RectStuff, PLug-in for 4th Dimension, brings to developper routines to improve the user interface.

RectStuff let the developper

• Flash or invert a rect in the screen,
• draw selection rectangle, wich follow the mouse, just like an icon selection on the desktop,
• 2 routines bring a simple way to make drag'n drop within one window with a much simpler way and easy-to-use than the 4D drag'n drop routines.

RectStuffs works very fine with: 4D from version 6.0, on Mac OS or Windows, with 4D, 4D Server, 4D Client, interpreted or compiled.

Note: You can use the plug-in with version 5.xx of 4D. If you want so, you must change the names of the routines. Those names are stored in the "STR#" resource ID 17654. In version 5, the names must have max 15 chars.

Run the sample exemple database to quickly see what the plug-in do.

The 4D developper can make a lot of things to enhance the user interface with rectStuff. By example (and this is not an exhaustive list!), you can do "simple"...

Let the user select som fields (or variables) and then:

• Change the style of the selected items: police, color, underlignes, ...
• Change format (from "### ##0,00" to "### ##0", or anything else)
• Swap from a currency to an other ($, FF, euros, ...),
• Swap langage for some data,
• Initialise a bloc of data (put all to 0, or empty string, ...)

... or a bit hardest:

- Showing datas as icons, pictures, and move them, delete them, frameRect them, ...

- Let the user customize the layouts, by deleting things they don't actually need, by moving it or displaying it an other way (and, of course, you should save those choices). This can be done with the new 4D v6 command "SET VISIBLE" and the v6.5 "MOVE OBJECT" or "GET OBJECT RECT" ABOUT RECTANGLES COORDINATES

The values you give to the plug-in are always expressed relative to the top-left border of the window, and are automatically re-calculed by the plug-in according to the scroll bars values. This automatic calculation must be done to save the integrity of your rectangles. Her comes the eplanation of this fact. Suppose a rectangle wich coordinates are:

While scrollbars are not scrolled, there is no problem. You can call, ie, s_FLASH RECT(3;50;100;70;200), and the correct rectangle will always be flashed.

If, later, the user scrolls the vertical scrollbar to, say, 50 pixels, the coordinates of your rectangle (relative to the "new" top-left corner) becom those:

If RectStuff did'nt realign the coordinates, it will flash the old coordinates, and that is a bad thing.

There is no 4D command wich tell us if a window is actually scrolled. So, internal, RectStuff takes care of this.

Somtimes anyhow, you use the GET MOUSE command to calculate a rectangle (you'll do that within a list ie: see example database). In that particular case, RectStuff should not reevaluate the coordinates. So, some routines accept a parameter wich tell the package if the coordinates need to be recalculate according to the window scrolling or not. Please, note that all coordinates are bad in an output layout, and so, rectStuff will not work correctly in this case. Except in the header, wich will never move. 4D 6.5 will give the possibility to add objects in the header, and RectStuff can be use in this case.

Order
You could order RectStuff to :

e-Node
Z.A. La Gardette
Rue Cantelaudette
33310 LORMONT
Tél : 05.56.31.57.35 Fax : 05.56.77.84.29

eMail : Sales@e-node.com
web : http://www.e-node.com/

RectStuff is edited by OSMOSE éditeur.

OSMOSE Editeur
33, Av. Jean-Monnet
13410 LAMBESC
Tél.: 00 33 4 42 92 83 55 - Fax: 00 33 4 42 92 83 27

eMail: editeur@osmose.net
web: http://osmose.net

It costs 60 EUR plus taxes outside the EEC by OS, 90 EUR plus taxes outside the EEC for both. It is a "Hassle-Free" licence. You need one per developper. Once you have paid, you'll receive a licence number to give to the routine "rs_Register":

$error:=rs_Register("Mac OS licence";"Windows licence")

While the product is unregistered, the error returned will be error N° -30 006, and the package will run in demo mode. Demo mode beeps each time a routine is called. The first 30 minutes are "free" for you ! It is a good idea to put rs_Register in the database method "On opening"