SMALL UPDATE POSTED
There are two new templates, "CHT Add Globals First Control" and "CHT Add Globals First". These two templates are guides, effectively, since their sole purpose is to .APPear alone in the IDE's control and extension template selection dialogs when you do not yet have our global master template "AACHT Control Panel" and its associates installed.
So let's assume you have an Application in which there are no CHT templates of any kind installed.
Poking around, you open the Extension Templates selection dialog looking for any CHT extension templates. All of our Extension Templates, as of this March 9th update, are invisible to any .APP which does not have "AACHTControlPanel" installed. If that condition .APPlies, the only Extension Template you will see from CHT is: "CHTAddGlobalsFirst". Template instructions are below.
Poking around some more, you open a window and want to add CHT Control Templates to your window. All of our Control Templates, as of this March 9th update, are invisible to any .APP which does not have "AACHTControlPanel" installed. If that condition .APPlies, the only Control Template you will see from CHT is: "CHTAddGlobalsFirstControl". Template instructions are below.
In previous builds, all local control and extension templates which were dependent on "AACHTControlPanel", "ApplicationImagesEx" and "HandyVersionResource", would simply install these three required global templates into the .APP for you in the background, as soon as you installed any local template from the Extensions Selection Menu or from the Control Templates Selection Menu.
That was introduced as a convenience for developers following the old Clarion adage "work smarter not harder". The idea was, that any template which is dependent on other, higher order, templates simply installed those higher order global templates for you first, automatically. Before installing itself.
The problem with that "easy peasy" .APProach is that it only IMPLIES and doesn't DEMAND that the developer go first to the higher order, global template interface to configure THAT, before proceeding with the implementation of the local Extension or Control Template being added, and which to varying degrees, has dependencies in the correct configuration and setup of the higher order template to which it connects.
So, the whole point of "CHTAddGlobalsFirst" and "CHTAddGlobalsFirstControl" is to draw attention to the fact that the correct use of MOST CHT TEMPLATES in your .APP is dependent on THREE CHT GLOBALS --FIRST-- being present in your .APP, --SECOND-- being configured to certain minimum requirements.
The text instructions on "CHTAddGlobalsFirst" and "CHTAddGlobalsFirstControl" point out the need to deal with "AACHTControlPanel", "HandyVersionResource" and "ApplicationImagesEx" beforehand.
This is the only CHT EXTENSION TEMPLATE that displays in the CLARION EXTENSIONS SELECTION list from the IDE when CHT Global template AACHTControlPanel and its associates, are missing from your .APPlication.
And while "CHTAddGlobalsFirst" template does offer to include all required CHT Global templates into your Application automatically, those auto-added templates still need to be configured FIRST.
It is therefore recommended that rather than using this "CHTAddGlobalsFirst" template when it .APPears in the IDE extension selection list, that you cancel out at that point and proceed instead to your .APPlication's "Global Extensions" area to select "AACHTControlPanel" and include it into your .APP.
Three other required CHT Globals are added to Global Extensions by inserting AACHTControlPanel. These are: "AACHTControlPanelClose", "ApplicationImagesEx", and "HandyVersionResource".
Three of these four CHT Global templates require a degree of pre-configuration. See the CHT Help file CHTTEMPLATES.HTML or CHTTEMPLATES.PDF and search for the template names given above.
This is the only CHT CONTROL TEMPLATE that displays in the CLARION CONTROL TEMPLATES SELECTION list from the IDE when CHT Global template AACHTControlPanel and its associates, are missing from your .APPlication.
And while "CHTAddGlobalsFirstControl" template does offer to include all required CHT Global templates into your Application automatically, those auto-added templates still need to be configured FIRST.
It is therefore recommended that rather than using this "CHTAddGlobalsFirstControl" template when it .APPears in the IDE extension selection list, that you cancel out at this point and proceed instead to your .APPlication's "Global Extensions" area to select "AACHTControlPanel" and include it into your .APP.
Three other required CHT Globals are added to Global Extensions by inserting AACHTControlPanel.
These are: "AACHTControlPanelClose", "ApplicationImagesEx", and "HandyVersionResource".
Three of the four CHT Global templates added require a degree of pre-configuration. See the CHT Help file CHTTEMPLATES.HTML or CHTTEMPLATES.PDF and search for the template names given above.
NEW CHT UPDATE POSTED
We posted a new CHT Build, numbered 26A.01.00 on March 2, 2022.
This update adds some significant color control to all of our CHT browse templates:
Explorerbrowse, HandyMarkerBrowse, ListBoxBrowseExtender.
To see CHT browse templates in action in any of our example Applications:
To test HNDPEOPLE_LBX.APP and HNDPPLLBX_REMOTE.APP both of which have remote test servers based at CHTHQ, send an email request to support@cwhandy.ca asking for a set of login parameters for these remote .APPs.
You can, of course, test them yourself locally or remotely against the two server .APPs provided, rather than against our remote servers.
The "Sort Column Color" dialog (identical on all three templates) introduces a "Selection Row Back Color" feature which gives you control over the selection row background color from our template.
From this dialog now you can control:
As before, the "Reverse" switch setting causes the sort column to "reverse" the color .APPlied in #1 above. The text and background colors are sw.APPed.
And, as before, you can save your settings .APPlied on one procedure and recall them into another procedure. To experiment, you can "Insert CHT Default Colors" as a starting point.
While in recent years we've built our Application color scheme around a RED, BLACK and DARK SLATE GREY color scheme, we've introduced with this build an example Application called HNDSQL1_SEA.APP.
This Application is identical, functionally to "red-theme" HNDSQL1.APP listed above under ExplorerBrowse, except that it uses a "SEAGREEN" color theme. Hence the name HNDSQL1_SEA.APP.
With this .APPlication, we've replaced the "Sort Column Color" dialog colors with green-theme colors, derived experimentally to co-exist compatibly on the Application window. Both ExplorerBrowse procedures on this Application .APPly a "CHT Query Control" from the "?" button on the tool bar. Note that both the dialog colors and the dialog icons match the green-theme established on the .APP. Other CHT internal dialogs, (if they were used with this .APP) would also conform to this new green-theme configuration.
Examples of these other CHT dialogs are:
Navigate, if you will, to the global template ApplicationImagesEx on this "green-theme" HNDSQL1_SEA.APP. Click the "Image Settings Stylesheet" dialog from the ApplicationImagesEx template main interface.
Note that the first two "Styles" tabs insert a number of "green-theme" images which we've provided with this build in the CHTSETUPCxx_3.HZO container with all other required images.
Then on the next two "Internal" tabs we've inserted a selection of default icons such as "cht_ggl_check_sea.ico" and "cht_ggl_uncheck_sea.ico".
By inserting these "green-theme" icons globally on the "Images Settings Stylesheet" all of the CHT internal class-based dialogs will conform icon-wise to the newly established "green" theme. You need to do nothing else, programmatically to achieve this CHT dialog icon color match.
Of course you need color-matched icons but we've provided a set of "_sea.ico" icons with this build. In future CHT builds we'll provide other sets of color-matched icons which could be inserted here, besides _red.ico, _sea.ico.
Other icon/image sets already in the works are _white.ico, _black.ico, _grey.ico, _blue.ico. Once a few of these have been introduced, we'll provide a "color-theme" selection dropdown on the "ApplicationImagesEx" template which will instantly switch to the correct icon/image sets for you depending on the selected color theme.
Of course, in all cases, manual icon/image selection control will continue to be available, as always. Many of you have your own sets of preferred icons which can be saved as defaults on our template, from the template interface just discussed.
Navigate once again to the global template ApplicationImagesEx on this "green-theme" HNDSQL1_SEA.APP.
This time, click the "Display Settings Stylesheet" dialog from the ApplicationImagesEx template main interface. You will encounter a set of dialog tabs which cover font and color settings that then can .APPly in your .APP if you want them to.
On the final, right-most dialog tab, called "Class Dialogs" we have inserted "0071B33CH". This is the text color .APPlied on the "CHT Query Control" that you see from the "?" (Query) buttons in HNDSQL1_SEA.APP.
Further on this "Display Settings Stylesheet" under "Controls" there are some fields that can speed up your browse list box design. Take particular note of the following three: "List Box Backgrnd Color", "List Box Text Color" and "List Box Line Height".
With these simple, saveable global setttings you can further control the background color of your CHT Browses, the text color of your CHT Browses and the line height of your CHT Browses. If you do nothing we have default values here which are: COLOR:White (background) COLOR:Black (text) and 11 (Browse Line Height).
All settings in ApplicationImagesEx are (and will continue to be) saveable in one .APP and recallable in another .APP, so that Application image and color settings worked out in one Application can be instantly transferred to another.
We've made the "Developer Set Version Configuration" optionally readable from the CHT Configuration file created by our installer in your BIN directory.
These config files are: HND91TPL.INI, HND10TPL.INI, HND11TPL.INI or HND111TPL.INI, depending on which Clarion version you h.APPen to be using, and they are located in your /accessory/bin/ directory.
Watch the FEB 8, Journal Video called: "HandyVersionResource Template Review" to get the background on how this works.
The new "Developer Set Version" switch called "Read Version Number From Config", if checked, reads the version number you've inserted into the Config file at .APP generate time. Turn this switch off to maintain a fixed, version specific to the .APP you are working on.
Default for this "Read Version Number From Config" setting is OFF.
Below are example entries touched by HandyVersionResource. The entry read by the "Read Version Number From Config" switch being checked, is "FIXEDVERSION=" shown below. The other settings are discussed in the video. Any further questions, drop a question on the CHT Forum using our pre-compiled forum .APP HNDCLIENTCL.EXE.
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