Richard, You're saying that Rev's existing table object is just spiffy? Oh my, my ribs hurt from the laughter!
I mentioned the limit raising in Excel to illustrate that along with the overall eye candy in Office 2007, reworking Excel's already generous limits (vast, compared to Rev) was a major undertaking and clearly one of the most important changes made to the product in years. Doing so required them to really get deep into the code and rework some fundamental structures in the program. And they did this because people want/need and use many thousands of rows and columns when they are analyzing data sets. I suppose they didn't have to make such an enhancement, given their market share, but look how much a priority it was. Converting so-many pixels to feet and inches that boils down to 2000 rows maximum before Rev starts corrupting your display -- and saying that's just fine? C'mon, that won't be taken seriously anywhere. What if you were limited to 2000 records in a FileMaker database? Or your word processor documents could contain no more than 40 pages? (Heck, that's more than 38 feet tall! No one reads nowadays anyway!) What if your MP3s were limited to 3 minutes in length? Or the maximum size of a JPG was 640x480? (I suppose you'd say no one really needs more than .3 megapixels for on-screen display?) Or is it your point that because Rev is not the size or age of Microsoft that we should be happy to have any kind of table capability whatsoever? I also take issue with your claim that you'd have to pay a lot of money to get "any library that provides a weak one in C." Even the lowest-end development packages these days (whether C++, Java, or other languages) include table objects of capability an order of magnitude above what is available in Rev. Download Visual Basic Express. It's free. Add a new Data Grid control to a new form. Here's what you'll see: - You can format strings in Numeric, Currency, Date/Time, Scientific, and Custom formats... you know, cool stuff like placeholders for percentages, dollar signs, negatives, commas, fixed digits. Kind of the beginnings of that in Rev table objects but a pity they don't work. - Nine different options for data alignment within cells - Specific control of cell padding along any edge - Ability to specify the width of column dividers - Wrapped text within cells - Column re-ordering/resizing, auto-resizing to contents of a column - Locked column headings and row headings (actually the ability to "freeze" any arbitrary column or row) - Automatic or programmable sorting when clicking on column headings - Ability to specify a column as a button, a check box, a combo box, an image, or a link - Ability to select/cut/copy/paste rows, columns, or any region you like - Built-in, disable-able icons for indicating active rows, collapsible rows, etc. [Note: The Data Grid in Visual C++ Express, also free, is very similar.] It might surprise you to know that I haven't built a proper BASIC program since my days with the Sinclair ZX81. Yet, without writing a single line of code, I have a *beautiful*-looking table that scrolls *instantly* with extremely large data sets, sorts automatically, aligns numbers properly, formats cells individually, has embedded checkboxes and drop-down lists, etc. It took me all of 5 minutes! If that is "weak" then what word is best used to describe the Rev table object? No one is saying that Rev has to incorporate a spreadsheet object on par with Excel. But I certainly am saying that more is expected than what is provided. I know you'll next be asking me how many millions MSFT has spent on Visual Basic over the years. But in my opinion the VB Data Grid is a very nice example of what the table object should be, and it ain't Excel by any stretch. It's not even as if the data grid in VB is the "Rolls Royce" of table objects. It's simply "good." I also believe that with effort, the people who publish Rev could provide a better-than-crap table object. If it isn't a priority, it should be. If you think it isn't fair to compare to Microsoft then take a look at the wonderful (by comparison to Rev) ListBox facility in RealBASIC. Actually, after a quick survey of the many free C++ compilers listed at http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cpp.shtml I'm wondering where you got the idea that weak grid add-on controls cost a lot of money, since I could find anything weaker than the table object in Revolution ($299). Can you point some out to me? Does the current "multi-column list" (i.e., glorified tab stops with borders) "prevent" database apps from being built in Rev? No, it just makes *quality* high-performance database presentation applications extremely (and needlessly) difficult to build! _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution