An every time data update for the automatic code

wolfganguhr

Actually I use a work around to initialize some event handlers. This work around is based on the routine to assign the ledger number

        public Int32 LedgerNumber
        {
            set
            {
                FLedgerNumber = value;
                ucoBatches.LoadBatches(FLedgerNumber);

            // some code ...
            
            ucoJournals.WorkAroundInitialization();
            ucoTransactions.WorkAroundInitialization();
        }
    }

And in the ucoTransactions I use a routine to implement an event handler to all editable controls

        public void WorkAroundInitialization()
        {
        	txtCreditAmount.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged);  

        	txtDebitAmount.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged); 
        	cmbDetailCostCentreCode.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged); 
        	cmbDetailAccountCode.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged);  

        	cmbDetailKeyMinistryKey.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged); 
        	txtDetailNarrative.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged); 
        	txtDetailReference.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged);  

        	dtpDetailTransactionDate.Validated += new EventHandler(ControlHasChanged);  
        	
    }

Inside of ControlHasChanged I only call FocusedRowChanged a routine which allready exists in the automatic code part.

        private void ControlHasChanged(System.Object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
        	SourceGrid.RowEventArgs egrid = new SourceGrid.RowEventArgs(-10);
        	FocusedRowChanged(sender,egrid);
        }

This additional code generates an "click' onto the selected grid line which iselfs calls all refresh and recalculate routines.

Hint: The "-10" is not used - in normal case it should be the number/index of the line.

That means: Independently of the kind of leaving a control the data are stored properly before a new control is seleted.

I think it may be a good idea to implement this technique in the automatic code.

christiankatict

Hi Wolfgang,

I am not in favour of updating data in the Grids while data is changed in Controls.

Here is why:

1) While it appears to be a neat and smart solution to the user, it introduces additional complexity and possibly some unknown side effects when firing such Events at the Grid. We have had struggles in the past when we introduced a 'neat' functionality somewhere in Petra and users then wanted to have it everywhere. Only when we were trying to do the specific feature in a lot of places we found out that it can be very hard to do that very thing in specific, more complex scenarios. I have also had to deal with very annoying side effects when trying to do 'too clever things' with the Grids - Events firing that you never thought they would fire, undesired scrolling of the Rows, etc. Once those things happen the programmer needs to suppress these side effects in those specific cases, but not in other cases, etc. It can get messy and lead to unnecessarily complicated code that needs quite a bit of explanation in code comments, as it isn't obvious why the code is necessary and what it achieves.

2) My bigger worry, however, is that data is updated in the Grid that isn't verified to be correct, as data will only be verified when the user leaves a record or data is about to be saved (please wait for the Data Verification Framework to see how this will be done in detail). This can lead to the situation that data is displayed in the Grid that might be wrong and will therefore never go in the DB because it will not pass verification, but that very data it is displayed alongside verified data that comes from the DB. This is inconsistent and can be confusing to users.

3) I have also come across users that find it rather distracting if parts of the screen (=Grid Row) update while they are typing in another part of the screen (=Detail Controls).

Besides all of that, I have seen few applications that do such on-the-fly updating (quite possibly because of the reasons I have given...).

wolfganguhr

You are right, In my Situation it works because I use the Validate-Event too. Here the input can be checked and the lost focus can be canceled. So you are forced to restore a valid value before you can leave the control ...