PGACCESS 0.76 , 12 January 1998

PGACCESS 0.81 1 March 1998

================================

I dedicate this program to my little 4 year daughter Ana-Maria and my wife

for their understanding. I hope they will forgive me for spending so many

- table previews, sample postscript print

Forms

- open user defined forms, form design module not yet available

- open user defined forms

- form design module available

- query widget qlowing access to a recordset

Scripts

- define, modify and call user defined scripts

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<H1>FORMS</H1>

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<P>This version (0.81) of PgAccess introduce the visual form builder.</P>

<P>For the moment, it has only some basic widgets : labels, entries, buttons

, listboxes , checkboxes and radiobuttons.</P>

<P>Also there is a query widget that allows you yo have access to a query

results.</P>

<P>In a manner very similar with Visual Tcl or Visual Basic, the user must

select a widget from the toolbar and drags on the canvas the rectangle

that would define the widget. It can also specify some attributes in a

separate window. Renaming, resizing items are possible modifying parameters

in attribute window. Do not forget to press Enter in the edit field after

changing a value in order to be accepted.</P>

<P>You can also move items by dragging them or delete them by pressing

Del key.</P>

<P>In attribute window, there are some fields named<B><TT><FONTSIZE=+1>Command

</FONT></TT></B>and<B><TT><FONTSIZE=+1>Variable</FONT></TT></B>.</P>

<P>The field<B><TT><FONTSIZE=+1>Command</FONT></TT></B>have meaning

only for Button widgets and holds the command that will be invoked when

the button is pressed.</P>

<P>The field<B><TT><FONTSIZE=+1>Variable</FONT></TT></B>have meaning

only for EditField , Label widgets and checkboxes and it is the name of

the global variable that will hold the value for that widget. For checkboxes

the values are 1 or 0.</P>

<P>In order to make a simple test, put an entry field and set it's variable

to<B>v1</B> and a button who's command is &quot;set v1 whisky&quot;. Press

the button &quot;Test form&quot; and click on the button. In that entry

should appear whisky.<BR>

Another test is defining in Script module a script called &quot;My first

script&quot; having the following commands:<BR>

<TT><FONTSIZE=+1>tk_messageBox -title Warning -message &quot;This is my

first message!&quot;<BR>

</FONT></TT>and then define a button who's command is<B><TT><FONTSIZE=+1>execute_script

&quot;My first script&quot;</FONT></TT></B>.</P>

<H2>Database manipulation</H2>

<P>Let's presume that our form have the internal name<B><TT>mf</TT></B>(my

form). He wil be referred inside the Tcl/Tk source as<B><TT>.mf<BR>

</TT></B>If you want to close the form in run-time you have to issue the

command<B><TT>destroy .mf</TT></B></P>

<P>Also, any widget will have the name prefixed by<B><TT>.mf</TT></B>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We

will have<B><TT>.mf.button1</TT></B> or<B><TT>.mf.listbox1</TT></B> .</P>

<P>We can name the query widget<B><TT>qry</TT></B> for example. The complete

name will be<B><TT>.mf.qry</TT></B> then.<BR>

The<B><TT>Command</TT></B>property of the query widget must contain the

SQL command that will be executed.<BR>

When the form will be in run-time, automatically you will have acces to

the following methods :</P>

<P><TT>.mf.qry:execute</TT> - opens the connection and execute the query

(returns nothing)<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:nrecords</TT> - returns the number of records in the selected

query<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:fields</TT> - returns a list of the fields in the result set<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:movefirst</TT> - move the cursor to the first record in the

recordset<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:movelast , .mf.qry:movenext , .mf.qry:moveprevious</TT>- moves

the cursor<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:updatecontrols</TT> - update the variables inside the designed

form that have a particular name (I'll explain later)<BR>

<TT>.mf.qry:close</TT> - close the connection (<B><FONTCOLOR="#FF0000">if

you don't close the query result, you will loose memory</FONT></B>)</P>

<P>If you want to bound some controls to the fields of the recordset, you

will have to name their associate variable like that :</P>

<P><TT>.mf.qry.salary</TT> to get the &quot;salary&quot; field , or<TT>.mf.qry.name</TT>

to get the &quot;name&quot; field.</P>

<P>It's simple, isn't it ? It's just like a new widget that have some properties

and methods that can be accesed.<BR>

Also, the name convention is just like in Tcl/Tk.</P>

<HRWIDTH="25%"></P>

<P>Please feel free to send me your oppinion at<B>teo@flex.ro</B> on forms

designing and usage.<BR>

<TITLE>PgAccess - a Tcl/Tk PostgreSQL interface</TITLE>

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<H1>PgAccess - a database management tool for<AHREF="http://www.postgreSQL.org">PostgreSQL</A></H1>

<P>This program is protected by the following<AHREF="copyright.html">copyright</A>

