Hi, Why remove the Beep function?
Larry Neuton On 6/9/08, Brian Hancock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Dataperf mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf > >
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