Hi Brian, Thanks for your two recent contributions. I am convinced that they are important for modernizing my applications and they will play a key role. I appreciated your explanation of XML documents and looked at the tutorial. This will solve pressing issues about migrating my document generation from WORD merges. The XML version of STEMAN is exceedingly useful for experiencing the XML generation and seeing the results. It also provides an important step in my development of DP as a processing engine. It moves the linking towards a standard.
Just a word of thanks for the pioneering efforts and the thoughts of sharing the work- Gary ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 12:00 PM Subject: Dataperf Digest, Vol 17, Issue 10 > Send Dataperf mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Dataperf digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Documenting your DP Database with XML and XSLT (Brian Hancock) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 05:53:22 +1000 > From: "Brian Hancock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [Dataperf] Documenting your DP Database with XML and XSLT > To: "DataPerfect Users Discussion Group" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi Everyone, > > I thought I would share this application with the group. I often use the STE-MGR program to document databases. Although it documents database completely the results are not so easy to read. > > For those not familiar with the STE-MGR.COM application and the companion STE-BASE.STR. Its a program for documenting your DataPerfect database and even for making changes, and it is extremely useful. To use it is very simple, you execute the STR-MGR program, and select the STR of the DP application you are wanting to document. The STE-MRG program creates a file which is has the same base filename as your DP application with the extension {L}. This file is a synthetic DP Transaction Log. > > Once you have this file you import it into the STE-BASE.str application. Open DP and the STE-BASE application, and if its the first time recreate all the indexes etc when it prompts you. Import the transaction log you created with Shift-F9 - Import transaction log. This populates the various panels of the STE-BASE application with details of your application. > > I have modified the STE-BASE application to add a couple of more links, and the addition of two more panels, plus I have added a report which exports much of the data as an XML file. The basic functionality of the STE-BASE is unchanged it just has a few more things. It started out as an > > The new reports produces a file STE.XML. The application also includes an XSLT file to style the document so it can be displayed in a browser, there are a couple of Javascript files that do things such as making the STE-BASE's representation of field formula easy to work with. > > The links to the complete application is http://www.brileigh.com/dpweb/STE-DEF_019.zip it contains > > STE-MGR.COM (standard, same one that is supplied with DP.Only later versions came with this) > STE-BASE.str (modified from the original than comes with DP) > STE-Def.xsl ( this file is the transformation that will generate HTML) > STE.js (some basic Javascript, mainly to tidy up DP formula's which are normally very hard to read in the STE-BASE program) > wz_tooltip.js (open source HTML tool tips, open it to view its credits) > > All files should be unzipped into the same folder. together with your DP executables and your applications STR. You run the STE-MGR as I have noted above, and then run the Report "XML Database descriptor" > > The STE.XML includes a processing instruction to tell it to use the STE-DEF.xsl to transform it. Depending on how big your application is it might take a little while to generate the file. When it does you will see the structure of your application. You can selective show or hide various parts of the definition, so that if you choose to print it it will not take up so much paper. You can open up all the formulas to view, or click on individual formula to see their contents. > > I have modified the STE-BASE application to add a couple of new panels. One for adding comments to Panels, and the other for adding comments to Fields. If you are developing a DP application you might want to make more notes about a fields purpose, etc. When viewing the results in your your browser if you pass your mouseover any red print (eg panel names, field names and fields used in formula) it will show you more information or notes about the item.. > > The STE-BASE is generally a one shot program in that once you import the data you need to empty the database before you import a new log file. Emptying the database completely would remove your additional notes that have been made, so I have made some changes so that if you delete the STE-BASE-HDR record, it will cascade delete through the rest of the definition data except the notes, ready for a new import. The notes will be preserved for the new import, although if you delete fields, or change their purpose, you will need to change or delete the notes. (its not a Perfect world). > > Apart from being useful application for documenting your applications, it shows what can be done with a simple XML file and transforming it with XSLT. > > My original goal before I wrote the application was to write a program to graphically display a DP Entity Relation diagram, much like DPLinks does, except that Panels could be dragged into place so you could choose the layout, and additionally the diagram would contain information about the Panel or Data link, and the panel's fields. Much like say a Microsoft Access Relationship screen. I haven;t yet finished that. > > I intend to write an application which will also document reports more throughly. Some of my reports are absolute nightmares to later decipher. > > Regards > Brian > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://lists.dataperfect.nl/pipermail/dataperf/attachments/20080524/22f5fb52 /attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Dataperf mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf > > > End of Dataperf Digest, Vol 17, Issue 10 > **************************************** _______________________________________________ Dataperf mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf
