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Using the drilldown()

To make it easy to select the correct customer for an order, the new drilldown() function was brought into the project. It requires a bit of set up, but provides a fast and efficient method of finding a target record. An example of it can be seen below.

image-1640640019433.pngThe drill down window searching for a customer

As the user types in the top edit control, the system detects that and searches against the index passed as the search index. It then fills the grid with data up to the maximum number of desired rows. The code that does this is shown here:

Example 7.4. The findcustomer() Function for the Orders Form

function findcustomer(dataform1button me, appwindow appw)
  type(db1record) r
  type(db1index) idx
  sbapplication app
  tdisplayformats dispfmt
  array dispflds, colwidths
  integer e

  if not me.form.preventfocus
    app =@ appw.app
    dispfmt =@ app.displayformats
    idx =@ app.tables.customer!LastFirstName.index
    dispflds =@ array.new()
    dispflds[1] =@ app.tables.customer!LastFirstName
    dispflds[2] =@ app.tables.customer!Organization
    dispflds[3] =@ app.tables.customer!City
    dispflds[4] =@ app.tables.customer!PostCode
    dispflds[5] =@ app.tables.customer!CountryCode

    colwidths =@ array.new()
    colwidths[1] = 150
    colwidths[2] = 220
    colwidths[3] = 150
    colwidths[4] = 60
    colwidths[5] = 50

    e = 0
    r =@ drilldown(appw.w, 730, 400, idx, 100, 1, "Select a \
                   customer", "Customer list", \
                   dispflds=dispflds, colwidths=colwidths, \
                   defboolean=dispfmt.defboolean, \
                   definteger=dispfmt.definteger, \
                   defnumber=dispfmt.defnumber, \
                   defdate=dispfmt.defdate, \
                   deftime=dispfmt.deftime, \
                   defdatetime=dispfmt.defdatetime, \
                   datelocale=app.SBLlocale.datelocale, \
                   numlocale=app.SBLlocale.numlocale, error=e)
    if r !@= .nul
      updatecustonorderform(me.form, r, appw)
    end if
  end if
end function

The code should be fairly obvious, we first check to make sure we are in data-entry mode by testing the me.form.preventfocus value. If it is equal to .true then we are not in data-entry, so ignore clicks.

Note
In preventfocusmode in the ongotfocus event of the dataform1 controls if the preventfocus property is equal to .true then nothing happens and focus is ignored. This does not prevent the onclick event of buttons from firing, however, so if they should not fire at all times it is necessary to test for the state of this property.

To reduce the amount of typing we declared the dispfmt variable and assigned the app.displayformats property to it. We then acquire a reference to the index object we wish to use for searching, produce an array to hold the field object references for the fields we wish to display in the grid, and assign the column widths to the colwidths array. The colwidths array is optional. If they are not passed the column widths will be derived from the table information. Finally the call is made to the drilldown() function and if the user clicks on OK, then it will return the selected record object, otherwise it will return .nul.

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