Calendar Control

[TimStone]

About a month ago several people were noting the need for a Calendar control in their applications. Although DTPICKER provides a good popup for a date field, the idea was to post a calendar onto a dialog that would remain on display.

Actually, in the \FWH\Samples there is a calendar.prg & .rc that can be modified quite nicely to do the job. Using FW Harbour's bitmap controls and expanding the size of the dialog can result in a useable date selection control that can coexist with other data very nicely.

I have a Scheduler program that incoporates a lot of data in addition to just the date. It is used for automotive repair so it attaches to a vehicle, client, and estimate. It incorporates a beginning and end time and a work area. This is all handled well with normal FWH ( 7.12 ) and xHarbour.

The original Calendar was written by Tom Waldon for 16 bit Clipper. I'd be happy to share the samples of my very simply modified controls with Antonio because they are derived from the distributed work of FWH, or if he wishes, I can post a link for their download.

This is not a stand alone control ! It is simply FWH code that can be included in your own project if you have a need. It is used within a resource (.rc) file and can be included as part of an existing dialog, or as the base to create a dialog.

If appropriate, I'm sure this snippet could be upgraded quite nicely.

[Rick Lipkin]

Tim

I found that code myself and I took the basic calendar and modified it to our Agency's Time and Reporting system.

I use the buttons to build an array ( by date ) for users to enter in their codes associated with their job activities.

Interesting to look at as well to see how to hide controls based on the different days in a month.

Kewl code !!

Rick Lipkin

[ukoenig]

Why don't you try the calendar, you find at my website ?

Greetings from Germany

U. König

[TimStone]

Its nice and functional, but I wanted just a simple calendar to put on an existing dialog. What I was able to do with the FWH sample code, and modifying it, works well.

[UD previous posts]

I like the C5 Calendar control

Take a look

[TimStone]

I'm sure there are many excellent calendar controls. As I pointed out, this is not a control. It is simply a modification of the program that is included with FWH when supplied by Antonio, and it shows you how to build a calendar on to an existing Dialog. I posted the info simply because people had asked about it in the past.

[Manuel Valdenebro]

Why don't you try the calendar, you find at my website ?

Ukoenig,

I had dowloaded your calendar. Congratulation.
In its source code I read spanish comments and function's names with spanish contents. Which is the origin of this calendar class?

Regards

[ukoenig]

A few years ago, i found a calendar-class for the
16 Bit FW, but it was in spanish.
I had to do some changes, to use it for the new FWH.
For me it was not easy, because i don't know anything about spanish.

Greetings from germany

U.König

[Silvio]

I think...
Mr Tim Stone are searching another type of calendar ....like office 2007
But he want it free ....

[TimStone]

No, I don't want something for free. I needed an immediate, interim, solution for a specific project.

In the long term, I will be implementing several controls, and none of them do I expect to be free ....

[Silvio]

Wich is the specific project ?
Can you explain me please ?

[TimStone]

I sent you a screen shot by email of the completed work ... for now
I also explained the various elements.

It is an appointment scheduler for vehicle services. It includes the following:
+ Scheduling an appointment for any day and/or time and varied intervals
+ Attaching a vehicle, and client to the appointment
+ Creating and Attaching an estimate, which includes parts and labor ( in detail ) to the appointment
+ Attaching notes to the appointment
+ Assigning the appointment to a specific work area
+ Permitting reoccuring appointments ( auto scheduling )
+ The ability to move appointments
+ Printing of the schedule
+ A Gant chart for day, and one for the week, which shows work areas and the times assigned
+ The ability to select a date on a calendar and instantly see all the appointments for that day, and the detail
+ Additional notes capability

This scheduler interfaces with the workorder development screen. By starting a workorder, pressing the Appointment button, you see a list of pending appointments. Select the one you want, and it automatically adds the client, vehicle, parts, labor, and notes to the newly created workorder ... on button select !

It all works perfectly. I had a defined space in which to create the date selection capability. It was working fine with DTPicker but I wanted to show all of the calendar ( for the month ) for single key press changes of the viewed date. WIth DTPICKER it takes two keystrokes, and my clients don't like even one extra keystrokes.

I had to get this done so I could ship software to my clients. This is only one very small part of the application ... perhaps 1% of the total project.

I may soon purchase a control that gives me more flexibility. For example, C5 ( mentioned previously by a contributor ) will supposedly allow me to change the display of all dates on the calendar where an appointment may be scheduled. Its not necessary, but it is nice. The Codejock controls are very powerful, but they are clearly an Outlook display and I'm not yet sure if that will work properly in this situation.

Anyway, my need was resolved last week with a modification of the existing FWH code, and when I move forward to enhance the look of this I would certainly find it wise to use one of the commercial calendar controls available at the time. However, it is also important to handle all of the various data components.

BTW ... programming is to meet the needs of my clients. I could easily do this in a more window methodology with a popup appointment screen, but they want to see all the data as they scroll through the appointments, and the list of all the appointments when they select the date.

I hope this isn't too wordy.

[Silvio]

ok I understand

[Roger Seiler]

Tim,

Your thorough description of how you use your modification of the FWH calendar.prg lit up a few lights for me in my application area (HR performance management). Thanks for getting me thinking! Could you provide a link for downloading your mod of calendar.prg and calendar.rc?

Thanks.

- Roger

[TimStone]

Email me: timstone at masterlinksoftware dot com