dBASE Plus release 2.61.4

Topic group 

Grid Class

Enhanced design time functionality of the grid. When designing a Grid in the Form Designer, if custom columns are defined, you can now:

• size columns, move columns, and set the grid's cellHeight (rowHeight) by using the mouse

• select a column's editorControl or headingControl into the inspector by left clicking them with the mouse.

Updated the Grid to support passing correct mouse coordinates to columnHeader mouse events.
 

Grid level mouse event handlers will now fire anywhere on a grid as long as the event handler is defined and is not overridden by a matching columnHeading or editorControl event. This includes mouse events on a column header, row header, grid cell, or grid background
 

Added a new Grid property : alwaysDrawCheckbox

• The default value for alwaysDrawCheckbox is True which causes any columnCheckBox controls to be painted with a checkbox for all cells in the column.

• When alwaysDrawCheckbox is set to False, the checkbox is only drawn in a cell if it has focus.

Added a new Grid event: onHelp()
onHelp() can be fired in two ways:

• by clicking the F1 function key on the keyboard, while the Grid has focus.

• by using the context help question mark (?) in the title bar of the form. Clicking on the context question mark (?) starts the context help mode which changes the mouse pointer and allows the user to click on a form component (in this case a Grid) to trigger it's onHelp() event.

Grid editorControls

Added a full set of mouse events for the Grid editorControls (columnEntryfield, columnSpinBox, columnCheckBox, columnComboBox, columnEditor). Mouse events include:

• onLeftDblClick

• onLeftMouseDown

• onLeftMouseUp

• onMiddleDblClick

• onMiddleMouseDown

• onMiddleMouseUp

• onRightDblClick

• onRightMouseDown

• onRightMouseUp

• onMouseMove

The columnComboBox control has been enhanced to have the following properties and events to match the comboBox control:

• Style (with options of   0-DropDown   OR   1-DropDownList)

• AutoTrim

• MaxLength

• SelectAll

• BeforeDropDown

• BeforeCloseUp

• OnChange

• OnChangeCancel

• OnChangeCommitted

• BeforeEditPaint

• OnEditPaint

The columnComboBox control now auto adjusts it's height to match the current grid cellHeight.

Form and SubForm Class

Added new contextHelp property to the Form Class and the SubForm Class.

• When contextHelp is set to true and mdi, maximize, and minimize are set to false, a button displaying a question mark (?) will display to the left of the form or subform's close button in the rop right portion of the form's titlebar.Clicking the mouse on the context help button starts context help mode which changes the mouse pointer and allows the user to click on a form component to trigger the component's onHelp() event.

• When contextHelp is set to false (the default) no context help type question mark is displayed in the form's title bar.

New systemTheme properties

Added a new systemTheme property to:

• _app.frameWin

• Form class

• Subform class

• All Form control classes that have their own window.

When systemTheme is True (the default), when running on XP or Vista, and with a manifest file installed that instructs Windows to load the version 6 common controls, windows and controls are painted using the current Visual Style set in the operating system.

When systemTheme is False, the version 5 common controls are used and windows and controls are painted using the classic Windows look.

Code Signing

Upgraded dBASE so it can build .exe's that can be code signed.

New executables built with dBASE Plus will contain some additional information that will allow them to be loaded successfully with the newruntime engine whether or not they are signed with a digital signature.

The new dBASE runtime will check a dBASE built .exe for the new data. If found, it will be loaded using the digital signature safe way. If not found, it will be loaded the old way which will not support digital signatures.

The new runtime is therefore, backward compatible with executables built with prior versions of dBASE Plus.

In addition, executables built with the new version of dBASE Plus will work with older dBASE Plus runtime engines unless it requires features available only in the newer runtime engine.