The Options page specifies parameters for setups, cleanups, a
template output file for cloning, and miscellaneous checkbox options. The
settings on this page would generally be established by a developer, not a
"normal" user. Brief descriptions of the Options settings
follow: (Note that all of these settings are saved and restored on a
per-configuration basis, as are all user-settable form parameters throughout
XFormDBF.)
- InitExp Button and Textbox
- Clicking on this button invokes VFP's expression builder, allowing you to specify an
optional input initialization function. This function, or functional
expression, will be evaluated immediately after opening the input table for
the current configuration. The point of this feature is to provide a
"hook" for performing an application-specific step such as opening
a bunch of code lookup tables. The result of evaluating the
initialization expression is a success flag, i.e. .T. means initializations
were successful; .F. means initializations failed, which is treated as an
error. (In order to clear the current expression, you must enter at
least one blank character in VFP's expression builder dialog, because
entering nothing is interpreted as "no change").
- CleanupExp Button and Textbox
- Click this button to enter an optional expression to be evaluated when the
input file is closed or closed and reopened. This allows for any
required cleanup steps to be performed, such as closing lookup tables.
The function return value and method of clearing this expression are similar
to InitExp.
- Template Button and Textbox
- This button allows you to pick a template output table, which would
typically be an empty table structure (including DBF, FPT, and CDX
files). If you Escape or Cancel the dialog
to pick an template file, the previous setting is restored. The
template file need not exist at this time, but the Clone action will be
disabled until it does. When there is a template file for a configuration, the
Clone
button on the Files Page is enabled, otherwise the Clone button is
disabled. Also the Clone button is
disabled if the template file is the same as the output file, because you
can't copy a file onto itself. XFormDBF also can be invoked non-interactively
with an action that instructs it to Clone the template before running the
transformation.
The accompanying read-only textbox displays the path of the template file,
if any, associated with the current configuration. You
can edit this path directly in the textbox by double-clicking, and you can
enter a relative path or eliminate the template by this method.
Note that the current implementation uses VFP's GETFILE() dialog to pick a
file. Unfortunately, this causes some minor annoyances: there
is no default file (even though there should be), mixed case is not
preserved, and there is no way to
enter a blank value that is distinguishable from Escaping or Cancelling the
dialog.
- Dev Mode
- Pretty useless in its present form, this is a vestige of the origins of
the XFormDBF application. This option should either be dropped, or
redefined. What it does right now is to enable or disable changes to
the Show Tips checkbox. (I warned you it was pretty useless!)
- Show Tips
- Enables or disables the display of tooltips for this form, i.e. the little
messages that appear over a control when you hover the mouse.
- Don't Optimize
- Check this to force slower field-by-field replacement logic with
field-level validation to be used when running the transformation, for
diagnostic purposes. When this is unchecked (the default), XFormDBF
uses a much faster algorithm. Note that the Test button always uses
a slower, un-optimized method, regardless of the setting of this
option. The Don't Optimize option only affects the behavior of the Run action.
- Auto Field Test
- This option enables or disables automatic display of the current output
field value as you move around on the Fields page.
The value is shown (via WAIT WINDOW NOWAIT) along with the input record
number, the output field name, and the value type resulting from evaluating
the current mapping expression. An indication is also given if the
value is incompatible with the output field type. There is no display
if the input table is closed, or if no output field with a mapping is
currently selected. By default, this option is turned on, but you can
disable it if you prefer.
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