The Proprietary Designer Problem
Every Visual Basic programmer is familiar with the idea of an interactive designer. For example, User-Defined Forms and UserControls are created and edited using VB6's intrinsic GUI designer. The GUI designer stores information in mostly text-based files. In addition to its GUI designer, Visual Basic allows third party component developers to create their own interactive component designers. These Third-Party Designers (3PDs) require the installation the third-party product and store design-time information in mostly binary format. This is somewhat similar to, but worse than, the problem of complex proprietary setting information stored in for forms and controls in frx and ctx files. VB6 also has DataReports and DataEnvironments with their own custom designers using the same approach as the 3PDs.
Third-party designers typically create two types of files:
- X.dsr: the text-based designer content declaring the 3PD subclass. Normally this is a small declaration sometimes followed by code to support event handling and other processing. The dsr will refer to most of the settings in the dsx file
- X.dsx: the proprietary binary data detailing the structure and initial state of the 3PD subclass. This dsx data may contain the declarations of many members of the subclass.
gmBasic is able to read and store information from text-based designer files, but it cannot read the information in proprietary dsx files. Consequently, the details of the 3PD subclasses are undefined making it very difficult to interpret code that uses them.
In order to process a 3PD subclass, the dsx files must be converted to a text format that gmBasic can read, interpret, and load.
This article describes how different types of custom designer APIs are handled.
ActiveReports
| Original VB6 | Generated DSX.RPT file |
|---|
The dsr file has very little information in it besides the name of the designer subclass
and a reference to the dsx file containing the detailed of the subclass structure.
VERSION 5.00
Begin {9EB8768B-CDFA-44DF-8F3E-857A8405E1DB} Contact_Call_Log_Counts
Caption = "Company Check Form"
ClientHeight = 11115
ClientLeft = 60
ClientTop = 345
ClientWidth = 15240
StartUpPosition = 3 'Windows Default
_ExtentX = 26882
_ExtentY = 19606
SectionData = "Contact_Call_Log_Counts.dsx":0000 <---
End
Attribute VB_Name = "Contact_Call_Log_Counts"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = False
| After running the makedsr process with gmStudio I have a text file (*.dsr.rpt) containing the detailed
structure of the designer subclass that can be loaded by gmBasic.
Begin DDActiveReports2.ActiveReport Contact_Call_Log_Counts
Version = 2.0
Begin DDActiveReports2.Section ReportHeader
Type = "ReportHeader"
Name = "ReportHeader"
Height = "0"
KeepTogether = "-1"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Section PageHeader
Type = "PageHeader"
Name = "PageHeader"
Height = "1095"
KeepTogether = "-1"
Begin DDActiveReports2.Label Label1
Type = "AR.Label"
Name = "Label1"
Left = "0"
Top = "0"
Width = "4800"
Height = "360"
Caption = " INSURANCE COMPANY"
Multiline = "0"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 14.5pt; font-weight: bold;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Label State_Contract
Type = "AR.Label"
Name = "State_Contract"
Left = "720"
Top = "810"
Width = "5670"
Height = "270"
Caption = "STATE"
Multiline = "0"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: right;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Label Label6
Type = "AR.Label"
Name = "Label6"
Left = "6690"
Top = "810"
Width = "960"
Height = "270"
Caption = "COUNT"
Multiline = "0"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Line Line6
Type = "AR.Line"
Name = "Line6"
X1 = "0"
Y1 = "1080"
X2 = "11550"
Y2 = "1080"
LineWeight = "2"
AnchorBottom = "0"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Label Report_Title
Type = "AR.Label"
Name = "Report_Title"
Left = "0"
Top = "420"
Width = "10860"
Height = "330"
Caption = "CONTACTS MADE BY STATE"
Multiline = "0"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 14.5pt; font-weight: bold;"
End
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Section Detail
Type = "Detail"
Name = "Detail"
Height = "270"
KeepTogether = "-1"
Begin DDActiveReports2.Shape Shape45
Type = "AR.Shape"
Name = "Shape45"
Left = "11220"
Top = "13050"
Width = "0"
Height = "30"
BackColor = "0"
LineWeight = "2"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Field Report_Field
Type = "AR.Field"
Name = "Report_Field"
DataField = "Report_Field"
Left = "690"
Top = "0"
Width = "5730"
Height = "270"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Field Report_Count
Type = "AR.Field"
Name = "Report_Count"
DataField = "Report_Count"
Left = "6690"
Top = "0"
Width = "840"
Height = "270"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.DataControl DC_Report
Type = "AR.DataControl"
Name = "DC_Report"
Left = "11010"
Top = "0"
Width = "210"
Height = "120"
Visible = "0"
LockType = "1"
End
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Section PageFooter
Type = "PageFooter"
Name = "PageFooter"
Height = "0"
KeepTogether = "-1"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Section ReportFooter
Type = "ReportFooter"
Name = "ReportFooter"
Height = "330"
KeepTogether = "-1"
Begin DDActiveReports2.Field Sum_Count
Type = "AR.Field"
Name = "Sum_Count"
DataField = "Report_Count"
Left = "6690"
Top = "60"
Width = "840"
Height = "270"
SummaryType = "1"
SummaryFunc = "0"
SummaryRunning = "0"
ClassName = "Normal"
Style = "font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;"
End
Begin DDActiveReports2.Line Line7
Type = "AR.Line"
Name = "Line7"
X1 = "6690"
Y1 = "30"
X2 = "7560"
Y2 = "30"
LineWeight = "2"
AnchorBottom = "0"
End
End
End
|
Upsizing ActiveReports
Note: The process for converting ActiveReports dsx files to dsx.rpt files only words for ActiveReports v2 format files. Fortunately, the vendor offers an Upsizer.
---------------------------
ActiveReports Upsizer
---------------------------
Success . All Version 1.0 files have been renamed to .backup. and converted to Version 2.0
All references to objects using DDActiveReports (such as DDActiveReports.Pages) library prefix need to be changed to DDActiveReports2. The page margin properties have been moved from the report object to the PageSettings object which might require code change.
If you are using the Viewer control on forms please remove the viewer from the form and replace it with ActiveReports Viewer 2.0
---------------------------
OK
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