Information on InfoPower Studio 2012
Nov 29, 2011
InfoPower Studio is the most popular and useful component suite for
building database front-ends in Delphi and C++ Builder.
·
32 bit and 64 bit
applications:
With InfoPower 2012, you can now deliver InfoPower and 1stClass 32 bit and 64 bit applications with
the same source code base, allowing you to take advantage of the latest
hardware, access more memory, and increase your application's performance.
·
Style support: Delphi XE2 introduces VCL
styles, allowing you to create a professional and custom look and feel to your
applications. Styles are automatically applied to your all your existing InfoPower and 1stClass components so you can get a new
elegant look without having to modify any of your source code. Delphi XE2
includes many professionally designed styles that you can immediately apply to
your existing applications.
·
Distribution requirements
simplified –
InfoPower no longer requires that you distribute the wwregex.dll
and cc3270.dll for regular expression support.
·
RichEdit
– New property
SaveFormat to allow you to stream and save your
edited text as plaintext. Removed requirement to bind to database TBlobField, as now can bind to TStringField.
InfoPower Studio 2011 adds support for Rad Studio XE. The grid’s title menu also now supports null
or non-null filters, as well as providing the end-user an intelligent default
filtering value. The grid’s inifile column attributes
streaming now allow you to not stream the title information, but just the
column size and order. Also added to the grid is a new property to disable
column reordering while still allowing column resizing. Improvements to other
components include regular expression validation masks/rules for the horizontal
grid (data inspector), and record-view components. The richedit
has added zoom support for the end-user as well.
InfoPower Studio 2010 now seamlessly integrates sorting, filtering, and
grouping directly into the grid through drop-down menus in the
grid titles. The end-user can also add and remove columns on the fly and the
grid supports exporting to XML. Gestures are also integrated into both InfoPower and 1stClass.
InfoPower Studio allows developers to easily expand the global reach of their applications with built-in support for Unicode when using Delphi/Builder Rad Studio 2009, 2010, XE. Built-in support for Unicode means that applications will look and operate proplerly on all language versions of Windows and seamlessly support both Unicode and ANSI data.
The
following document details some of the functionality in InfoPower
Studio
All of InfoPower visual controls
now support custom styles. Delphi
XE2 introduces VCL styles, allowing you to create an
professional and custom look and feel to your applications. Styles are applied
to your existing InfoPower and 1stClass components so
you can get a new elegant look without having to modify any of your source
code. Delphi XE2 includes many professionally designed styles that you can
immediately apply to your existing applications.
InfoPower’s masterpiece grid is one of the most powerful components in the InfoPower library, greatly expanding upon the capabilities of Delphi’s native grid component. In addition to the functionality of the Delphi grid, InfoPower’s grid supports the following:
InfoPower adds TitleMenu to each grid column, that allows the end-user to sort, group, filter the grid, and add/remove columns to/from the grid. Sorting is automatic when using client-side datasets such as TClientDataSet, but the grid also has supporting events to allow you to sort on other dataset types. Filtering supports text, numeric and date filters. Date filters also display and execute relative filters such as “Last Month”, “Last Year”, etc. InfoPower 2011 extends the filtering capabilities to include null support as well as auto-defaulting the filter value to assist the end-user.
The end-user can now select columns to remove or add from the TitleMenu. You can customize how the columns are displayed to the end-user, and even group related columns hierarchically. Notice how the dialog is displayed below where the multiple columns are grouped under the node Address.
InfoPower brings you a new paradigm to display and edit your master/detail relationships. Detail tables can be initially hidden, and then expanded into full view when the end-user expands a expand/collapse button in the parent grid. Each child-grid is fully customizable as in the parent grid, and the control preserves the liveness of each expanded detail grid.
InfoPower Essentials allows you to
embed a rich variety of controls in the grid, including combos, lookupcombos, datetimepickers,
and spinedits.
The grid also allows each custom control to do their own painting in the
grid so that even graphics, etc. will be displayed for every row in the grid without any code on your part.