<LI><AHREF="pgaccess-0.81.tar.gz">Download the last version of Pgaccess

(press shift and click this link)</A>.</LI>

<P>Latest version of PgAccess is 0.81 , 1 March 1998 !</P>

<CENTER><TABLEBORDER=3CELLSPACING=0CELLPADDING=0WIDTH="100%"BGCOLOR="#FFB6C1">

<B><FONTSIZE=+2>PgAccess can now design<AHREF="forms.html">Forms</A></FONT></B>,

<B><FONTSIZE=+2><AHREF="pga-rad.html">Reports and Scripts</A></FONT></B></P></CENTER>

<P>I think that there were some problems loading libpgtcl library.<BR>

I invite you to read a<AHREF="index.html#libpgtcl">special section concerning

<B>libpgtcl</B></A></P>

<H3><FONTCOLOR="#191970">What does PgAccess now!</FONT></H3>

<P>Here are some images from PgAccess windows :<AHREF="pic-pga-1.gif">Main

window</A>,<AHREF="pic-pga-2.gif">table builder</A>,<AHREF="pic-pga-4.gif">table(query)

view</A>,<AHREF="pic-pga-3.gif">visual query builder</A>.</P>

<P><B>Tables</B><BR>

- opening tables for viewing, max 200 records (changed by preferences menu)

- column resizing, dragging the vertical grid line (better in table space

rather than in the table header)<BR>

- text wrap in cells - layout saved for every table<BR>

- import/export to external files (SDF,CSV)<BR>

- filter capabilities (enter filter like (price&gt;3.14)<BR>

- sort order capabilities (enter manually the sort field(s))<BR>

- editing in place<BR>

- improved table generator assistant<BR>

- improved field editing<BR>

<B>Queries</B><BR>

- define , edit and stores &quot;user defined queries&quot;<BR>

- store queries as views<BR>

- execution of queries<BR>

- viewing of select type queries result<BR>

- query deleting and renaming<BR>

-<B><BLINK><FONTCOLOR="#FF0000">NEW !!!</FONT></BLINK></B> Visual query

builder with drag &amp; drop capabilities. For any of you who had installed

the Tcl/Tk plugin for Netscape Navigator, you can see it at work<AHREF="qbtclet.html">clicking

here</A><BR>

<B>Sequences</B><BR>

- defines sequences, delete them and inspect them<BR>

<B>Functions</B><BR>

- define, inspect and delete functions in SQL language<BR>

<B>Reports<BR>

</B>- design and display simple reports from tables<BR>

- fields and labels, font changing, style and size<BR>

- saves and loads report description from database<BR>

- show report previews, sample postscript output file<BR>

<B>Forms<BR>

</B>- open user defined forms<BR>

- form design module available<BR>

- query widget available, controls bound to query results<BR>

-<AHREF="forms.html">click here</A> for a description of forms and how

they can be used<BR>

<B>Scripts<BR>

</B>- define, modify and call user defined scripts<BR>

Here is<AHREF="pga-rad.html">a special section concerning forms and scripts</A>

.</P>

<P>On the TODO list!<BR>

- table design (add new fields, renaming, etc.)<BR>

&nbsp;</P>

<P>If you have any comment, suggestion for improvements, please feel free

to e-mail to :<AHREF="mailto:teo@flex.ro">teo@flex.ro&nbsp;</A><BR>

<P><B><FONTCOLOR="#FF1493"><FONTSIZE=+2>Mailing list for PgAccess</FONT></FONT></B><AHREF="maillist.html">Here

you will find how to subscribe to this mailing list</A>.</P>

<H1>More information about libgtcl</H1>

<P>Also, you will need the PostgreSQL to Tcl interface library, lined as

a Tcl/Tk 'load'-able module. It is called libpgtcl and the source is located

in the PostgreSQL directory /src/interfaces/libpgtcl. Specifically, you

will need a libpgtcl library that is 'load'-able from Tcl/Tk. This is technically

different from an ordinary PostgreSQL loadable object file, because libpgtcl

is a collection of object files. Under Linux, this is called libpgtcl.so.

You can download<AHREF="libpgtcl.so">from here</A>a version already

compiled for Linux i386 systems. Just copy libpgtcl.so into your system

library director (/usr/lib) and go for it. One of the solutions is to remove

from the source the line containing<B>load libpgtcl.so</B>and to load

pgaccess.tcl not with wish, but with pgwish (or wishpg) that wish that

was linked with libpgtcl library!</P>

<P>If you have installed RedHat 5.0, you should get the last distribution

kit of postgreSQL and compile it from scratch. RedHat 5.0 is using some

new versions of libraries and you have to compile and install again at

least<B>libpq</B>and<B><TT>libpgtcl</TT></B>libraries.</P>

<P>However, the application should work without problems!</P>

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<P>The mailing list for PgAccess is : &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<B><TT>pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org</TT></B></P>

<P>If you have some questions regarding PgAccess you should mail to this

address. I will also answer to messages addresed directly to me but it

would be better to post your messages here because it might be possible

to get an answer quickly from another user of PgAccess.</P>

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