Tech Tip I  -  Extractor Keyword Extraction Web Service

What is it?

The Extractor Web Service is a web API built in Visual Studio .NET that wraps the Extractor Engine to allow developers to integrate text summarization functionality quickly and easily into their applications.

Why would I want to use it?

The ability to read a document and capture its key words and phrases is a necessity when evaluating, comparing, and cataloging documents.  Typically key word/phrase extraction requires the reading of the document in order to glean the intent or topics being presented and the subsequent capture (keying) of the key words and phrases into a data store.  Extractor reads documents and returns the key words and phrases with a very high accuracy, removing the need for human involvement.

How do I use it?

1.       Obtain an Application ID from DBI Sales.

2.       Create a new project, in this case we will build a VB.NET Winforms project.

3.       In the Solution Explorer right click on the References node and select "Add Service Reference".

4.       In the Address field enter   
http://www.picofocus.com/DemoEngine/dbiExtractorDemoWebService.asmx

5.       Click the Go button and the service will be discovered and listed in the services box on the left of the dialog.

6.       Change the Namespace from the default to dbiExtractorWS  and press the OK button.

Your project will now include a Service References node under which the dbiExtractorWS is listed.

7.       In your form add 2 text boxes with their Multiline property set to True and the Scrollbars set to Vertical.   Name the first TextBox Extractee, and the second TextBox Extraction.  Add a Button to the form and name it ExtractText.

8.       In the ExtactText_Click Event add the following code

 Private Sub ExtractText_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ExtractText.Click

        Dim xTractee As New Xml.XmlDocument

        Dim xTraction As New Xml.XmlDocument

        Dim xTractionNode As Xml.XmlNode

        Dim resultNodes As Xml.XmlNodeList

        Dim xtractorStatus As String

        'Set the properties of the Extraction Request ...

        xTractee.LoadXml("<ExtractionRequest " & _

                         "ActivateHTML=""OFF"" " & _

                         "ActivateEmail=""OFF"" " & _

                         "PhrasesRequested=""10"" " & _

                         "LanguageID=""1"" " & _

                         "CharCodeID=""1"">" & _

                         "<EXTRACTEE >" & _

                         Me.Extractee.Text & _

                         "</EXTRACTEE>" & _

                         "</ExtractionRequest>")

        'Process the Extraction Request.

        'NOTE: Web Services by nature marshal  XML Documents as XML Nodes.

        '      Pass in the first (and only) node in the document to the web service.

        'NOTE: Place your unique Application ID in the call below.

        xTractionNode = Xtractor.ProcessXtraction("<Application ID From DBI>", xTractee.FirstChild)

        'Place the returned XML Node into the xTraction Document.

        xTraction.AppendChild(xTraction.ImportNode(xTractionNode, True))

        'Check the status of the Extraction Request

        xtractorStatus = xTractionNode.Attributes("ExtractionStatus").Value

        If xtractorStatus = "1" Then    'Extraction Successful

            'Get all of the Result Nodes.

            'NOTE:  In the Extraction Request above we set PhrasesRequested to 10.

            resultNodes = xTraction.GetElementsByTagName("Result")

            'Iterate through the Result Nodes and print out the Key Phrases and Highlights.

            Dim resultNode As Xml.XmlNode

            For Each resultNode In resultNodes

                Me.Extraction.Text = Me.Extraction.Text & _

                                                      "Key Word/Phrase: " & resultNode.Item("KeyPhrase").InnerText & vbCrLf & _

                                                      "Highlight: " & resultNode.Item("KeyHighlight").InnerText & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

           Next  ResultNode

        Else

            Me.Extraction.Text = "Error Encountered" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

            Me.Extraction.Text = Me.Extraction.Text & vbCrLf & "Extractor returned a code of " + xtractorStatus

            Me.Extraction.Text = Me.Extraction.Text & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & xTractionNode.InnerText

        End If

    End Sub

9.       Run the application.  Copy and Paste some text into the Extractee Text Box. 
NOTE;  The application is requesting 10 Key Words/Phrases so make sure you have enough text to reasonable expect 10 themes or topics to be returned.

10.   Press the ExtractText button to request and present the extraction of the text entered in the Extractee Text Box.

11.   If no errors are encountered the Extraction Text Box will display the top ten Key Words and Phrases from your text along with a highlight (sentence) from the original text illustrating  the most prominent use of the key word or phrase within the document.

