More performant rich text control than CL_GUI_BTFEDITOR? - abap

I found a rich text editor which is quite easy to use in normal abap.
CL_BTF* will show all the stuff, I mean.
However, it seems to be a little bit buggy.
1) It behaves buggy with cr/lf's and < br >'s. When I receive the string, the
editor ( it is type of html ), doubles cr/lf by not removing cr/lf's and
replaceing them by < br >'s. No problem, I do it myself later.
2) It seems to be quite unperformant 4 editors on one dynpro take almost 5
seconds before the dynpro is shown via "CALL SCREEN".
Does anybody know a better option?

I have used extensively another control, which can be programmed via the class CL_GUI_RTF_EDITOR (it was used by the "SAPscript text editor", before SAP switched to Microsoft Word).
I can't tell you whether this RTF editor is less or more buggy than "your" BTF editor (CL_GUI_BTFEDITOR if it's the class you are talking about), because I don't know this BTF class.
But I can tell you that CL_GUI_RTF_EDITOR has a weird behavior for some of its features. No idea concerning the performance. Note that it took me some time to understand how it worked, what were the limitations, and how to countervene them.
If you want to test the performance of the RTF editor, here is a very short example you may adapt :
DATA editor_id TYPE i.
DATA ed TYPE REF TO cl_gui_rtf_editor.
PARAMETERS dummy TYPE flag.
at SELECTION-screen output.
CREATE OBJECT ed
EXPORTING
parent = cl_gui_container=>screen0
EXCEPTIONS
OTHERS = 4.
CALL METHOD ed->create_editor
EXPORTING
LEFT = 1
top = 1
height = 500
WIDTH = 600
ascii_text = 'X'
CHANGING
editor_id = editor_id
EXCEPTIONS
OTHERS = 5 .
CALL METHOD ed->create_field
EXPORTING
p_name = 'HUGO'
p_value = 'mon texte'
p_width = 2000.
By the way, maybe another solution is to reuse a classic HTML text editor and embed it into a web browser (CL_GUI_HTML_VIEWER class). The web browser is one provided by Microsoft, so maybe it's better designed.

Related

Generation of ABAP report in runtime possible?

Is there any Function module that can generate ABAP code.
For eg: FM takes tables name and join conditions as input and generate ABAP code corresponding to that.
Thanks
You should consider using SAPQuery. SAP documentation here: https://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/d2/cb3efb455611d189710000e8322d00/content.htm
1. Generic reports are possible.
Your problem is, that You will have to draw a strict frame of what is
generic and what not, this means, some stuff MUST be that generic, that
it will deal with WHATEVER You want to do before ( mostly the selection ) ,
during ( mostly manipulation ---> I would offer a badi for that ), and output.
This means, that there is at least the output-step, which can be valid for ALL
data resulting from the steps before.
Consider a generic ALV-table_output, there are a lot of examples in the repo.
If You want to be the stuff printed out simple as list, this might include
more work, like, how big is the structure, when Dou You wrap a line, and so on, consider using a flag which allows to toggle the type of output .
2. Generic reports are a transportable object.
This refers to point one. Define clear stages and limits. What does the report do, and what is it not able to do. Because, even if it is in customer's namespace, each modification still will be put into transport-layers. Therefore a strict definition of features/limits is necessary so that the amount of transports due to "oh, but we also need that"-statements will not become infinite.
2. Generic reports are strict.
What does that mean ? You might want to parse the passed data ( table names, join-binding, selection-parameter-values ) and throw exceptions, if not properly set. Much work. You should offer a badi for that. If You do not do this, expect a dump. let it dump. In the end the user of Your report-api should know ( by documentation perhaps) how to call it. If not, a dynamic SQL-dump will be the result.
3. Generic reports might benefit from badis/exits.
This is self explanaining, I think. Especially generic/dynamic selection/modification/displaying of data should be extendable in terms of
custom-modifications. When You inspect, what a f4-search-help exit works like, You will understand, what I mean.
4. Generic coding is hard to debug, mostly a blackbox.
Self explaining, in the code-section below I can mark some of those sections.
5. Generic coding has some best prectice examples in the repo.
Do not reinvent the wheel. Check, how the se16n works by debugging it,
check how se11 works by debugging it. Check, what the SQL-Query-builder
looks like in the debugger. You will get the idea very soon,
and the copy-paste should be the most simple part of Your work.
6. That are the basic parts of what You might use.
Where clause determination and setting the params.
data lt_range type rsds_trange.
data ls_range_f type rsds_frange.
data lt_where type rsds_twhere.
data ls_where like line of lt_where.
ls_range_f = value #( sign = _sign
option = _option
low = _low
high = _high ).
.
.
.
append ls_frange to lt_range.
.
.
.
call function 'FREE_SELECTIONS_RANGE_2_WHERE'
exporting
field_ranges = lt_range
importing
where_clauses = lt_where.
You have the parameter, let us create the select-result-table.
data(lt_key) = value abap_keydescr_tab( for line in _joinfields)
( name = fieldname ) ).
data(lo_structdescr) = cast cl_abap_structdescr( cl_abap_structdescr=>describe_by_name( _struct_name ) ).
data(lo_tabledescr) = cl_abap_tabledescr=>create( line_type = lo_structdescr p_key = lt_key ).
create data ro_data type handle lo_tabledescr.
.
.
.
select (sel_st)
from (sel_bind)
into corresponding fields of table t_data
where (dyn_where).
Then assign the seelct-table-result-reference to the generic table of this select.
Do You need more hints ?
Yes, such possibility exists, but not by means of function modules. INSERT REPORT statement allows generating report by populating its code from internal text table:
INSERT REPORT prog FROM itab
[MAXIMUM WIDTH INTO wid]
{ [KEEPING DIRECTORY ENTRY]
| { [PROGRAM TYPE pt]
[FIXED-POINT ARITHMETIC fp]
[UNICODE ENABLING uc] }
| [DIRECTORY ENTRY dir] }.

