Get(VisibleSummaryParts)

[Dimitrios]

Hello,

I am not sure if this is a tip, or if it is already known.

Anyway it has a practical value for me so I thought I post it.

Sometimes I need to present data in a layout with several sub-summary parts and usually no body parts

I find it good interface, to give the user the ability to click on the only visible sub-summary part and reveal the next part in the hierarchy, and so on...

Thus expanding and collapsing the list by clicking on the headers.

From what I read in the forums the standard technique for this is to have a global variable to store whether part X is expanded or not.

I don't like that method very much so I thought of an alternative.

Layout  Example Structure

Sub-Summary Part1   (based on COUNTRIES::Name)

Sub-Summary Part2   (based on COUNTRIES::CityID)

Sub-Summary Part3   (based on CITIES::SalesmanID)

To the right of the sub-summary part, just off screen we put an instance of the field we are sub-summarizing by. 

For example, inline with sub-summary Part1 we put an instance of the field COUNTRIES::Name and we name the Object as "Part1"

 

Now if the sub-summary part is visible using the following :

GetLayoutObjectAttribute ( "Part1";"source" ) will give us "COUNTRIES::NAME"

or if the sub-summary part is not visible will give us error 102 (Field is missing)

 

By looping with a $counter variable through all sub-summary parts (1....n) 

we can get a list of the visible sub-summary parts (the fields they are based on)

Then we can use this information to sort the records anyway we want to.

 

That's it!

I think it would be nice if someone thought a way to have the list sorted in the way the parts are presented.

Thanks, Dimitrios

[Fitch]

Good one!