Summary

The application described above is a simple implementation of the Extractor Content Summarization Web Service which only touches the surface of the power of the Extractor component software.  For more information on Extractor, the Extractor Web Service, and the potential of Extractor for your specific development needs please visit www.Extractor.com or contact dbi Sales via email through sales@dbi-tech.com.

controls | product manager | administrator | Windows | UAC | support-type | non-manifested IDE environments

seo  keywords by www.Extractor.com

Tech Tip   Oct 2009 - Custom images in the new dbiTips control

One of the more powerful features of the dbiTip control is the ability to create and display a dbiTipsObject. This object encapsulates the several areas of a dbiTip including the header, footer and body areas including images 

        'We are making a tip for a timebar, so I have a function that returns a dbiTipsObject

   Me.dbiTipsMain.ImageOnly = False

   Dim curTip As Dbi.WinControl.Tips.dbiTipsObject = MakeTipForTimeBar(e.TimeBarItem)

   Me.dbiTipsMain.Show(curTip)

                 And the function to make a dynamic tip  read more

dbiTipsObject | vbCrLf | bodyString | breakout docks | footer | Dim | cargo types

seo  keywords by www.Extractor.com

Tech Tip - Alpha-channel timebars to give transparency in Solutions Schedule for .NET

Ok, if certain retail outlets are going to start inundating us with Halloween stuff already, we are going to roll out timebar ghosts.. aka Spoooky timebars.

In working with our own internal development one of my support staff came up with a really awesome and simple way to make the timebars semi-transparent using the alpha channel. This allows the background image of the schedule to show through which will allow you to better see customareas and other timebars underneath the selected timebars.

We simply change the background color of the selected timebars using the alphachannel overload of the color library.

Me.DbiSchedule1.BarSelectBackColor = Color.FromArgb(80, Me.DbiSchedule1.TimeBarBackColor)
Me.DbiSchedule1.BarSelectBackColorTo = Color.FromArgb(80, Me.DbiSchedule1.TimeBarBackColorTo)
Me.DbiSchedule1.BarSelectForeColor = Color.White

-Before: Can t really see where the shipment behind ends and the outline is the only way to indicate you are in a custom area

-After: You can clearly see where the underlying shipment ends and the custom area is readily apparent

timebars | Solutions Schedule |background color | selected timebars | custom area | background image | inundating

Tech Tip - Using DragDrop with DBI .NET Components

We ve had some questions recently regarding dragdrop in Visual Studio with our controls, namely why use objects and the data property on the drgevents as opposed to text. Our answer has always been, use the data object. Set the data property and in your drop events for our controls code for the object. Using the getdata method on the drgevent you can get a reference to any object that may actually be in there. The follow-up question is inevitably,  Why do I have to use getdatapresent and getdata? Where is the strong typing and intellisense? , and the answer to that one is, there is none. Because a dragdrop can come from outside of your application, the drgevent is pretty generic. You can code to get an Outlook email message, a file, a dbiAppointment, or pretty much any object you can think of. Once you have a reference to said object you can write code to handle various objects coming into your controls. This example will show how to get a dbiDayView appointment into dbiSchedule  it will take the appointment, calculate where it was dropped in the schedule, create a timebar at the new position and set it s duration to be that of the appointment item.

Private Sub DataGridView1_CellMouseDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewCellMouseEventArgs) Handles DataGridView1.CellMouseDown

        Dim dataRow As System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewRow = Me.DataGridView1.Rows(e.RowIndex)

        DoDragDrop(dataRow, DragDropEffects.Copy)

    End Sub 

    Private Sub DbiDayView1_BeforeAppointmentDrag(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.DayView.BeforeAppointmentDragEventArgs) Handles DbiDayView1.BeforeAppointmentDrag

        'Start a dragdrop but use the appointment in the Data object of

        'the DoDragDrop

        Me.DoDragDrop(e.Appointment, DragDropEffects.Move)

    End Sub 

    Private Sub DbiSchedule1_BeforeTimeBarDrop(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.BeforeTimeBarDropEventArgs) Handles DbiSchedule1.BeforeTimeBarDrop

        'Check to see if the drag is coming from a DataGridView

        'Just a random control to highlight you can handle

        'dragdrop from multiple sources.

