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SEPTEMBER 2022

CHT Build 26D.00.00

LET'S BUILD
SOMETHING NEW!

The following paragraphs are taken directly from CHT's opening page which is located at CHT Home.

We draw your attention to it again in September, 2022, because the section, entitled "CHT: Let's Build Something New!" has guided our CHT forward development work throughout this year.

On entering year 2022, CHT begins its 26th Year Of Service To Clarion Developers.

Most Clarion Developers, we're sure, use Clarion in development projects that have likely been in existence for years. And so, many, or most, are locked into third party tools, some of which have vanished, some of which seldom or never update.

But there's one Clarion tool kit which is always new and fresh, CHT (Clarion Handy Tools)!

In 2022, we ask that you consider developing something NEW with your favorite Clarion Version (C91, C10, C11, or C11.1) and only CHT (Clarion Handy Tools), using no other third party tools.

So, when was the last time you developed a brand NEW Clarion application from scratch?

REVIEW OF BUILD
26D.00.00 FEATURES!

Now, let's review what you have with this CHT 26D.00.00 build....

The entire CHT template user interface has been revised for clarity, ease of use and compatibility between the Clarion versions - C91, C10, C11, and C11.1. While the Clarion IDE's template interface provided with Clarion 11 and 11.1 supplies more interface text room than do Clarion 91 and Clarion 10, the template design we've developed requires no special code in order to display correctly and clearly in all Clarion versions addressed. Our template and class code for C91, C10, C11 and C11.1 is identical.

Yes, CHT Templates and classes for all covered Clarion versions provide identical, tested, code. If you build a C91 app with only ABC and CHT templates in it, for instance, you can migrate it to C10, C11, or C11.1 without changes and compile it there and run it there. Nothing new to buy, since our CHT license covers all four of these Clarion versions, you may install any or all of our CHT versions for these 4 Clarions all at the same time. If you want to, you can even install multiple CHT instances for a single Clarion IDE, (the one you like best) our installer supports you doing that.

Easy Movement
Between Clarion Versions

Moving applications forward, from C91 to C10 to C11 to C11.1 works well and moving apps easily between C10, C11 and C11.1 in either direction works equally well.

We do it here all the time in order to avoid having to re-work our demo app suite separately for each Clarion version.

This easy upward movement of apps to later (higher) Clarion versions, does not necessarily apply, of course, if your app is full of NON-CHT 3rd party templates. In other words, a common source of incompatibility between Clarion app versions can be NON-CHT third-party templates. Staying with ABC and CHT templates only, is your best assurance of forward and upward application mobility and flexibility.

Forward compatibility has been proven to you time and again over the years. We have CHT example applications (eg: hndslfsv.app) built originally years ago, still in use, which compile and run as always with the latest CHT version using the latest Clarion version.

Our web page server, HNDSLFSV.APP, was first built with Clarion 5.5 and CHT templates and Classes. We still ship this app as an example and we still use a minor variation of it daily as our own web page server today. Our templates since then, have evolved, of course, as has Clarion. The application has evolved too, but it progressed effotlessly, simply by using a later Clarion, incorporating a later CHT version and folding any new features into the application from later Clarion IDE's and later CHT builds.

An Abundance of:
Example + Utility Applications

CHT provides an abundance of example applications (127 this build). Each app features numerous CHT templates. Get to know these applications and what they have to teach. We have an application summary document located at:
 
CHT Applications HTML

CHT Applications PDF

Fourty-four of these "example" applications are pre-compiled, code signed and are located in your /clarion/accessory/bin/ directory. Some of these are called from our templates and act as CHT/Clarion support utilities.

Here is a random sampling...

** CHT Compile/Project Manager Utility...

** Text+Code Search Utility...

** Clarion Template Registry Utility...

** MAPI Email Example Utility...

** NET Email Example Utility...

** SMTP Email Example Utility...

** CDO Email Example Utility...

** CHT Bulk Code Signing Utility...

** CHT File Encryption/Decryption Utility...

** CHT's Subscriber-Only Forum Utility...

** Developer Application Backup Utility...

** CHT's Installation Maker/Extractor Utility...

The source for all of the above utilities and at least 115 more is provided for you use, to study, and/or from which to borrow parts for easy import into your own applications.

Many of the things you might want to build or may have considered building yourself, are here waiting to be discovered. They can provide your own apps with a generous supply of ideas, examples and readily importable components.

"STUB" Applications
Work With Us In Future Videos And Articles

To aid you as you experiment and discover, we've supplied with this build, three "STUB" apps. These are entirely empty apps, with one procedure (MAIN or SERVERMAIN) and a dictionary -- where one is needed. The apps are called: HNDSTUBFILESERVER.APP, HNDSTUBPAGESERVER.APP and HNDSTUBWINDOW.APP

Use "FILE SAVE AS" to rename these to something unique of your own and work with us in future videos and articles, to make them into something useful - using IMPORT from our apps, or JUMPSTART or UTILITY templates that we provide.

It's now your turn to make the first move! Get to know CHT demo apps, utilities and import sources. Get building something awesome with your favorite Clarion IDE, our incredible templates and resources, and your clever brains!

Browse Styling:
Control Like Never Before

We've added a considerable amount of ease, speed and flexibility to our CHT browse extension templates: ExplorerBrowse, HandyMarkerBrowse, ListBoxBrowseExtender and ClientServerBrowseListBox.

You can now add any one of NINE pre-configured browse color themes with a single click of a button. To see the color scheme layouts in code, open HNDEQU.CLW and search for, say, "T0:" or "T1:"

Browse Color Themes and Variations
colorthemes01.png
 
colorthemes02.png

The default setting for application browses encountering these new "COLOR THEMES" browse template enhancements for the first time, is the one we call "T0: Theme Color None".

This setting automatically disengages CHT Color themes from your browse and passes through your own window and listbox colors as you may have them configured in the IDE window designer.

Of course, browse behaviour works as always under "T0: Theme Color None": column-click sort, filtering, locating, scroll and highlight behaviour, all of it. Only our color and highlight styling pre-choices are disengaged and the choices you made in your window design, show through.

Examples From
One of Our Demo Apps

These are three ** Browse Color Styling ** values currently selected on example application HNDSQL1 with three different color configurations. Choosing one of these variations is easy and nearly instant. The variety available is wide, flexible and fully under developer control.

colorbrowse1.png

 

colorbrowse2.png

 

colorbrowse3.png

 

Examples of Code Generated
In One of Our Demo Apps

These are the ** Browse Color Styling ** values currently selected on HandyMarkerBrowse. The browse color theme, by default, is set to "T0: Theme Color None" as described above.

colorthemes03.png
 
colorthemes04.png

To engage any of our nine, instant, pre-configured color and highlight themes listed above under "BROWSE COLOR THEMES AND VARIATIONS" simply visit the CHT browse template in use on your procedure, open the "** Browse Color Styling **" dialog, (see below) and select a color THEME by pushing a single button.

colorthemes05.png

All theme colors are tastefully pre-selected to provide maximum visibility of text through background even if you choose to intermix the pre-configured choices, which you can easily do.

Though you certainly do not need to manually intermix. But color-theme settings CAN be manually intermixed on the template for different browse elements such as sort header highlight color, browse header color, browse grid and selection bar color, for a totally user-custom effect that still maximizes text readability through color.

If you choose to intermix instead of simply selecting one of our pre-sets, your choices can be saved to our template config file and read, again with one click, into other procedures and/or other apps, for a totally fast, easy and consistent look and feel from procedure-to-procedure and from application-to-application.

Contact CHT