Why does this search for [help/dont-ask] return irrelevant results in DSE?

Why does this ridiculously simple query on data.stackexchange.com return results that don't have [help/dont-ask] in the comment text? I feel like I'm missing something mind-numbingly obvious here.
select top 10 Id, PostId, Text
from comments
where text like '%[help/dont-ask]%'
Results I currently get:
Id PostId Text
-- ------- -----------------------------------
1 35314 not sure why this is getting downvoted -- it is correct! Double check it in your compiler if you don't believe him!
2 35314 Yeah, I didn't believe it until I created a console app - but good lord! Why would they give you the rope to hang yourself! I hated that about VB.NET - the OrElse and AndAlso keywords!
4 35195 I don't see an accepted answer now, I wonder how that got unaccepted. Incidentally, I would have marked an accepted answer based on the answers available at the time. Also, accepted doesn't mean Best :)
9 47239 Jonathan: Wow! Thank you for all of that, you did an amazing amount of work!
10 45651 It will help if you give some details of which database you are using as techniques vary.
12 47428 One of the things that make a url user-friendly is 'discover-ability', meaning you can take a guess at url's simply from the address bar. http://i.love.pets.com/search/cats+dogs could easily lead to http://i.love.pets.com/search/pug+puppies etc
14 47481 I agree, both CodeRush and RefactorPro are visually impressive (most of which can be turned off BTW), but for navigating and refactoring Resharper is much better in my opinion of using both products.
15 47373 Just wanted to mention that this is an excellent solution if you consider the problem to be linear (i.e. treating `A1B2` as a single number). I still think the problem is multi-dimensional, but I guess we'll just have to wait for the author to clarify :)
16 47497 Indeed, the only way to do this is get the server to generate your CSS file which can be done in many ways depending on which language you are using. HttpHandlers are common in C#. You could use jQuery or the likes to add styling to every element with the class 'ourColur' and parametrise your JS
18 47513 This advice goes against the spirit of CSS, which is separation of content and presentation. You way requires changing HTML for presentation sake, and stating in content which elements have same color.
...none of which contains the magic link (or even the text dont-ask).
Because [] delimits a set of characters to find.
You need to escape them.
Or just use CHARINDEX as the search is unsargable anyway.
WHERE CHARINDEX('[help/dont-ask]', text) > 0