The InfoPower
Professional version allows the data inspector to be embedded in the grid,
giving a multi-row record display. In addition, the CheckBox,
RadioGroup, RichEdit, ExpandCollapse buttons, and ImageCombo
controls can also be embedded, which significantly improves the versatility of
the grid.
You can even embed non-InfoPower controls, such as the TDBImage, or Woll2Woll 1stClass Studio controls such as the 1stClass treecombo, and 1stClass buttons (giving your grid a clickable component for each record). In addition the button colors can be dynamically computed allowing the color to be different based on the record information.
The titles in the grid can be displayed and managed hierarchically. This allows you to group related fields together. Also for header dragging operations, the grid more clearing indicates the new placement of the column.
OnBeforeDrawCell, OnAfterDrawCell, OnCalcTitleAttributes, OnCalcCellColors, OnDrawFooterCell
Set the alignment of column headings
to left, center or right justified. You
can even separately control each column's heading attributes (font color,
background color, alignment), as well as display multi-line headings, and icons
from ImageLists.
Developer can embed footer cells at the bottom of the grid to display summaries of column information.
Use expand/collapse buttons to allow the user to
edit a composite field. You can display a calculated field such as full name
(composed of first name + last name)., and then the
user can expand the composite calculated field to edit the individual portions.
In some cases you may have data that you wish to display as a group in the grid. InfoPower allows you to display this information as a group by only displaying the text for the first instance, as well as removing the lines in between. See the Company field below.
Allow the user to conveniently copy the previous record’s value into the cell.
InfoPower supports exporting to various formats to aid your end-users in extracting their displayed data to be used with other applications. In addition you can copy the selected records to the clipboard. See the following for an example of the generated html. InfoPower 2010 adds the ability to export to xml
http://www.woll2woll.com/infopower/exportexample.html
Use either the picture mask language or regular expressions to edit and validate your users’s input. For more information on these mask languages see section 3 below.
Customizable cell-level hints when the cell’s text does not fit in the cell. Excellent when used with memo fields to display the entire contents of the memo just by moving the mouse over the cell.
Saving and loading of the user’s runtime settings of the column positions and widths from the registry or an inifile.
Just set the FixedCols property to indicate the number of nonscrollable columns to display in the left-hand side of the grid. Also allows editable and resizable fixed columns
The colors of the text and background displayed within individual cells can be dynamically determined based on the values of related field values.
The grid improves both its painting performance and visual effect with its new flicker-free display.
InfoPower allows your applications to further impress by adding support for background texture tiling. The component takes care of blending your tile with the color of the grid region, giving you a truly impressive and professional display.
Define columns as URL links (i.e. Email addresses). The grid will automatically handle its display and the opening of the link.
New property to automatically alternate the colors of the rows in the grid. This provides a pleasing look to the end-user and helps differentiate one record from another.
The grid can now automatically size all the columns to fit perfectly in the grid’s client area. If the grid is resized, all the columns still fit perfectly. Any trailing column space after the last column is removed.
User’s can enlarge the sizes of the rows by dragging the horizontal line in the indicator column
You can now override the default line colors
Title Buttons in the Column headers allow you to easily change
the index or sort order of your dataset. You can also embed a custom button into
the header of the indicator column
Display bitmaps from imagelists in both the column headers and the data cells.
Scale cells to double or triple the height and word-wrap text
in resulting cells.
Dbl-clicking the sizing line for a grid can automatically grow or shrink the column’s width, based on the widest displayed text in the column
As a result you will be able to edit calculated linked fields or lookup fields in a grid with only a few lines of code.
Dbl-clicking the sizing line for a grid can automatically grow or shrink the column’s width, based on the widest displayed text in the column
View and edit memos, and display a
customizable pop-up memo editing window where your end-users can view and/or
edit the contents of a memo field, depending on how you set the properties.
Select contiguous records using shift-select, and auto-unselect the selected records when you just click on a record.
Carriage returns can automatically be converted to a tab for easy navigation
InfoPower greatly expands the capabilities of a regular data aware combo-box. It has the following advantages over the native controls. The InfoPower Essentials version allows you to use the combo within the Essentials grid, but not outside the grid.
