VOTools for Visual Objects and Vulcan.NET

If you are not or only partly satisfied with your current data browser, than you should have a closer look to the demo. It introduces you into the abilities of the bBrowser and enables you to compare your data browser with it.

[bBrowser screenshot]

The bBrowser is a data browser like the VO-DataBrowser which can be connected with an almost arbitrary data server like the class DBServer, SQLSelect, AdoServer or ArrayServer (contained in bBrowser library). The data server must not be inherited from the VO class DataServer but can be an arbitrary VO class. The data server must only provide certain methods and accesses as an interface for the bBrowser. Which methods and accesses these are, is documented exactly in the help of the bBrowser.

Because the bBrowser is inherited from the VO class CustomControl, it can integrated into any window class.

The following list defines some feature of the bBrowser:

	In comparison to the VO DataBrowser the bBrowser is faster at the factor 10 and more.
	Columns can be displayed on calculated fields and/or on any expressions.
	Different grids can be specified globally in the bBrowser for all columns as well as for every single column.
	Different color and font conditions can be specified globally in the bBrowser for all columns as well as for every single column.
	Columns can be moved with the mouse and changed in the width.
	Column values can be edited in various way. Integrating own controls for the edit is supported.
	The bBrowser can be adjusted in such a way that it examines cyclically whether the data in the linked server changed, in order to update the display if necessary. This is meaningful whenever a data base is used by several programs.
	Multiline column captions are supported.
	Multiline column footers are supported.
	Multiline column values are supported.
	RTF-Text, Icons and bitmaps can be displayed as column values, column captions or as column footers.
	Logical column values can be displayed as CheckBox or PushButton.
	Data rows with variable height are supported. The bBrowser determines the respective row height on the basis of the column values automatically.
	Empty values (like 0 or empty date) can be removed automatically from the display. Through this the realy important column values will be emphasized better.
	Multi-Selection of several cells or columns are supported.
	One or more columns can be frozen.
	For each column editing, selecting, moving and changing the column width can be enabled or disabled.
	Tooltips are supported for each row, column or cell.
	The bBrowser contains an information area in which special messages can be displayed. Similar to Microsoft Outlook texts, icons or bitmaps can be shown in this area, if for example no records are existing.
	The bBrowser integrates itself in the TAB-order of the window.
	and much more...

You find further information about the bBrowser in the Online-Documentation.

The bBrowser is offered in the following product versions:

	bBrowser 3 (Professional)
	bBrowser 3 (Standard)
	bBrowser 1.4 (Limited)

The bBrowser 1.4 (Limited) is offered as a free version for Visual Objects 2.8. The bBrowser 1.4 (Limited) is a time unlimited, function reduced version. The functionality of the bBrowser 1.4 (Limited) is based on the bBrowser 1.4, in which some functions are not supported.

The following table lists the differences between the bBrowser 3 and bBrowser 1.4 (Limited):

bBrowser 3
(Professional)

bBrowser 3
(Standard)

bBrowser 1.4
(Limited)

Full Source Code

DLL's for Visual Objects 2.8 SP1

DLL's for Visual Objects 2.7b

DLL's for Visual Objects 2.6

Support of Visual Styles

Support of Color Alpha Blending

Support of Drag & Drop

Multiple Selection

Support of a Title Bar

OwnerDraw Support

Support of Info Values

Support of RTF Texts

Support of Icons and Bitmaps

Color Conditions

Font Conditions

Editable Conditions

Support of ToolTips

Different Grids

Multiline Column Captions

Column Footer

Multiline Column Values

Variable Row Height

Editing of Column Values

Wallpaper in the Data Area

Table Cursor Configuration

Horizontal Scrolling in Pixel Steps

AutoRefresh Support

Virtual Columns

Group Columns

bBrowserCollection

ArrayServer

SQL

(1)

bSpinEdit-Control

(1)	The support of SQL is optimized in the bBrowser 3 (Standard and Professional).

The bBrowser 3 extends the pallet of supported features by interesting possibilities again. The Visual Styles are supported in all areas of the bBrowser control now. Representing of colors with overlapped effect, called Color Alpha Blending, is possibly in the bBrowser control now, too. Furthermore group columns are supported so that several data columns can be united to a group. But all this new features are only a part of the innovations in the bBrowser 3.

Read here which innovations the bBrowser 3 contains and get an overview of the new features.

