Development Team Blog

Imagine you are an end-user and you have the order entry view open. The screen is empty, what to do now? Of course you need to select an existing order or create a new order before you can go the data entry grid and enter order detail lines, but what if you do not know this? Wouldn't it be nice when the screen gives you some hints and tips? For example a text like: "You can enter this order detail grid after you selected an existing order or created a new order in the top half of the screen."?

I bet you will say YES I want this! How do I do this? The solution consist of two options. One is turn off the grid cells/lines when there is no data. You can do this by setting the property pbDrawGridForEmptySpace.

Code:

Object oOrderDtl_Grid is a cDbCJGrid
    Set pbDrawGridForEmptySpace to False

The second part is setting the property psNoItemsText.

Code:

Set psNoItemsText to "You can enter this order detail grid after you selected an existing order or created a new order in the top half of the screen."

The empty lines prior to the text and the break of the text in the text are achieved by adding a couple of character(13) instructions to the string.

Code:

Set psNoItemsText to (Character (13) + Character (13) + "You can enter this order detail grid after you selected an existing order" + Character (13) + "or created a new order in the top half of the screen.")

Is this all? Yes and no. Yes, if you are satisfied you can keep it this way. No if you realize that you can also change the text when situation changes. For example if there is an existing order record but no detail lines or even when there is an existing order - without detail lines - that you are modifying.

How do I do that? I suggest you make use of an idle timer. If your view - like the order entry view - already has one related to the grid enhance that one else add a new one.

Code:

Object oIdle is a cIdleHandler
    Procedure OnIdle
        Delegate Send OnIdle
    End_Procedure
End_Object

Procedure OnIdle
    Send EnableObjects
End_Procedure

Procedure EnableObjects
    Boolean bChanged bRec bInEdit
    Handle hoServer hoDataSource
    Integer iRows

    Get Server to hoServer
    Get Should_Save of hoServer to bChanged
    Get HasRecord of hoServer to bRec
    Set Enabled_State of oOrderDtl_Grid to (not(bChanged) and bRec)
    Set Enabled_State of oPrintBtn to bRec

    Get IsEditMode of oOrderDtl_Grid to bInEdit
    If (not (bInEdit)) Begin
        Get phoDataSource of oOrderDtl_Grid to hoDataSource
        Get RowCount of hoDataSource to iRows
        Set pbDrawGridForEmptySpace of oOrderDtl_Grid to (bRec and iRows)

        If (bChanged) Begin
            Set psNoItemsText of oOrderDtl_Grid to (Character (13) + "Save the order and then click here to add order details")
        End
        Else Begin
            If (bRec) Begin
                Set psNoItemsText of oOrderDtl_Grid to (Character (13) + "Click here to add order details")
            End
            Else Begin
                Set psNoItemsText of oOrderDtl_Grid to (Character (13) + Character (13) + "You can enter this order detail grid after you selected an existing order" + Character (13) + "or created a new order in the top half of the screen.")
            End
        End
    End
End_Procedure