        If e.drgevent.Data.GetDataPresent(GetType(System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewRow).ToString) Then

            Dim dataRow As System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewRow

            dataRow = e.drgevent.Data.GetData(GetType(System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewRow).ToString) 

            e.TimeBarItem.Start = dataRow.Cells(3).Value

            e.TimeBarItem.End = dataRow.Cells(4).Value

            e.TimeBarItem.Text = dataRow.Cells(2).Value

            e.AllowDrop = True

        End If 

        'Check to see if the drag is coming from a dbiAppointmentItem

        If e.drgevent.Data.GetDataPresent(GetType(Dbi.PIM.dbiAppointmentItem).ToString) Then

            'Set a reference to the GetData

            Dim curAppt As Dbi.PIM.dbiAppointmentItem

            curAppt = e.drgevent.Data.GetData(GetType(Dbi.PIM.dbiAppointmentItem).ToString) 

            'Change the timebar that was created to reflect the data in the appointment.

            'Since it's a move, use the timebar start and add the timespan of the appt

            e.TimeBarItem.End = e.TimeBarItem.Start.AddMilliseconds((curAppt.End - curAppt.Start).TotalMilliseconds)

            e.TimeBarItem.Text = curAppt.Text

            e.AllowDrop = True 

            'Because we did a move I want to remove the appointment from

            'the dbiDayView

            Me.DbiDayView1.Appointments.Remove(curAppt)

        End If

    End Sub

drgevent | data property |  controls | appointment |getdata | dragdrop |reference

Dim dataRow | sender | Private Sub | appointment | Sub  | timebar | Dim curAppt

keywords provided by www.Extractor.com

Today s tip is a bit of a product crossover, using the ctTips from SCCOM with the latest version of SolSched9 to make things very pretty indeed.

We ll start with a picture as they are worth the proverbial thousands of words

As you can see we have a pretty nifty looking tooltip populated with information from the timebar. It doesn t take a lot of code to setup, simply add a ctTips control to your form and using the following code we can set it up with a few lines of code

To start things off we ll throw some code out  I ve put the pertinent details in the code comments

Dim TipsText As String  Global for synching the Events

Dim FooterText As String  Global for synching the Events

Private Sub Command1_Click()

        'Load some sched items and bars

        LoadSched

        'Ensure that we disable the internal ctSchedule tips

        Me.ctSchedule1.TipsType = TipsNone

        'Setup the ctTips for Vista Styles

        ctTips1.ControlStyle = StyleVista

        ctTips1.TextAlign = TextLeft

        ctTips1.FillType = FillVertical

        ctTips1.TipsTextXOffset = 0

        ctTips1.TipsTextYOffset = 0

        ctTips1.ForeColor = &H80000017

        ctTips1.BackColor = &HFFFFFF

        ctTips1.BackColorTo = &HE7E7DA

        ctTips1.TitleVisible = True

        ctTips1.FooterVisible = True

        ctTips1.TitleFont = Me.ctTips1.Font.Bold

        ctTips1.FooterFont = Me.ctTips1.Font.Bold

        'Add the ctSchedule control to the ctTips

        'We use the AddEnhancedTips method so we get the nice

        'headers and footers. Note the image is stored in the

        'internal image list for ctTips (see image below)

        ctTips1.AddEnhancedTips ctSchedule1.hWnd, "", "Time Bar Over", 1, 0

End Sub

Private Sub ctSchedule1_ScheduleOver(ByVal nIndex As Integer, ByVal nBar As Integer)

    If nBar = 0 Then

       'Hides and clears the tips text, setting the tipstext = ""

       'will ensure it doesn't pop up when not over a timebar

       ctTips1.HideTips

       TipsText = ""

       FooterText = ""

    Else

       'Set the tipsText global variable, we'll use this in the

       'BeforeTipDisplay as we need the nIndex to associate

       'the proper text with the tip.