Support of Visual Styles
The bBrowser control supports the Visual Styles in all areas now. The Visual Styles were supported only in the Scrollbars and partitial in the data area till now. But the Visual Styles are supported also in the following areas now:

	Title
	Column Caption
	Column Footer
	Selector
	Grid in Data Area

The Visual Styles can be enabled or disabled for some areas. It is therefore also possible to disable the Visual Styles completely or to enable the Visual Styles only in certain areas.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Color Alpha Blending
The bBrowser supports color alpha blending now. This means that one color overlaps another color. The overlapped color is seen through the other one. The top color is transparent. The higher the ratio of the overlapping, the lower is the transparency. The lower the ratio, the more it shows through the other. The bBrowser supports color alpha blending for the following areas:

	Title
	Column Caption
	Column Footer
	Selector
	Info Value

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Group Column
An arbitrary number of columns can be added to a group column. The added columns form a logical group. For example, the two data columns "FIRSTNAME" and "LASTNAME" could be added to the group column "Name" (see figure below).

Both data columns and other group columns can be added to a group column. In this manner, complex groups can be created.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Extented ToolTips
The behaviour of the ToolTip was extented now so that the column value is displayed as ToolTip if the cell value does not cover the complete cell.

Drag Selection of Cells
When selecting several cells in the bBrowser Control the appropriate cells had to be clicked till now one by one with the mouse. The cells simply can be selected now by dragging the mouse with left mouse button pressed.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Extended representation options for the focus rectangle
With the new access the graphic representation of the focus rectangle can be defined. The focus rectangle highlights the cell that owns the focus.

The style, thickness and color of the rectangle can be defined.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Wallpaper in bBrowser
A wallpaper can be displayed in the data area of the bBrowser control now. This way the appearance of the bBrowser control can increased.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

Drag & Drop
Drag & Drop was possible only between two bBrowsers till now. Now Drag & Drop is supported also between a bBrowser and other controls like ListBox, ListView and so on.

bSpinEdit Control
The control bSpinEdit consists of a SingleLineEdit and two integrated arrow buttons.

With the buttons, a numeric value in the control can be increased or decreased. The bSpinEdit control can be integrated into the bBrowser control for editing cell numeric cell values.

Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

and much more
Click here for more information from the Online-Documentation.

The bBrowser 2 extends the pallet of supported features with interesting new features. New features were implemented in the following areas:

	Data representation
	Data navigation
	Data editing

Despite the many new features the high speed of the bBrowser could be retained. In some areas the speed could be improved.

Read here which innovations the bBrowser 2 contains and get an overview of the new features.

Documentation
The documentation was revised completely and converted from the HLP format into the CHM format. The CHM format is the current format for documentations and offers some expansions opposite the HLP format at representation and enquiry.

Support of XP-Designs
The control classes

	bBrowser and
	bComboEdit

support the XP Designs from Windows XP now too.

For the term XP-Design the terms "Visual styles" or "XP-Themes" are often used. However, all these terms describe the same possibility of changing the skin of the graphic user interface of Windows XP.

Support of a title bar in the bBrowser
The bBrowser 2 supports a title bar now similarly like the VO DataBrowser. The title bar is shown above the column captions and can be formatted in a various way. For example the Grid and the foreground or the background color can be defined. Furthermore the height of the title bar can be either defined freely or calculated by the bBrowser control automatically. The following values can be assigned to the title bar:

	String
	Bitmap
	Icon
	bCompoundValue
	RTF-Text

Support of RTF-Text
The bBrowser control supports now the representation of RTF texts in

	column captions,
	column values and
	column footer

For the representation of RTF text the MS RichEdit control is used internally. All formattings which are supported by this control should be supported also in the bBrowser.

Improved control of cell editing
The bBrowser offered various support of editing cell values in previous versions. This support is enlarged strongly once again by the new accesses

	bBrowser:EditStartFlags
	bBrowser:EditCloseFlags
	bDataColumn:EditStartFlags
	bDataColumn:EditCloseFlags

The accesses defines bit masks with various flags with which the behavior can be defined when starting or ending a cell edit.

With the access EditStartFlags can be defined for example, at which mouse or keyboard action a cell edit shall be started.

With the access EditCloseFlags the behavior can be defined when ending a cell edit. For example it is possible when pressing the RETURN key that the table cursor is moved automatically to the next column or next row.

Support of editable conditions
With the new classes

	bEditCondition and
	bEditConditionList

editable conditions are supported in the classes bBrowser and bDataColumn now, too. With an editable condition can be define, whether a cell edit is supported.

An editable condition is defined with the class bEditCondition and consists of a condition and the accompanying editable attribute. The editable attribute is used if the condition is TRUE. Several editable conditions can be added in the class bEditConditionList.

If editable conditions are defined in the class bBrowser, then these define whether a record can be edited. Editable conditions in the class bDataColumn define whether a cell in the column can be edited.

Support of selectable conditions
With the new classes

	bSelectCondition and
	bSelectConditionList

selectable conditions are supported in the class bDataColumn now, too. With a selectable condition can be define, whether a cell can be selected.

