ArtenSUITE Part 12: Window Size and Positions

ArtenSUITE
A Development Journal
Part 12: Window Size and Positions

One of the things that really annoys me with a lot of software is that the window size and positions reset to the developers defaults every time the program is run. I have 2 Monitors, a 30’‘ and a 20’‘ and I like to use that space and work with a particular layout. ArtenSUITE has been designed from Day 1 to allow the storing of window size and position, for all windows, stored locally for each user.

For programs I write that use only one window I write and read the window size from a structured text file. For ArtenSUITE however which will have many windows it was necessary to use a different approach.

Each time the program is started it looks for a REALSQL datafile in the program directory. If it doesn’t find one it creates one and within the database it creates the table and index necessary to store the window positions.

REALSQL is a version of SQLite that comes with REALbasic Professional and is ideal for use as a local data store, or cache. Note: REALSQL can also be upgraded to a full blown multi-user database (REAL SQL Server)if an appropriate license is obtained, and the the code you have used to access the local version can be used on the full version without alteration.

The Code to create the Local Database, and also create the Schema and Index is as follows:

Creating the Local Database, Window Size Schema and Index
Dim f as FolderItem
f = GetFolderItem(mCodeBaseGV.pLocalCacheFileName)

dim strCreateWinDatabase as String = "CREATE TABLE csh_win_main (win_name VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL, win_height INTEGER NOT NULL, win_width INTEGER NOT NULL, win_left INTEGER NOT NULL, win_top INTEGER NOT NULL)"
dim strCreateWinIndex as String = "CREATE INDEX win_name ON csh_win_main (win_name)"

if f.exists Then
__'Do Nothing
Else
____'Create Local Database Cache
____dim dbRBLocal as REALSQLDatabase
____dim folTarget as FolderItem
____dim booResult as Boolean

____dbRBLocal = New REALSQLDatabase
____folTarget = GetFolderItem(mCodeBaseGV.pLocalCacheFileName)

____dbRBLocal.DatabaseFile = folTarget
____booResult = dbRBLocal.CreateDatabaseFile

____if booResult = True then
______'Create Schema
______dbRBLocal.SQLExecute(strCreateWinDatabase)
______dbRBLocal.SQLExecute(strCreateWinIndex)
______dbRBLocal.Close
____else
______mCodeBaseStd.sDisplayAndLogErrorMessage(1003,"Local Cache Database NOT Created ..." + EndOfLine + dbRBLocal.ErrorMessage,"Local Cache Database NOT Created ... " + dbRBLocal.ErrorMessage)
____end if
End if

Setting and Getting the Window Size
Each window in ArtenSUITE has two methods, sGetWindowPosition and sSet WindowPosition. The Get is called by the window Open event and the Set is called by the window Close event.

The method sSetWindowPosition accepts the following as parameters:

strWindowName
intHeight
intWidth
intLeft
intTop

The method looks for a record in the local database that matches strWindowName, if a record is found it is updated using the parameters intHeight, intWidth, intLeft and intTop. If a record doesn’t exist for that window then one is created using the parameters as input.

The method sGetWindowPosition accepts the following as parameters:

strWindowName

It then returns the window size and position as integers. If a particular window does not allow resizing, only moving, then the parameters for Height and Width are ignored and only the parameters for Top and Left are used.

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