       TipsText = Me.ctSchedule1.BarText(nIndex, nBar) + Chr(10) + _

       "StartTime: " + TimeFromMinutes(Me.ctSchedule1.BarTimeStart(nIndex, nBar)) + Chr(10) + _

       "End Time: " + TimeFromMinutes(Me.ctSchedule1.BarTimeEnd(nIndex, nBar)) + Chr(10) + _

       Chr(10) + _

       "We use a title, footer, and" + Chr(10) + _

       "body to create the tip. Each" + Chr(10) + _

       "section can contain its own" + Chr(10) + _

       "text and/or image."

       'Set the footer text so the tip is easily identifiable

       FooterText = "Timebar Text - " + Me.ctSchedule1.BarText(nIndex, nBar)

    End If

 End Sub

Private Sub ctTips1_BeforeTipDisplay(ByVal nHwnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Integer)

       'Before the tip is displayed set the properties to show our

       'customized tip. This is set above in the schedule over event.

       Me.ctTips1.CtrlTipsText(nIndex) = TipsText

       Me.ctTips1.FooterText = FooterText

End Sub

Private Function TimeFromMinutes(ByVal lngTime As Long) As String

'This is just a quick function to format the time,

'and yes, I know it doesn't do Noon/Midnight, this is a

'techy tippy cut us some slack!

Dim curHour As Long

Dim curMin As Long

Dim AmPM As String

Dim strTime As String

curHour = Int(lngTime / 60)

curMin = lngTime - (curHour * 60)

If curHour > 12 Then

curHour = curHour - 12

AmPM = "PM"

Else

AmPM = "AM"

End If

strTime = CStr(curHour) + ":" + Format(CStr(curMin), "00") + " " + AmPM

TimeFromMinutes = strTime

End Function

But a quick overview for those who don t want to become Analysts for my code. We have two global variables, one for the body text and one for the footer text as I customize the tips for each timebar. In the SchedOver event we check to see if we are over a timebar, if we are set the global vars, then the ctTips handles the rest.

Back To The Top

One of the great new features in Solutions::Schedule for COM (Ver 9) is the GuideLine. For those that are familiar with the .NET version of Solutions::Schedule you ll be familiar with the concept. I was going to work up some sample code, but realized the help file working with guidelines had all the info I needed so I did a bit of plagiarism on ourselves. Also, a quick thank you at the end of today s tip.

Working with Guide Lines
Guide Lines are vertical lines used to represent specific times in a schedule. Guide lines provide the user with discrete  snap-to  functionality making it easier to position time bars.

Guide lines enhance the process of creating and maintaining a schedule. Guide lines are not intended to be included in the static display functionality of the schedule and accordingly they have certain limitations. Guide lines are not rendered in a print or print preview report, and are not part of the Undo/Redo functionality.

Adding Guide Lines to the Schedules
Guide lines are assigned to a specific schedule object. Therefore, if the user wants to display a guide line in multiple schedules for a specific time the guide line must be created for each schedule object in which it is to appear. There are two ways to add a guide line to a schedule 

1.)    User Interaction: Set the EditMode property of the control to GuideLine. Click a point on the schedule. On the OnMouseUp event, the new guide line will be created.

2.)    Programmatically: Create a GuideLine through code. For example

Dim curGuideLine as integer

curGuideLine = ctSchedule1.AddGuideLine(540, me.ctSchedule1.DateStart)

When a guide line is added with the mouse a GuideLineAdd event will be fired by the ctSchedule control. This event can be used to validate the action and optionally delete the guide line from the control, or set the appearance of the guide line.

Changing the Position of a Guide Line
The position of a guide line in a schedule is based on the GuideDate and GuideTime values. Changing the position of a guide line can be achieved in one of three ways ...

1.)    User Interaction with the guideline in the schedule: Set the EditMode property of the control to GuideLine, Click and drag an existing guide line horizontally in the schedule. On the mouseup, the guide line will be set at its new position and time. NOTE: To move the guideline inside the schedule area the EditMode must be set to GuideLine.

2.)    User Interaction with the guideline in the ruler: If an image has been assigned to a guide line the image appears in the ruler area. Click and drag the image horizontally in the ruler to change its time. NOTE: The EditMode of the control DOES NOT have to be set to GuideLine.

3.)    Programmatically: Change the value of the GuideTime and GuideDate  properties of the ctSchedule through code. For example 

me.ctSchedule1.GuideTime(curGuideLine) = 240

me.ctSchedule1.GuideDate(curGuideLine) = clng(Now)

When a guide line is moved with the mouse a GuideLineMoved event will be fired. NOTE: As a guide line is being moved with the mouse, the GuideLineMove event will be firing.