An selectable condition is defined with the class bSelectCondition and consists of a condition and the accompanying selectable attribute. The selectable attribute is used if the condition is TRUE. Several selectable conditions can be added in the class bSelectConditionList.

Horizontal scrolling in pixel steps
Only a whole column could be scrolled left or right in the bBrowser control till now. This behavior caused problems if the column width was greater than the visible area in the bBrowser control and therefore a part of the column was hidden. The hidden area of the column could never scrolled to the visible area.

The bBrowser 2 supports the horizontal scrolling in pixel steps now. When scrolling in page steps the columns are scrolled by the width of the data area. When scrolling in single steps the columns are scrolled in steps of 10 pixels. The number of pixels which shall be scrolled in single steps can be adjusted to the needs of its own.

A side-effect at the pixel scrolling is that the last column is shown right justified now. This is always the case if all columns cannot be shown on the visible area and the last column is whole visible. In this case the last column is adjusted on the right border of the data area. In previous versions of the bBrowser it could happen that a free area was shown between the last column and the right border of the data area. With the bBrowser 2 this is not the case any more.

The new behavior at horizontal scrolling has influence on moving columns interactively with the mouse. If the column to be moved touches the left or right border of the data area, then the columns are scrolled horizontally in pixel steps now. In previous versions of bBrowser the columns are scrolled in whole column steps.

Virtual columns
The bBrowser 2 supports virtual columns now. A virtual column is a column which determines the values about an expression. Till now, this was already possible in previous versions of the bBrowser, too. It is the new one in the bBrowser 2 that the values can be edit. The virtual column manages the edit values autonomously. The virtual column contains an interface with which the edited cell values can be determined to be able to process these further.

The new class bVirtualColumn is the base class for virtual columns. This class implements the basic functionality of a virtual column. From this class the classes

	bCheckColumn and
	bVirtualFieldColumn

are inherited.

The class bCheckColumn implements a virtual column for a logical field. For example the values of this column can be shown as a CheckBox. A possible use of this column class could be selecting several records for the further processing.

The class bVirtualFieldColumn implements a virtual column for a field of arbitrary data type. The data type, the length and the number of decimals of the field are defined with a FieldSpec. The values of the field are determined with an expression which must be defined in the Init() method of the bVirtualFieldColumn.

bBrowserCollection
Several bBrowser controls can be connected to a group and synchronized at certain actions automatically with the class bBrowserCollection. For example such actions can be:

	Vertical or horizontal scrolling
	Changing the selection
	Moving a column
	Moving the table cursor

and much more...

Support of an AutoWidthColumn:
With the new access bBrowser:AutoWidthColumn a column can be defined whose width is adapted automatically, if

	a new column is opened,
	an opened column is closed,
	the width of the bBrowser is changed or
	the width of an opened column is changed.

Extended support of column captions:
If a column caption can be not completely shown, then ellipsis at the end are shown.

Optimized Support of bitmaps as column values:
The support of bitmaps was improved. Bitmaps are drawn now transparency. This means that the background colours remain from color conditions and colored grids. In addition bitmaps can be stretched.

Vertical alignment of column values:
The access bViewStyle:Alignment supports now vertical alignments:

	BALIGN_TOP
	BALIGN_BOTTOM
	BALIGN_VCENTER

New display types for logical column values:
Column values can be shown now as

	Checkbox without frame and as
	PushButton

Support of transformation list for column values:
For each column a transformation list can be defined, with that values can be transformed into another value.
With a transformation list short values (ID’s) can be transformed into more understandable values. Instead of the short values the transformed values are displayed as column values.

Extended support to suspend empty values:
For the access bDataColumn:SuspendEmptyValues now conditions are supported, to define when a value is not to be shown.

Extended support of info values:
With the bBrowser 1.4 the display of information texts was introduced. Similarly like Microsoft Outlook texts can be shown in the bBrowser, if no data exists in the linked server.
Additionally to texts are supported now

	Icons,
	Bitmaps and
	bCompoundValues

Different edit modes for columns:
With the new access bDataColumn:AutoEdit for each column its own edit mode can be defined.

Different foreground and background colours in selector:
In the selector for different states foreground and background colours as well as color conditions are supported now.

Tooltips:
The bBrowser supports now Tooltips for columns and cells.

New SelectionMode:
In the bBrowser the new SelectionMode #Permanent is supported. With this mode several cell/rows can be selected without pressing additional keys (Shift or Ctrl).

Optimized support of multiple selection:
The multiple selection was optimized for large databases. So far it was problematic, if in a database with many records all records or a large range were selected. This action could need much time. This problem is now solved.

Optimized speed for selective relations:
The speed of selective relations was improved with large databases.

Support of relations in bArrayServer:
The class bArrayServer supports now relations and selective relations.

and much more...