Expanded Orderentry example

ByTony Mackay and Mark Powers

Goal of DISD 2000 Project

The project goal was to create a small application that will demonstrate a variety of Visual Dataflex features used in conjunction with other tools that would be commonly available on a computer (i.e: MS Office). Even though the application is relatively small, it presents features that are more advanced. The resulting application is being presented to DISD as a starting place for even further enhancements! In addition, the developers of the project would like for this example to be donated to Data Access to be included in the future releases of VDF.

Features of the Project

• Logon View

• VDFQuery
• Date Calendar Popup
• Tree View

• “Dueling” Lists Report

• Automatic Word Printing/Saving with MS Word using FlexOLE
• E-Mailing with MS Outlook using FlexOLE

Definition of Files Used in the Project

A)    View and Report Files Included

DISDDEMO.VW – Demonstrates FlexOLE for E-Mailing, integration with MS Word, Tree View, and various other features.

EMAIL.VW – Shows sending generic e-mail and e-mail in-box.
ORDER.VW-Show VDFQuery Calendar Popup
INVQOH.VW-Shows the use of “Dueling” lists.


B)    PKG Files Included

EMAIL.PKG
EVENTLOG.PKG

WORDGEN.PKG – Business Process Object to generate an MS Word document to printer or to fax. Demonstrates opening an existing document, saving a new document, closing a document, printing a document, changing the default printer and faxing. This package is used in DISDDEMO.VW.

Class Definitions

A)    MS Outlook Classes

B)    MS Word Classes

Requirements and Platforms

A)    FlexOLE 1.5, MS Word 97, MS Outlook 97, MS Fax, and VDFQuery

B)    Platforms tested – Windows 95/98.

Installation Instructions

Unfortunately there was not an installation program available to develop a custom install. The install must be done manually but it is very easy.
The instructions assume you are installing the example to your local “C” drive. Before the example will work you will need to have FlexOLE, MS Word, MS Outlook and VDFQuery installed.


1)    Create an “ORDEREXP” subdirectory under your “C:\VDF6\EXAMPLES” directory

2)    Execute the ORDEREXP.EXE located on the diskette. It will unzip and install the files to “
C:\VDF6\EXAMPLES\ORDEREXP using the standard DAC directories.

3)    Update the Registry by using the ORDEREXP.REG file included on the diskette. Browse the diskette and double click on the ORDEREXP.REG file and your registry will be updated. If you are installing the example to any place other than your local hard drive “C” then you will need to edit the REG file. You can edit the file and change the drive and subdirectory information appropriate to your install.

Changes since DISD

Changed to use file-association to view the events.
The application used fixed folders in the EVENTLOG file for viewing the events.
This means that when developers wanted to try this example they must have the MS Office suite
installed in the same way as it was on the development machines.
This "viewer"-location was stored in EVENTLOG.VIEWER and is as from now removed.

Removed the vdfquery sources from the Workspace to keep the download small and avoid version conflicts with future versions of VdfQuery.
If you want to compile the example yourselves:
- Get the Vdfquery release 1.3b (or higher)
- Make sure that vdfquery is in the compilepath. (In the IDE: File->Configure-> Workspaces tabpage-> Add the vdfquery path to the top of MakePath)