Funcoder Technology Blog

I had a situation the other day with our internal application when I built a new screen to view data from an external database via VPN. The screen just ended up to sluggish and I needed a way to give it some zip.

After a few moments with my 2 brains colliding trying to compete for a solution, I finally found a perfect and fast way to view the data in a major zippy way.

It’s simple really, just create some local HyperFile classic tables to store your data. Then create a method to load up the tables when the screen is opened. This makes it even more simple for you to code up the tables and loopers.

To give the user feedback when the screen is loading the data, I put a progress bar on the first plane.

Once the data has been loaded into the local tables I load up the components and the flip to Plane 2 to show the screen in all its glory.

Now clicking on rows to load up other data is super fast.

So the next time you want to keep your application speedy, you might want to consider this method.

WinDev procedure parameters are passed by reference as a default and this is great but can also cause some strange issues in your code if you are not careful.

There are a few ways to pass an object by value and one of my favourite is using the LOCAL statement when defining your parameters.

Here’s an example:

If you don’t define anything as LOCAL then you can also tell WLanguage that you are passing by value just by adding brackets around the object you are passing:

CalculateWinnerPrizeTotals((nWinnerID), xCost)

So the example above shows how you can tell the method you are passing nWinnerID by value and not by reference.

The current releases of WinDev has a bug when you want to use the TX Text ActiveX control on a WinDev form.

There is a work around by adding the following code to the initialisation method of the ActiveX component.

A fix for this will be in the next release but at leased you can easily work around the problem.

Thanks PC Soft Support for this…

If you open a window, class, etc using the Ctr-E Fast Selection window

then your window will be out of sync with the Project explorer. You don’t need to go finding the window you are working on manually, just select the synchronise element button   in project explorer.

UPDATE!!

This afternoon I received a telephone call from Claudia at PC Soft. She discussed my comments in this blog post and explained about some of the benefits we have received from a later version which included more examples translated to English.

I reiterated about the number of bugs we are getting with this new version and Claudia has asked for you to please send bug reports to PC Soft so that they can investigate them.

She also wants to hear from you if you are having any issues with PC Soft or concerns about bugs not being resolved. Please contact Claudia at claudia.rivera@pcsoft.fr and help her to understand any issues you have.

I discussed about the bugs that developers are complaining about in the latest version

I have been developing applications and websites in WinDev / WebDev for the past 2 years. So why this question now?

Well we have seen the release of Version 14 at the beginning of this month, 6 months after the French release. Come on now PC Soft, 6 months is a lifetime in the technology industry. If they were really committed to expanding then you would see the English version created in parallel to the French.

If you look at other development tools, many produce multi-lingual versions and release them at the same time.

Maybe its a problem with their codebase which makes it complicated to created multi-lingual versions, but surely they would be working towards resolving this.

The other issue is the lack of communication between the community and PC Soft. The www.windev.com website it pretty much stagnant with no focus on providing information about news, tips etc.

What about LST? Why do they not produce an English version?

Don’t get me wrong, I love programming in WinDev but I feel it is a very lonely experience. I am also finding it harder to convince clients their are other developers that can support the systems I write. I know there are some but we are talking so much less than there should be.

WinDev 14 has made me re-think about this product, not only for the 6 months wait but then the quality. Every day I come across a bug which is driving me nuts.

The new version has all these new information messages to help you build quality code, but it generates these errors even on PC Soft’s own RAD classes.

I don’t want to move back to .NET but its looking more that I will have to. It’s sad as I have already started writing a WinDev book but what should I do?

I think now it the time for the powers at PC Soft to speak up and be more open about their future plans.

We’ll there’s my rant and you are welcome to disagree. Leave a comment and maybe we can make PC Soft aware of our feelings and hope they will become more involved in the community.

I am very happy to announce that I have started work on a new book focused at the new wave of software development using WinDev. The book isn’t just about understanding how to program in Wlanguage, it’s a complete guide to my approach when developing software.

