June 2011

Tech Info

Using SEQUEL ViewPoint Grid Control

Usually your SEQUEL ViewPoint view results display in a simple column and row layout. By using ViewPoint grid control, you can spice up your view results individually, or as a default setting.

Here are some of the ways you can format your view results:

• Contrast colors for even/odd result rows
• Format headings, rows, selection area, and other styles:
  • Font style, size, weight, and color
  • Background and foreground color
• Use conditional formatting to highlight exceptions
• Use the fast Group-and-Sum function for non-summarized data

The example below shows some of these formatting attributes applied to a simple SEQUEL view:

SELECT cusno, ordno, invno, curln, orval

FROM sequelex/ordhead

The SEQUELEX/ORDHEAD file is a sample order header file that is shipped with SEQUEL software. The headings and results are formatted with different colors, and the results are grouped for each customer number, even though the original view does not contain any group or sum syntax.

You can set default grid formatting at the user/desktop level, or you can add formatting to individual views. You can define view formatting only during a ViewPoint Design View session, and it is saved as part of the view definition. (Individual formatting for a view overrides the defaults set at the user/desktop level.)

Setting User and Desktop Defaults

Start ViewPoint, and select Tools\ViewPoint Options. Click the View Layout tab in the SEQUEL ViewPoint Options window. The center portion of this window shows the view layout as it is defined. Click the Format Layout button near the bottom to change the settings.

Formatting Individual View Results

Open an existing view in a ViewPoint Design View session. (If you are creating a new view, you must have done at least one Save or Save As.) Display your results and select Format\Layout from the Results menu to continue.

Note: The following images are from the Design View format option, which offers more formatting options than the ViewPoint Options path.

1. In the Layout Format window, use the General tab to specify whether you want alternating colors for even/odd rows. You can designate the colors using a color selection palette.

   

2. Use the pull-down menu to select a grid line format.
3. Use the Grouping tab to enable automated grouping. (When Group By box visible is checked, you can group results as shown in the first example.) Just drag-and-drop a column heading (such as Customer Number) to the top margin of the results window to group data by that value.

   

4. Use the Style Editor tab to select each style (section) in the results and specify the formatting for that section. In this example, we selected the Heading (style), and set the cell background color to dark red and the foreground color (text) to white.

   

5. Use the Column Editor to specify conditional highlighting for special occurrences of data in the view results. (The Column Editor tab is enabled only if you started from a Design View session.) In this example, we want to highlight the amount in red when the ORVAL (Retail Order Value) has a value greater or equal to 30,000.

   

6. Finally, use the Printing Options tab to specify print settings for your network printer.

   

See the SEQUEL ViewPoint User Guide and online help for more examples and information about Grid Control.

By Steven Smith, Technical Consultant

Using VPCLEANUP to Clean Up Abandoned ViewPoint Jobs

Sometimes ViewPoint jobs end less than gracefully. Over time, you may find jobs that have been running for a while. The SEQUEL VPCLEANUP script can clean up abandoned jobs. Recently, we enhanced this script by adding run-time prompts for the age (in days and hours) of the ViewPoint jobs you want to end.

When you run the new, prompted version of VPCLEANUP (type SQLSCRIPTP) from the ViewPoint Explorer or from a command line, you’re prompted to specify an age for the jobs to end. The script will end all ViewPoint jobs that are this age and older.

Caution: Be careful if you use the non-prompted version of the script (type SQLSCRIPT)—it runs immediately and ends all ViewPoint jobs.

You also can use the following command in your job scheduler to schedule the script:

RUNSCRIPT SCRIPT(sequelex/vpcleanup)

SETVAR((&days dd) (&time tt))

where: dd is the number of days and tt is the number of hours.

By Steven Smith, Technical Consultant