Removing Guide Lines from the Schedules
Guide lines can be removed from the ctSchedule in one of three ways 

1.)    User Interaction with the guideline in the schedule: Set the EditMode property of the control to GuideLine, Click and drag an existing guide line horizontally off of the schedule. On the mouseup, the guide line will be removed.

2.)    User Interaction with the guideline in the ruler: If an image has been assigned to a guide line, click and drag the image horizontally off of the schedule. NOTE: The EditMode of the control DOES NOT have to be set to GuideLine

3.)    Programmatically: Remove the guide line through code. For example ...

me.ctSchedule1.DeleteGuideLine curGuideLine

When a guide line is being removed with the mouse a GuideLineRemove event will be fired.

Adding Images to a Guide Line
Each guide line can be assigned an image that is rendered in the ruler section of the control. By default the image will be vertically aligned to the bottom of the ruler and horizontally aligned so that the middle of the image is on top of the guide line. The position can be changed though the GuideImageXOffset and GuideImageYOffset . NOTE: It is possible to display an image for a guide line inside the actual schedule instead of the ruler area however this is NOT a recommended practice as the logic for the guide line images assumes they are within the ruler area of the schedule. Unpredictable results may occur by placing them elsewhere. To add an image to a guide line perform the following 

1.)    Assign the Guide Line images to the image list of the ctSchedule.

2.)    To set the default image for all Guide Lines in the ctSchedule control, assign the index value of an image in the image list to the GuideImageIndex property of the ctSchedule control. After that, all guide lines will use that image unless the GuideImage property for a GuideLine index is set discretely to the index value of a different image in the ctSchedule image list. Setting the GuideImage property of a Guide Line overrides any default image assigned to the guide lines.

Snapping a Time Bar to a Guide Line
To cause time bars to be snapped to a guide line, the SnapToGuideLines property of the ctSchedule control must be set to True. As one end of a time bar approaches a guide line the edge of the time bar will become aligned with the guide line. The distance at which the time bar is  snapped  to the guide line is determined in pixels and is defined in the GuideLineDistance property of the ctSchedule control.

When a time bar is  snapped  to a guide line, it is assigned the actual time of that guide line. For example, if a guide line is set to 1:13:15 (1 hour, 13 minutes, 15 seconds), when a time bar is snapped to the guide line, its beginning (or end depending on the proximity of the guide line) will be set to the 1:13:15 setting.

NOTE : Because the Snap to Guide Lines feature is based on pixels, a time bar will only snap to a guide line that is visible within the schedule object. If a guide line is not visible in the schedule object the time bar will not snap to its value.

NOTE : Working with GuideLines and SnapToGrid... please be aware that if you have snap-to-grid enabled with snap-to-guidelines, be sure to synchronize the guidelines to the gridfrequency. If the guidelines fall too close to the gridfrequency but not exactly then there may be issues related to the drawing of the timebars as they attempt to position themselves to accommodate both values.

Tech Tip   June 2009   Side Note: CodeProject Awards
As I m sure the marketing group has made mention elsewhere (if they haven t, we need to restrict the martini lunches), we won a CodeProject award for our SolSched .NET product (under General Development Tools) 

http://www.codeproject.com/PressReleases/809/The-Code-Project-Announces-First-Annual-Members-Choice-Awards.aspx

Since the support department doesn t get much of a chance to talk directly to our clients outside of questions and issues, I wanted to take a quick moment to say thanks a ton for the votes and as always take care and have a great day!

Back To The Top

Welcome and hopefully your spring weather is much better than up here in Winnipeg. Brrr.

Today s tip is regarding the new Solutions Schedule for COM (v9.0) and using the default bar properties to make your timebars look very pretty.

It s fairly straightforward, we ve extended upon out default bar styles to add fill types and a backcolorto property

Me.ctSchedule1.BarDefBackColor = vbWhite

Me.ctSchedule1.BarDefBackColorTo = vbBlue

Me.ctSchedule1.BarDefFillType = FillVertEdge

'or for wider timebars...