Here’s some of the topics I will cover:

• Powerful communication tips to help you have successful meetings with clients and get the information you need.
• Keeping focused on your own. If you are a solo developer then you are going to love this chapter on how to keep the motivation going.
• Developing robust OOP code in WinDev.
• Test Driven Development Really Works!
• Keeping the client happy.
• Always give the client more…

From concept to completion, you will learn how to produce quality solutions, elegant tested code and some exciting ways I keep relaxed and focused.

Once I have a good amount of content I will be releasing it as a beta book in PDF version. If you would like to be notified on the progress of the book then please follow me on Twitter.

I would be very happy to hear from you about any topics you would be interested in the book covering. Just drop me an email at funcoder@gmail.com with the subject line Funcoder Book.

With May now approaching the hopeful release of WinDEV, WebDEV and WinDev Mobile 14 is on its way.

Here’s my Top 10 new feratures I am so looking forward to in this release:

1. Container Columns in Table

You can now add controls into cells to make some incredible table views. Tables are my favorite control in WinDEV 12, especially when I look back to my .NET days and the amount of code I had to write. Happy days!

2. Google Apps Integration

We have some great plans for using the Google maps integration in WinDEV. I know this was possible before by hacking some code together, but once again PC Soft have made it a breeze to implement.

3.  Widescreen Environment

I use a 20” screen for my development and always have WinDEV maximized to cover the whole screen. Now the IDE has more improvements to allow for better use of the space.

4.  Class Data Binding

You can now drag a class into a window to create corresponding controls and bind them together.

5. Monitoring Tool

You can monitor the availability of your systems, including http servers, WinDEV and WebDev applications. Email messages can be configured to alert you when problems occur.

6. New RTF Formatting Buttons

The RTF features in version 12 were OK but I really wanted more functionality.  They have moved forward a little bit adding justification but I still feel we have a way to go on this one.

7. Controlling Devices Around the Home

WinDEV 14 now has support for domotics CM15. I know this is a bit of a geeky feature for me to be excited about. But being able to control devices around my home from my WinDEV apps is very cool.

8. RSS Feed Parsing Engine

There are a number of new commands I can use to load an RSS feed and parse it. You can do this with the XML parser but now I can do it with just a few methods.

9. HTTP Functions for Processing Forms

In certain applications I have needed automatically fill out web forms, which is not an easy task. Not until now that is, as there are new simple HTTP methods to build the form and send it.

10. No Declaring Arrays as Zero Length

This was just an annoying feature in Wlanguage but now you don’t need to specify zero when declaring an array.

PROCEDURE MyProcedure(ArrStrings is array of strings)

I do a lot of development for Internet Marketers and for some reason didn’t think of WebDEV as a platform for me to develop on. I have been using Dreamweaver to do all my work.

Now I have switched and code all my client sites in WebDEV. Its so much more fun now and I tend to be a lot more creative in this tool.

There are a few issues I have come across when integrating with Aweber.com Form code but I have found ways around this.

This is an example Squeeze Page that only took me 30 minutes to complete and upload.

I have to admit that when I started out developing WINDEV applications I used multiple Window Planes a lot.

The problem with using a Plane is that your code can get very complicated to manage and the Window will use up a lot of memory.

Striving to make my code clean and manageable I use the Internal Window to separate functionality out.

Above is a very simple example of how this works. I have created a project with one main window and 2 internal windows:

In the main window I have added an Internal Window Control and 2 buttons. The buttons just have one line of code in each to easily switch between the internal windows.

So to show my first internal window I just use the WLanguage command:

ChangeSourceWindow(IW_Main,IW_InternalWindow1)

Sometimes you might need to initialise the internal window with parameters. You can add paramers to the ChangeSourceWindow to perform this.

ChangeSourceWindow(<Name of Control to Modify>, <Name of Internal Window> [, <Parameter 1> ... [, <Parameter N>]])

It can be a little confusing at first when you are trying to get the cell control to expand.

The first step is to set the Cell to 100% width and height. But there are also outer parameters that need to be set to 100%, as shown in the screen shot below: