AutoHotkey Community

[cornell2]

Is there any straight forward way to achieve this effect (or script widget already written?): I want to allow the user to ...

a. "browse" data records from a file, in re-sizable, scrollable window (scroll up down the records, left-right if the info-line is wider than the window).

b. many of the data records would need parsing and processing before each is displayed as a line in this browser

c. and even better if I can filter or sort this list.

I know I am asking a lot - but certainly there are those here that have at least had to think about approaches to efficiently doing this, and perhaps a few that have already done it.

And of course, if there I have overlooked some obvious function(s) in AHK - feel free to point that out too ! ; )

Thanks!

[Chris]

[cornell2]

Thanks ... I just found the 1-2 List Function/script libraries here and will have to spend some time wading through them to see how they can work as a file-contents browser.My initial impression however is that it only goes 1/2way there. But I would love to get ideas here: Here is an example:

1. Start with two data files (ultimately databases, or xls ... not text files - but that is the subject of another thread ; )
2. Each file is organized into records with distinct fields.
3. Each field may have to be formatted before it is display. ie. a 10 digit number may have to be displayed in phone number format (999)-999-9999.
4. The records (lines) of each file is displayed in an explorer-like window - where the user can scroll up and down the lines of data.
5. The records may be filtered (for instance, skipping all records with the area code 408
6. or instead listed such that all records containing (408) are in red.

OK - so far, this might not seem too complex or a stretch for AHK, though it is a non-trivial task to get this working smoothly. But then, add the following essential features.

7. Just like windows explorer, I want to be able to mark, cut, copy and paste multiple records, or move or add.
8. and, drag and drop (or copy) using the mouse between the two separate lists.
9. Then there are other incremental desirable features such as the ability to flag certain record such that they can be seen but skipped when browsing, and the ability to have a tree-like structure
10. and the ability to do some in-line editing (similar to F2-rename in explorer

Now then, before I start building any of this (or seeking alternatives) - I want to get a sense of what is already possible in AHK, or has already been done. No one wants to reinvent the wheel.

But an explorer-like widget to browse file-data does not seem to be an uncommon function or rather one that, if made availabe would be very popular here.

Thoughts, ideas, comments???

Thanks!

[daonlyfreez]

Until AutoHotkey supports dll-calls, and listviews, you are probably better of trying Gui4Cli, it can do what you want (it has DDE support for example) already.

So, if you are in a hurry, try Gui4Cli, if not.... wait a bit
_________________
(sorry, homesite offline atm)

[Chris]

Good advice. Even with a ListView, some of the requested behavior is fairly complex and probably more solvable with specialized GUI tool such as VB or Gui4Cli.

[cornell2]

Well, the overarching requirement here is that I wanted the solution to work with AHK. I am reading that these 3rd party solutions take me away from AHK, correct?

[Chris]

Yes, keeping in mind that a highly custom, complex GUI application is likely to require a programming language or a specialized data viewing tool to implement properly. You might still be able to script most of this, it's just that some interface elements either won't behave exactly as you wanted or won't be possible.