Ascw returns "Cannot convert to 'Integer'." in Watch or Immediate

I have following sample code
Dim q As Char = "a"
Dim res As String = CStr(AscW(q))
res contains correctly "97" but when I use AscW(q) in watch or immediate it returns message: Cannot convert to 'Integer'.
Is it a bug or Visual Studio or am I doing something not correctly?
How can I see a character code in Immediate.
Note
The code presented is just an example. I found the problem when trying to see Character code in the Watch Window.
For a workaround, how about the command
? System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(q)
I personally believe that any acceptable VB.Net code should be acceptable in the Immediate window and really don't understand why AscW is causing errors when VB.Net offers no equivalent (e.g. in C#, but not VB.Net, you can cast a Char variable to an Integer to get the character code).
You are doing everything right (and the outputs will be OK in any case), although you are using old VB code. If you need functionalities like AscW (, Asc, ChrW, etc.), you would have to rely on this "old code" to get what you want (directly or via Microsoft.VisualBasic.Strings which, btw, does not show a different behaviour). But, in any other case, you should avoid the utilisation of this old code.
Test these two lines in the Immediate Window:
Dim res As String = CStr(5)
res = 5.ToString()
As you can see, you get an "error" (VS 2010, right-click on the line and select "QuickWatch") in the first line (old version), but not in the second one (.NET version).
Thus, the behaviour you observed can be considered as an inoffensive bug (no real effects in the execution) more or less understandable if you analyse the situation (you are asking a certain language (VB.NET) to support all its own features and the ones from an old language (VB); with the old one, some secondary functionalities might not be perfect).

Changing the color of a leader in AutoCad

I'm currently working on converting a VBA AutoCAD-application over to VB.NET, and the current command I'm working on is creating a simple leader with code like this:
Set leaderObj = ThisDrawing.ModelSpace.AddLeader(points, blockRefObj, leaderType)
leaderObj.ArrowheadType = acArrowDotSmall
leaderObj.ArrowheadSize = 2.5 * varDimscale
leaderObj.DimensionLineColor = acWhite
I've been able to create the Leader-line in .NET using
Dim l = New Leader()
For Each point In jig.LeaderPoints
l.AppendVertex(point)
Next
l.Dimldrblk = arrId
The arrId I got from using the function found here, but I've been unable to figure out how to set the color of the leader to white (it shows up as red by default), and also how to set the size of the arrowhead. If anyone could help me out with this I would be most grateful.
Ok, after a lot of trial and error, I figured out that the solution was rather simple. I didn't have to override any dimension styles (which I honestly don't even know what is, I had a short beginners course in AutoCAD before getting handed this project), I simply had to set an obscure property on the Leader-object. For future references, and for anyone else trying to do the same, here's the properties I ended up using:
leader.Dimclrd
The color of the leader-line. Stands for something like "dimension line color".
leader.Dimasz
The scale of the leader-head.
As type BlockReference, it should have a color property and the property should be an Autodesk.Autocad.Colors.Color or an Integer. Also the reason you are getting the object for read is, in your transaction you are opening the database with
OpenMode.ForRead
And that is correct. But to edit the object in the database, you must retrieve the object like below
var obj = Thetransaction.GetObject(theobjectid,OpenMode.ForWrite) as BlockReferance;
This is done inside of the
using(var trans = TransactionManager.StartTransaction()){}
I'm doing this on a cell, so check the camel case and syntax because I write in c#, but it should be pretty close.
You may want to see if there is a scale property, as to change the size.
Hopefully this will move you in the right direction.
Let me know if you have any problems. :)

Proportional font IDE

I would really like to see a proportional font IDE, even if I have to build it myself (perhaps as an extension to Visual Studio). What I basically mean is MS Word style editing of code that sort of looks like the typographical style in The C++ Programming Language book.
I want to set tab stops for my indents and lining up function signatures and rows of assignment statements, which could be specified in points instead of fixed character positions. I would also like bold and italics. Various font sizes and even style sheets would be cool.
Has anyone seen anything like this out there or know the best way to start building one?
I'd still like to see a popular editor or IDE implement elastic tabstops.
Thinking with Style suggests to use your favorite text-manipulation software like Word or Writer. Create your programme code in rich XML and extract the compiler-relevant sections with XSLT. The "Office" software will provide all advanced text-manipulation and formatting features.
i expected you'll get down-modded and picked on for that suggestion, but there's some real sense to the idea.
The main advantage of the traditional 'non-proportional' font requirement in code editors is to ease the burden of performing code formatting.
But with all of the interactive automatic formatting that occurs in modern IDE's, it's really possible that a proportional font could improve the readability of the code (rather than hampering it, as i'm sure many purists would expect).
A character called Roedy Green (famous for his 'how to write unmaintainable code' articles) wrote about a theoretical editor/language, based on Java and called Bali. It didn't include non-proportional fonts exactly, but it did include the idea of having non-uniform font-sizes.
Also, this short Joel Spolsky post posts to a solution, elastic tab stops (as mentioned by another commentor) that would help with the support of non-proportional (and variable sized) fonts.
#Thomas Owens
I don't find code formatted like that easier to read.
That's fine, it is just a personal preference and we can disagree. Format it the way you think is best and I'll respect it. I frequently ask myself 'how should I format this or that thing?' My answer is always to format it to improve readability, which I admit can be subjective.
Regarding your sample, I just like having that nicely aligned column on the right hand side, its sort of a quick "index" into the code on the left. Having said that, I would probably avoid commenting every line like that anyway because the code itself shouldn't need that much explanation. And if it does I tend to write a paragraph above the code.
But consider this example from the original poster. Its easier to spot the comments in the second one in my opinion.
for (size-type i = 0; i<v.size(); i++) { // rehash:
size-type ii = has(v[i].key)%b.size9); // hash
v[i].next = b[ii]; // link
b[ii] = &v[i];
}
for (size-type i = 0; i<v.size(); i++) { // rehash:
size-type ii = has(v[i].key)%b.size9); // hash
v[i].next = b[ii]; // link
b[ii] = &v[i];
}
#Thomas Owens
But do people really line comments up
like that? ... I never try to
line up declarations or comments or
anything, and the only place I've ever
seen that is in textbooks.
Yes people do line up comments and declarations and all sorts of things. Consistently well formatted code is easier to read and code that is easier to read is easier to maintain.
I wonder why nobody actually answers your question, and why the accepted answer doesn't really have anything to do with your question. But anyway...
a proportional font IDE
In Eclipse you can cchoose any font on your system.
set tab stops for my indents
In Eclipse you can configure the automatic indentation, including setting it to "tabs only".
lining up function signatures and rows of assignment statements
In Eclipse, automatic indentation does that.
which could be specified in points instead of fixed character positions.
Sorry, I don't think Eclipse can help you there. But it is open source. ;-)
bold and italics
Eclipse has that.
Various font sizes and even style sheets would be cool
I think Eclipse only uses one font and font-size for each file type (for example Java source file), but you can have different "style sheets" for different file types.
When I last looked at Eclipse (some time ago now!) it allowed you to choose any installed font to work in. Not so sure whether it supported the notion of indenting using tab stops.
It looked cool, but the code was definitely harder to read...
Soeren: That's kind of neat, IMO. But do people really line comments up like that? For my end of line comments, I always use a single space then // or /* or equivalent, depending on language I'm using. I never try to line up declarations or comments or anything, and the only place I've ever seen that is in textbooks.
#Brian Ensink: I don't find code formatted like that easier to read.
int var1 = 1 //Comment
int longerVar = 2 //Comment
int anotherVar = 4 //Command
versus
int var2 = 1 //Comment
int longerVar = 2 //Comment
int anotherVar = 4 //Comment
I find the first lines easier to read than the second lines, personally.
The indentation part of your question is being done today in a real product, though possibly to even a greater level of automation than you imagined, the product I mention is an XSLT IDE, but the same formatting principles would work with most (but not all) conventional code syntaxes.
This really has to be seen in video to get the sense of it all (sorry about the music back-track). There's also a light XML editor spin-off product, XMLQuire, that serves as a technology demonstrator.
