo insufficient or even let's say incorrect 
to base field validation upon rebol datatypes. As we can't have our 
own datatypes, those available are just some kind of primitives, 
not of much of a use ...

mail: make email! [petr-:-nonsense]
type? mail
== email!

Back in old DOS days, with tools we worked with, we had following 
available:


1) VTG (Variable To Get) function - you could specify VTG$("AB"), 
and user was able to only enter A or B letter, nothing more - we 
used it to limit letters for floppy disk access


2) we had system of field-masks .... e.g. tel-number: (999) - 999 
999 - then all non num chars were displayed in field, you could not 
delete them, they were skipped, and you was only able to write numbers 
.... if you wanted to allow chars, you used "X" insted of "9". Pretty 
powerfull concept - not too much complicated, and allowing you to 
limit bugs ppl can enter ...

In CA-Visual Objects, the logic was even more abstracted - you e.g. 
defined DB field tel-num, char(20). That field, you could use across 
your tables, and from the application pov, you defined mask objects 
- you could e.g. have different mask objects, defining behaviour, 
validation, mask, tight to the same tel-num, char(20) field ...