InfoPower gives its combo-box the ability to remember the user’s previously entered values. The next time the user’s program is executed, these previously entered values are automatically filled into the combobox’s dropdown list. You can also specify a separate MRU list so that the most recently entered entries appear at the top of the list.
Allows you to enter mapped storage and display values so that you can display understandable text versions of stored codes in your table, instead of displaying only the codes themselves where users have to remember what they all mean.
All of InfoPower's lookup components support the 'Quicken' style display of the matching value, by simultaneously searching and displaying the matching text in the search control.
Since InfoPower is derived from the InfoPower base editor class, you can access the following additional properties which are not available in Delphi’s native combo control: AutoSelect, AutoSize, BorderStyle, CharCase, MaxLength, and InfoPower’s validation language PictureMask property.
Supports customizable borders, border styles, as well as transparency.
The combo buttons in the edit controls can also be displayed in a flat style and transparently as well for an extremely natural and updated look.
The glyph in the combo is configurable through the control’s ButtonGlyph and ButtonWidth properties.
InfoPower brings consistency to editing your numeric and currency
fields. Its components give the end-user
the ability to enter in the special currency or custom formatting symbols, and
the component will automatically take care of stripping these formatting
characters when it comes time to store the data.
For
example, if the user typed in the string ‘$1,000.00’, the editors take care of
stripping the commas and the dollar sign so that the input is converted
correctly to a floating point value when storing. The numeric editors also now
support right-aligned editing.
InfoPower gives you the most flexible component for selecting entries from a lookuptable. Here is some of what this powerful component can do.
All of InfoPower's lookup components now support the 'Quicken' style display of the matching value, by simultaneously searching and displaying the matching text in the search control.
Select any number of fields to be displayed in the drop-down list along with defining their display width and optional titles. Also define in which direction the drop-down list should grow in width, either to the left or to the right, depending on where the component is located on your form.
With the ImageList Support you can display a column of images in the dropdown list.
The values in the drop-down list are sorted in the order of the first field you select to be displayed, if it's a secondary index field, instead of being sorted in primary key order.
Fll a drop-down list with a table, query, QBE, ClientDataSet, and even parameterized queries.
Smart properties to auto-drop down the list upon a valid keystroke as well as a convenient way of clearing the Lookup Combo's Text.
The component can be used in a TwwDBGrid component to replace any multiple-choice type of field in the grid, giving your end-users sophisticated lookup and fill capabilities within the grid or record-view components.
The component does not have to be bound, or assigned, to a table's field (DataField and DataSource properties) which gives you greater flexibility in using this LookupCombo for general tasks where a source table is not involved.
Show only the relevant records from the lookup table by attaching to a dependent table, using paramaterized queries, or filtering the dataset related to the drop-down list.
Use InfoPower’s custom framing to customize how the controls borders and background are painted.
The end-user can modify the contents of the TwwDBSpinEdit by clicking on the up and down icons.
Alternatively they can use the UP Arrow and DOWN Arrow keys. On Date, Time, and
DateTime fields the spinedit
will highlight the text that is changing while spinning, so the user will
visually see what is changing.
InfoPower provides the most
flexible and usable DateTimePicker for Delphi. DateTimePickers support drop-down calendars to assist the
user in selecting a date. InfoPower's Essential
version can only be used within the grid, and includes the following
functionality.
This combo control allows you to embed images from a TImageList in the drop-down list in addition to any text associated with the image. In addition the image also appears in the edit portion of the control. You can also display a different text value than is actually stored, by using MapList in conjunction with setting the Item's StoredText and DisplayedText properties. The ImageCombo can also be embedded into the InfoPower grid and inspector components, supporting seamless and codeless integration.
InfoPower allows
you to display a transposed grid where the data columns are vertical, instead
of horizontal. This brings your
end-users a smart alternative to the left-right editing of a traditional grid.
The vertical grid’s flexibility can be seen through its hierarchical view of data
(similar to a tree).
