Dev 2K component integration

[Quoted] Knowledgeable Ones,

I'm finishing up conversion of some 30 v3.0 Forms and as many v1.1 Reports to Forms 4.5
and Reports 2.5. It's been a teeth-gnashing crash-course in Dev 2K development, but I now
have almost all converted (to real mode!). I built a few more simple query-only 4.5 Forms to
fill in some gaps I saw in the existing 'low-budget' forms, such as the ability to include a first
name in a name search!

I'm having trouble with the integration of menus, forms, and reports now. The new forms I
made are only for query, so to save users some keystrokes I have a When-new-form-instance trigger to put the forms in ENTER-QUERY mode when they are called by the menu.

I have a pull-down menu which calls the other forms (using new_form) and reports (with
RUN_PRODUCT), and I found I needed to put some extra code somewhere to get it out of
query-only mode so it can navigate to the new form without the user having to manually cancel the query. The same is true when exiting, so the user does not have to press the exit button twice (once to exit query-mode, then again to exit_form).

So I tried putting the following code on each menu-item that calls a new form:

    IF :SYSTEM.MODE = 'ENTER-QUERY' THEN EXIT_FORM;     END IF;
    NEW FORM('newformname');

and in the exit buttons:

:System.message_level := '10'; --to suppress "Query Canceled"
message window

    IF :SYSTEM.MODE = 'ENTER-QUERY' THEN EXIT_FORM;     END IF;
:System.message_level := '0';
    exit_form;

This functionality works for the exit buttons but not in the menu item code. It should cancel the query and go on to the procedure. For the exit buttons, it does exit query-only mode, then close the form. In the first case shown above it cancels the query, but the new form is never called. Any idea why not?

This is one question of many. Does anyone know of any good info or resources on integrating these pieces and to prevent this sort of brain-wrench? The Oracle Book manuals and on-line help are, well, limited. I also have the Oracle Press dev 2k handbook, which mentions nothing unusual about menu-item code, (and with which I'm not impressed).

Thanks to all responses - however frivolous! -Ian

Oh, remove the anti-spam thing from my address if you reply by e-mail. It's just ian_at_... Received on Thu Jun 19 1997 - 00:00:00 CEST