The screenshot below shows XML formatted with quite complex formatting rules in this XSLT IDE, where all indentation is performed word-processor style, using the left margin - not space or tab characters.
To emphasise this formatting concept, all characters have been highlighted to show where the left-margin extends to keep indentation. I use the term Virtual Formatting to describe this - it's not like elastic tab stops, because there simply are no tabs, just margin information which is part of the 'paragraph' formatting (RTF codes are used here). The parser reformats continuously, in the same pass as syntax coloring.
A proportional font hasn't been used here, but it could have been quite easily - because the indentation is set in TWIPS. The editing experience is quite compelling because, as you refactor the code (XML in this case), perhaps through drag and drop, or by extending the length of an attribute value, the indentation just re-flows itself to fit - there's no tab-key or 'reformat' button to press.
So, the indentation is there, but the font work is a more complex problem. I've experimented with this, but found that if fonts are re-selected as you type, the horizontal shifting of the code is too distracting - there would need to be a user-initiated 'format fonts' command probably. The product also has Ink/Handwriting technology built-in for annotating code, but I've yet to exploit this in the live release.
Folks are all complaining about comments not lining up.
Seems to me that there's a very simple solution: Define the unit space as the widest character in the font. Now, proportionally space all characters except the space. the space takes up as much room so as to line up the next character where it would be if all preceeding characters on the line were the widest in the font.
ie:
iiii_space_Foo
xxxx_space_Foo
would line up the "Foo", with the space after the "i" being much wider than after the "x".
So call it elastic spaces. rather than tab-stops.
If you're a smart editor, treat comments specially, but that's just gravy
Let me recall arguments about using the 'var' keyword in C#. People hated it, and thought it would make code less clear. For example, you couldn't know the type in something like:
var x = GetResults("Main");
foreach(var y in x)
{
WriteResult(x);
}
Their argument was, that you couln't see if x was an array, an List or any other IEnumerable. Or what the type of y was. In my opinion the unclearity did not arise from using var, but from picking unclear variable names. Why not just type:
var electionResults = GetRegionalElactionResults("Main");
foreach(var result in electionResults)
{
Write(result); // you can see what you're writing!!
}
"But you still cannot see the type of electionResults!" - does it really matter? If you want to change the return type of GetRegionalElectionResults, you can do so. Any IEnumerable will do.
Fast forward to now. People want to align comments en similar code:
int var2 = 1; //The number of days since startup, including the first
int longerVar = 2; //The number of free days per week
int anotherVar = 38; //The number of working hours per week
So without the comment everything is unclear. And if you don't align the values, you cannot seperate them from the variales. But do you? What about this (ignore the bullets please)
int daysSinceStartup = 1; // including first
int freeDaysPerWeek = 2;
int workingHoursPerWeek = 38;
If you need a comment on EVERY LINE, you're doing something wrong. "But you still need to align the VALUES" - do you? what does 38 have to do with 2?
In C# Most code blocks can easily be aligned using only tabs (or acually, multiples of four spaces):
var regionsWithIncrease =
from result in GetRegionalElectionResults()
where result.TotalCount > result > PreviousTotalCount &&
result.PreviousTotalCount > 0 // just new regions
select result.Region;
foreach (var region in regionsWithIncrease)
{
Write(region);
}
You should never use line-to-line comments and you should rarely need to vertically align things. Rarely, not never. So I understand if some of you guys prefer a monospaced font. I prefer the readibility of font Noto Sans or Source Sans Pro. These fonts are available freely from Google, and resemble Calibri, but are designed for programming and thus have all the neccesary characteristics:
Big : ; . , so you can clearly see the difference
Clearly distinct 0Oo and distinct Il|
The major problem with proportional fonts is they destroy the vertical alignment of the code and this is a fairly major loss when it comes to writing code.
The vertical alignment makes it possible to manipulate rectangular blocks of code that span multiple lines by allowing block operations like cut, copy, paste, delete and indent, unindent etc to be easily performed.
As an example consider this snippet of code:
a1 = a111;
B2 = aaaa;
c3 = AAAA;
w4 = wwWW;
W4 = WWWW;
In a mono-spaced font the = and the ; all line up.
Now if this text is loded into Word and display using a proportional font the text effectively turns into this:
NOTE: Extra white space added to show how the = and ; no longer line up:
a1 = a1 1 1;
B2 = aaaa;
c3 = A A A A;
w4 = w w W W;
W4 = W W W W;
With the vertical alignment gone those nice blocks of code effectively disappear.
Also because the cursor is no longer guaranteed to move vertically (i.e. the column number is not always constant from one line to the next) it makes it more difficult to write throw away macro scripts designed to manipulated similar looking lines.