InfoPower allows you to embed a
wider variety of controls in the inspector.
You can now even embed non-InfoPower controls,
such as the TDBImage. The inspector also allows each
custom control to do their own painting in the grid so that even graphics, richedits, etc. will be displayed for every row in the grid without any code on your part.
InfoPower allows your applications
to further impress by adding support for background texture
tiling. The component takes care of blending your tile with the color of the
inspector region, giving you a truly impressive and professional display.
New property to automatically alternate the row colors and to highlight the active column
When items are expanded., the inspector now paints tree lines supporting an elegant tree display.
Using this control you can group related fields together in categories. Thus providing an organized view of data. You can even display data from different datasets.
You can even use this control unbound just like the Delphi object inspector.
InfoPower provides two independent but expressive languages to validate your user’s data entry.
InfoPower gives programmers the ability to validate their user's input using regular expressions masks. A regular expression is a special text string for describing a search pattern. Regular expressions are one of the most powerful ways to define a set of rules, and are widely used across many different programming tools.
As-you-type validation is supported, and the end-user can be visually notified of the validity of their input using the error colors. InfoPower 2011 adds regular expression support to the recordview components as well as its TwwDataInspector component.
InfoPower gives you incredibly flexible and expressive picture masks which greatly assist in automatically validating your user's input. InfoPower's masks duplicate the Picture function that's been available in Borland's Paradox relational database product, providing the power of a full mask language instead of just a mask template. Picture masks greatly assists the end-user during data entry by intelligent auto-filling of characters where appropriate as well as informing them if they have incorrectly entered any data. This allows data entry to be faster and easier. Here are some examples of the power of picture masks.
The first letter
of each word is automatically capitalized. For instance, if the user enters
“235 quinault way”, InfoPower
conveniently converts the input to “235 Quinault Way” as they are
typing.
Masks which contain
optional sequence of characters
Such as an
optional zip code suffix in a zip code.
If the user does not match the format defined by your mask, you can
inform the user visually or prevent the control from losing focus.
Intelligent auto-filling of characters as the user types
The user’s
keystrokes can be minimized as the mask language can fill in the static
characters. For instance with a SSN mask
of ###-##-####, the dashes (-) can be automatically filled in so that the user
just needs to type in the numbers.
Developer
can globally assign validation background and foreground colors for invalid
data entered by the user. Invalid data is determined by either regular
expressions or picture mask validation.
InfoPower gives you the means to create elegant forms that look just like the real hardcopy form they are based on. You may see other component suites that allow you to turn on or off the borders, but do they allow you to see the background through the edit control for true underlined controls? InfoPower does. The new features that InfoPower has added to it’s edit controls are:
However the custom framing goes far beyond simple underline controls as you can display the borders in many different frame styles (bump, raised, box, single, etched, etc).
You can selectively turn off the top, bottom, left, and/or right borders around InfoPower edit controls.
What’s more is that you can customize these settings depending on the focus of the control.
No other VCL gives you all this and the ability to have controls display transparently on your backgrounds. Drop a TImage onto the background of your form and place InfoPower controls and any other VCL Control and you will immediately notice the difference.
The combo buttons in the edit controls can also be displayed in a flat style and transparently as well for an extremely natural look. Notice the buttons in the edit controls in the screen-shot above, you can also load your own custom glyph in any of our combo controls.
Hot-tracking of border styles similar to Microsoft Office
InfoPower includes a powerful visual component greatly expands upon the capabilities of Delphi’s built-in richedit component. It is the most complete and powerful richedit control available.
In addition to the functionality of TDBRichEdit, InfoPower’s control provides you with the ability to:
Embed bitmaps & OLE objects directly into the richedit control. You can even save these to your database.
Supports RichEdit version 4 for improved compatibility with table formatting such as wrappable table cells.
Allows you to see a preview of the richedit’s contents, and even display page numbers, headers, and footers in the print preview.
Set paragraph indentations within the pop-up rich-edit dialog using an accurate ruler.
Numbering support for paragraphs are integrated into the menus
Enjoy the improvements of the latest version of the RichEdit control. For instance, version 4 adds support for multi-line wrappable table cells.
