It is great that DataPerfect continues to be developed. I have not
really followed the changes to report functionality but need to
understand this some more (to simplify what I do at the moment).
Would there be a guide as how the ;;W command works at present, as I
have tried it in some test reports but it produces nothing "special" for me?
As regards the Windows version: will there be any development of a
greater link / interface with WordPerfect. For example, WordPerfect for
Windows 6.x provided a filter which allowed for a DataPerfect database
to be read directly in WPWIN6.x (the only version where I think this was
permitted/developed).
Victor Warner.
Bruce Conrad wrote:
Hi Brian,
These are wonderful changes! Please pass along my thanks to Lew.
When Lew made 2.6x, he asked me what HTML tags to use for ;;W and did
as I recommended, so I have to take full responsibility for it not
being standards-compliant. One of the mistakes that I made was to have
underline codes use the italic HTML tags. It would be best to use the
underline XHTML tags instead, as you have suggested. I know of no good
reason to use italics.
Adding mass deletion would be useful to me.
Thanks again and best wishes,
Bruce
Brian Hancock wrote:
Hi everyone,
Lew has been working on a new version of DP with some improvements
for scripting, and I have had the pleasure of doing some preliminary
testing. Lew doesn't have easy access to the group mailing list and
has asked me to ask a few questions.
The major thrust of the new DOS based version 2.6Y is to support
scripting a little better, this allows it to perform better in web
based applications, and also desktop application which are driven by
scripts.
The major change is that by default if you use the /EI switch to
import data from a transaction logs, then reports will output to
STDOUT (often referred to as printing to the console). For example if
you run the DOS DIR command at a DOS screen the output streams onto
the console screen, and after DIR has finished you can still read the
output on the console. In contrast a DP report printing to the screen
only displays while DP is executing, and is removed from the screen
after you exit the report and before DP exits. There are a couple of
advantages to being able to output to STDOUT (or the console).
Firstly at present to use output from DP in another program you first
have to save it to a file in DP, and then open the file with another
program to use the data. It is currently not possible to pipe data
from one application into another. Many DOS users would be used to
piping the output from DIR to the MORE command so you can view the
output a page at a time. There are many advanced text processing
tools which could be used with DP more quickly and efficiently, such
as AWK amd SED, etc. The new version allows piping to secondary
processes.
A major advantage of using STDOUT for output from DP is that data can
be sent directly to a web browser or other internet application. At
present you need to save the output from DP into a file, and then
with another program read the file and output it to the web browser.
This has two problems, firstly, there are more steps to getting data
to the browser and so is slower, and secondly, until a report
finishes and DP exits nothing can be sent to the browser, so there is
often a long period of inactivty until the web browser's screen
suddenly fills with data. (users often think a problem has occurred
with this delay). Using STDOUT, output from DP reaches the web
browser screen as it is output from DP, so even a long slow DP report
can present results to the user while it is still running.
So that is the background to the new version. Some of the changes are:
- the ;;W field output formatter will act on normal text fields and
not just multiline alphanumeric memo type fields
- from a /EI transaction log you can select for more that one report
to run, this is a bug fix from 2.6x. This has great benefits in that
you can compartmentalise reports. For example, you can have a simple
report to add data, another to delete data, and another to edit data,
but only need one report to view the output, With the current 2.6x
version you must either combine sections of the report the output
into each of those operations, or execute DP twice. Now you could
specify the two reports as in #R:=3= #R:=10= to run report number 3
and when that is finished run report number 10.
- the ;;W acts on all of the XML/XHTML predefined entities,& &
" " ' ' < < > >
- the ;;W transforms a single line break (carriage return) in a AxAy
memo type field to a <br /> instead of <BR> to conform more with XML
and XHTML standards.
- the ;;W transforms two consecutive line breaks in an AxAy memo
field to two line breaks <br /><br /> instead of a single <p>. This
also makes it more conforming to XML and XHTML standards.
- the ;;W transforms bold markup in an AxAy field to <b>...</b> in
place of <B>...</B> to make it conform to standards.
- The Beep function is to be removed
This leads to the questions, currently the ;;W output for an
underlined text in an AxAy field output as <I>....</I> which with
HTML indicate italics rather than underline. Lew believes there was a
deliberate reason for this rather than just an oversight, as you
would normally expect the output to be <u>....</u>. Lew wants to know
if this would cause a problem to anyone before he changes it.
The other question Lew has, in that with scripting using the /EI
transaction log there is no simple way to delete all records from a
panel or to empty the database. You can do these with reports, but in
comparison to the inbuit function to do this, reports are very slow.
Lew would like to add two new functions to the transactions logs. #DA
=x= to delete all the records in Panel numbered x, or #DT: , but
before he does this he would like to see if people would find it
worthwhile.
Lew is getting very close to having a candidate for release, but if
there are any other bug bears, now would be a good time to air them
and I will pass them on to Lew.
Lew is also working on a Windows version of DP, but it is early days
yet.
Regards
Brian
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