Me.ctSchedule1.BarDefFillType = FillVertEdge2

And for those that would like to see their changes dynamically we ve added a new property browser method to enable you to change the colors dynamically. To do this, add a button to your form and in the click event call the me.ctSchedule.PropertyPages method like so

Me.ctSchedule1.PropertyPages = Display

Then navigate to the color tab and change the BarDefBackColor and BarDefBackColorTo properties as desired (beware you can make some pretty good Circus-Pie color schemes). If you wish to play with the default fill type you can do this through the Appearance Tab

Now these are just the defaults, you can apply individual timebar fills to make unique color combinations using the standard ctSchedule timebar calls (nindex = item, nbar = timebar) like so, I ll create two timebars and make one green and one red

Dim grnBar As Integer

Dim redBar As Integer

grnBar = Me.ctSchedule1.AddKeyTimeBar(1, 180, 240, Me.ctSchedule1.DateStart, Me.ctSchedule1.DateStart, "Key1")

Me.ctSchedule1.BarBackColor(1, grnBar) = vbWhite

Me.ctSchedule1.BarBackColorTo(1, grnBar) = RGB(0, 100, 0)

Me.ctSchedule1.BarFillType(1, grnBar) = FillVertEdge2

redBar = Me.ctSchedule1.AddKeyTimeBar(2, 180, 240, Me.ctSchedule1.DateStart, Me.ctSchedule1.DateStart, "Key2")

Me.ctSchedule1.BarBackColor(2, redBar) = vbWhite

Me.ctSchedule1.BarBackColorTo(2, redBar) = RGB(100, 0, 0)

Me.ctSchedule1.BarFillType(2, redBar) = FillVertEdge2

For more information on the new fill styles or the new guideline functionality (way cool) please check out the new help file  anywhere you see a red star is new information

Take care and as always have a great day!

Back To The Top

Last month we looked at using LINQ for filtering a dbiSchedule List. This month we are going to look at using LINQ on the dbiTimebar.Tag.

 To begin we are going to create an object that holds information for each timebar. In this case the object will have a collection on it as well, meaning that in our example we may have a truck with multiple cargoes on it. We will want to be able to determine which timebars have cargo manifests containing  Freezer  manifests. Normally that s a lot of for each looping and custom collection building, but in this case we will use LINQ to cut through some of that  so without further ado, here is some code

     Partial Public Class ItemCargo

        'An object that can be used to house cargo items

        Dim l_Capacity As Integer

        Dim l_CargoCollection As New System.Collections.Generic.List(Of String)

         Public Property CargoCollection() As System.Collections.Generic.List(Of String)

            Get

                Return l_CargoCollection

            End Get

            Set(ByVal value As System.Collections.Generic.List(Of String))

                l_CargoCollection = value

            End Set

        End Property

         Public Property Capacity() As Integer

            Get

                Return l_Capacity

            End Get

            Set(ByVal value As Integer)

                l_Capacity = value

            End Set

        End Property

    End Class

      Private Sub AddItems()

        'Add some items to the Schedule, then some timebars. Call this from your firstdraw

        Dim newItem1 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem

        newItem1.Text = "Dock 1"

         Dim newTimebar1 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem()

        newTimebar1.Start = #1/1/2009 3:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar1.End = #1/1/2009 5:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar1.Text = "Truck #A23993"

         Dim newCargoManifest1 As New ItemCargo

        newCargoManifest1.Capacity = 50

        newCargoManifest1.CargoCollection.Add("Freezer")

         newTimebar1.Tag = newCargoManifest1

         newItem1.TimeBars.Add(newTimebar1)

         Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(newItem1)

         Dim newItem2 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem

        newItem2.Text = "Dock 2"

         Dim newTimebar2 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem()

        newTimebar2.Start = #1/1/2009 2:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar2.End = #1/1/2009 4:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar2.Text = "Truck #B33993"

         Dim newCargoManifest2 As New ItemCargo

        newCargoManifest2.Capacity = 50

        newCargoManifest2.CargoCollection.Add("Freezer")

        newCargoManifest2.CargoCollection.Add("Cooler")

         newTimebar2.Tag = newCargoManifest2

         newItem2.TimeBars.Add(newTimebar2)

         Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(newItem2)

         Dim newItem3 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem

        newItem3.Text = "Dock 2"