URL addresses in the rich-edit text are automatically underlined. The component will also automatically open the specified URL with the Internet Browser.
Import or Export to HTML, import from Microsoft Word. Also supports many other formats.
End-user can bring up InfoPower's powerful RTF word processor to give them a full word processor environment.
Supports end-user customization of the page layout using the PageSetup common dialog.
When printing the richedit contents, a custom header and footer can be part of the hardcopy printout.
After storing RTF text into database blob fields, you can still have access to InfoPower's powerful database searching and filtering capabilities.
Developer can add their own speedbuttons to the pop-up richedit dialog to integrate other 3rd-party tools such as RTF spell checkers.
Right-click this component to see an example.
Delphi's version cannot store formatted text into the a control during design time.
Easily embed into InfoPower's RecordView components or attach to a TwwDBGrid to allow the end-user to use the popup wordprocessor to edit RTF fields in the database. The grid will display the unformatted text inside the grid cell.
The richedit control can now be displayed transparently when it does not have the focus. Disable the control and set some of the framing properties and you can use this control as a RichEdit label.
The end-user can now set the background color of selected text. This allows certain text to standout. User highlighting is integrated as a new button in the word processor.
The word processor has updated the appearance of its menu by displaying bitmaps next to certain menu selections.
You can now more easily change the behavior of the common menu selections from the word processor with the introduction of the following new events: OnMenuLoadClick, OnMenuPrintClick, OnMenuSaveAndExitClick, & OnMenuSaveAsClick.
The RichEditBar component allows you to have a full word-processor attached and embedded into your own form. While the TwwDBRichEdit can bring up a pop-up word processor, the RichEditBar differs in that the word processing capabilities are available directly from your own form. This outstanding component gives you precise control over each richedit property setting.
InfoPower integrates a versatile new checkbox control into its
suite.
· Support for your own custom bitmaps for the checkbox glyphs
· Support for 3 states including integration with the InfoPower grid, record-view components, and data inspector.
· Dynamic caption support – The text of the checkbox can change to reflect the underlying value or mapped value.
· Custom framing and transparency support for a consistent look with other InfoPower edit controls
InfoPower integrates a versatile radio-group control into its
suite.
· Support for your own custom bitmaps radio-button glyphs
· Support for additional glyph for each radio item
· Integration with the InfoPower grid, record-view components, and data inspector.
· Custom framing and transparency support for a consistent look with other InfoPower edit controls
InfoPower's elegant TwwFilterDialog is one of the most useful end-user components as it enables them with the ability to visually filter a dataset, modify the where clause of an existing SQL query, or even filter records in Delphi's TClientDataSets.
Simple for the end-user to
use:
Even though the dialog is capable of sophisticated SQL generation, the dialog is
simple to use as it completely hides the filtering and SQL details from the
end-user.
Your end-users can specify a search value, or a range, for any number of fields contained within the dataset.
Select a specific type of data match to be performed within the field, such as "From beginning of field", "Anywhere within the field", and "Exact match".
Specify keywords such as "AND", "OR", "NULL" to specify multiple filter criteria for each field, such as... John OR Paul. InfoPower also allows the end-user to easily see all non-matching records.
Support for filtering on the server side for fast performance! When using the component with a TQuery object, you can have the back-end perform determine which records should be included in the view.
You can now map user-entered text to a specific database value. This can allow the enduser to filter based on some more meaningful text even if that text is not stored in the database. For instance if the database was storing the codes 1, 2, 3, and they respectively represented the strings ‘ Visa’, ‘Mastercard’, ‘American Express’, you could allow the user to enter the string ‘Visa’ instead of ‘1’ to find all customers who used a visa card.
TwwKeyCombo
If your end-users want a way to sort or incrementally search on other fields, then just drop our database sort component onto your
application.
The drop-down selection list is populated with the DisplayNames of all indexes available for the table that it is assigned to.
You can incrementally search or sort-by any field in datasets that support local mode.
TwwIncrementalSearch
TwwIncrementalSearch is a visual interface component
that provides your end-users with a means to incrementally search for values.
As the end-user enters characters into the edit box, the component performs a
search operation based on the characters currently in the edit box, moving to
the record that contains the closest match
Set ShowMatchText to true to have Quicken Style incremental searching by simultaneously searching and displaying the matching text in the search control.
Automatically uses any available index to enhance performance when doing the lookups.
Set the EditFrame property to customize how the controls borders and background are painted.
TwwLocateDialog
The TwwLocateDialog
component itself is non-visual but when executed it provides your end-users
with a dialog box that allows them to search for a value within any field,
including Memo fields.
The built-in FindFirst and FindNext methods can be executed under program control without displaying the dialog box. This lets the developer assign any end-user keyboard key, button or icon to these methods, allowing the user to repeat the last locate command or start over from the beginning of the table without having to re-display the dialog box or re-enter their search criteria.
TwwLocateDialog provides your end-users with a dialog box that allows them to search or partial search for a value within any field, including Memo data type fields, calculated fields, and lookup fields.
InfoPower also includes other powerful and easy to use dialogs that are let your users find the data they are looking for. These dialogs support:
· Supports InfoPower's flexible picture masks.
·
User
Definable Buttons
Up to 2 user definable buttons are included in these dialogs for your own
custom actions.
·
Useful events for further Customization
Use the OnInitDialog or OnCloseDialog
events or any of the other events to further customize how the dialog is used
and displayed.
TwwDBMonthCalendar
InfoPower's MonthCalendar
control allows you to display a calendar to the end-user.
TwwRecordViewDialog and
TwwRecordViewPanel
These InfoPower components provide a convenient way
to view or edit a record's contents. The component dynamically creates a form
based on your DataSet's field properties. It removes
the necessity of building custom record editing forms or the need for using
experts for each table. The main difference between these two components is
that one is a popup modal/nonmodal dialog, while the
other is a panel that can be embedded directly on your own form. Some of its
features are:
The record-view will automatically use the TwwDBDateTimePicker control on date or time fields, and the TwwDBRichEdit control with RTF memo fields. It also contains support for embedding custom controls and 1stClass controls.
InfoPower's recordview components come with a ton of property settings that allow you to:
· Control the spacing between labels and controls for that consistent look and feel.
· Choose from a vertical or horizontal layout for the fields.
· In vertical display mode you can make all the edits have the same width.
· Change a single property and you can display readonly fields in another color, hide readonly fields, hide calculated fields and much more.
· You can also easily display background images using techniques listed on our tips page.
Set PictureMasks, add custom menus, grid integration and much more!
Set the Options | tvoLabelsBeneathControls to true to place labels underneath their related edit control. See picture below for an example of this.
Set the EditFrame property to customize how the controls borders and background are painted. For instance, simply set the EditFrame.Enabled and EditFrame.Transparent properties to True to display the edit controls transparently. Put an image in the background for truly quick and amazing professional results.
InfoPower allows you to embed the checkbox and radio-group controls within the record-view components. In addition, the record-view also supports the new InfoPower framing styles.
Infopower includes a extendable DBNavigator component (database navigator to move through
and manipulate the data in a dataset), which supports user-definable images and
actions, integration with InfoPower’s dialogs,
flexible control over the layout, user-definable page sizes, and support for
multiple rows of icons.
Add additional speed buttons to the navigator to execute your own custom code.
Contains built-in navigator buttons such as bookmarks, InfoPower dialogs, and PageUp/PageDown.
Contains built-in support for animated icons when an enduser moves their mouse over the navigator button. Set numglyphs to 4 and store the Default, Disabled, Down, and MouseOver glyphs in the navigator's ImageList.
The InfoPower navigator updates its appearance by allowing you to transparently display the navigator and its related buttons. This helps your applications present a very professional and polished look.
To help ease the use of customizing the navigator’s actions, action list support is now supported for each navigator button.
See
http://www.woll2woll.com/Ordering.html
for further details on ordering InfoPower, and
special upgrade pricing.