topic Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox? in Discussions

Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

pmroz — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 19:26:43 GMT

Hello folks,

I create reports using textboxes and tableboxes containing stringcolboxes and numbercolboxes. Is there a way to copy things from these displays? I don't want to use texteditboxes, because people could change the content.

Thanks,

Peter

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

txnelson — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 20:01:17 GMT

You can select and cut at paste any table box or column witnin the table box, using the selection tool. You can find that tool in the pull down menu area, or you can simply hover over the the display window and click the "s" key and it will change to the selection tool. Then simply click on what you want to select and then use the copy key strokes or the Edit==>Copy selection from the pull down menus. Then just type the letter "a" and you will be taken out of the selection tool.

Also, you can rt. mouse click on any table box, and select "Make into Data Table" and it will then place the table into a data table, and let you cut and paste specific cells.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

pmroz — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 20:40:38 GMT

Thanks Jim I'm aware of that technique. The problem with that approach is you can only copy all of the text, not some of it. Sometimes I'm displaying 40-50 lines of text, and users want to copy a single word or sentence.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

txnelson — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:08:45 GMT

You can specify in jsl to allow for the data table to be selectable. You can specify the number of rows that can be selected, and then take action based upon the selection. Go to Help==>Scripting Index and look up the table box. You will see the messages that can be sent to it that will permit selection, etc.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

pmroz — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 14:19:17 GMT

Still no joy. If you select a row in a tablebox and hit CTRL-C, you get the entire table. This is the example from the scripting index:

Names Default To Here( 1 );

New Window( "Mountains",

tb = Table Box(

String Col Box( "Mountain",

{"K2", "Delphi", "Kilimanjaro", "Grand Teton"} ),

Number Col Box( "Elevation (meters)", {8611, 681, 5895, 4199} ),

Plot Col Box( "", {8611, 681, 5895, 4199} )

)

);

tb << Set Selectable Rows();

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

txnelson — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 15:18:28 GMT

If you set up your display so you can select the rows you want, and then have a Button Box that has the jsl behind it to take the selected rows, and to grab just the column you want, then it can copy that to the paste buffer.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

ms — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 15:19:04 GMT

Yes, that's a little strange.

Here's an idea for a workaround (not thoroughly tested); just select an item to copy it:

New Window("test", Table Box(ncb = Number Col Box("data", {1, 2, 3, 4}), <<Set Selectable Rows()));

ncb << set row change function(

Function({this},

Set Clipboard(ncb[this << get selected rows][1])

)

);

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

pmroz — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 15:26:28 GMT

Thanks MS that's an interesting way to do it. Wasn't aware of the set clipboard function. However I'm dealing with basic users who understand ^C and ^V, and this might confuse them.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

txnelson — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:02:28 GMT

To approach this from a different angle.......you could use a New Data View as the display vehicle, which will allow all of the cutting and pasting one can do to a data table. The problem to be over come is that a user can change the values. So to overcome this, you could place a Make Row State Handler on the data table, that looks to a "Private" copy of the data table, and changes any changed values back to the original values. Therefore always insuring the cut and paste will get the original values.

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

pmroz — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:11:27 GMT

That's a reasonable possibility.

For my other case of just selecting text from a text box I'm going to try out using texteditboxes. Users could change the text but I'm not saving it anywhere. For that matter they could copy the text and then change it in wherever they paste it to (i.e. word, power point etc.).

Re: Copy/Paste from textbox or stringcolbox?

txnelson — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:23:46 GMT

If you are droping your concern over the users changing the data, then I would still recommend the New Data View. You can close the pannel boxes, and the user gets a real nice display, and you don't have to worry about scrolling, etc....