         Dim newTimebar3 As New Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem()

        newTimebar3.Start = #1/1/2009 1:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar3.End = #1/1/2009 3:00:00 AM#

        newTimebar3.Text = "Truck #C223AS"

         Dim newCargoManifest3 As New ItemCargo

        newCargoManifest3.Capacity = 50

        newCargoManifest3.CargoCollection.Add("Cooler") 

        newTimebar3.Tag = newCargoManifest3

         newItem3.TimeBars.Add(newTimebar3)

         Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(newItem3)

     End Sub

 Finally the LINQ to return all the items that have a freezer manifest

     Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click

         Dim FreezerQuery = From dbiItem As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem In myCollection _

                           From dbiTimeBar As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem In dbiItem.TimeBars _

                           Where dbiTimeBar.Tag.CargoCollection.Contains("Freezer") _

                           Select dbiTimeBar

        For Each TimeBar As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem In FreezerQuery

            Me.ListBox1.Items.Add(TimeBar.Text)

            TimeBar.BackColor = Color.Red

        Next

    End Sub

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 And here is the source code

'Global variable for holding the master copy of our data

    Dim myCollection As New Collections.Generic.List(Of Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem)

    Private Sub DbiSchedule1_FirstDraw(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.FirstDrawEventArgs) Handles DbiSchedule1.FirstDraw

        'Load your data, I am using a read XML

        Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor

        Me.DbiSchedule1.ReadXMLFile("LargeData.xml")

        Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default

        'Create the LINQ query to create the copy of all our items.

        Dim mySchedItems = From schedItems As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem In Me.DbiSchedule1.Items _

           Select schedItems

        'Use the .ToList method on the LINQ query to set our Global

        myCollection = mySchedItems.ToList

    End Sub

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

        'Remove the current items from the dbiSched.Items

        'This only removes them it doesn't delete them from

        'memory as they are stored in myCollection

        Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Clear()

        'Check if text box is empty - if it is use the

        'myCollection.ToArray to add the items back to the schedule

        'otherwise use a LINQ query to select my filter.

        If Me.TextBox1.Text <> "" Then

            'A LINQ query using the dbiSChedule.Item.Text.StartsWith

            'You could modify this to apply to the .Cargo, .Data, or .TAG easily

            'for filtering by department, building or warehouse for example

            Dim schedQuery = From SchedItem As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem In myCollection _

                                Where SchedItem.Text.StartsWith(Me.TextBox1.Text) _

                                Select SchedItem

            'Using the results from the LINQ query, add them to the dbiSched.Items

            Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.AddRange(schedQuery.ToArray)

        Else

            Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.AddRange(myCollection.ToArray)

        End If

    End Sub

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With the new release of Studio Controls for COM (SCCOM), we added a new control called ctDayView. This is a reworking of the original ctMDay and ctDays with some new styles and many other fun features. Today I m going to focus on the Selected Styles and Appointment Moving and Sizing.

 To start with let s look at the SelectedAppStyle property. This property allows us to show the selected appointment as either a Vista Style or Standard (ctMDay) Style

In these images I have the TaskBar=True, TaskBarWidth=10 and TaskBarColor=RGB(255,0,0). We left the standard style in so that the original presentation can be maintained, but the new Vista style looks a bit cleaner and more modern.

 Also, we ve gotten a couple of more questions on the sizing and moving of appointments in the ctDayView. This functionality did exist in ctMDay but it s worth another look as the new styles can have an effect on the moving and sizing.

This behavior is controlled by the AppointMoveType property and can have a value of Standard or Advanced.

With the Standard enum the appointment is moved by clicking and dragging the top bar of an appointment, and sized by clicking and dragging the bottom bar of an appointment (bar for the Standard SelectedAppStyle, line for the Vista SelectedAppStyle). This style is preferable for those with TaskBars disabled.

With the Advanced enum the appointment is moved by clicking and dragging the task bar of an appointment, and sized by clicking and dragging the top or bottom bar (bar for the Standard SelectedAppStyle, line for the Vista SelectedAppStyle) of an appointment.

In our ctDayViewDemo.exe we have the taskbarwidth set to 2 to showcase the appointment styles a bit. This may require some finite mouse control some end-users aren t comfortable with, so if this becomes an issue, increase the taskbarwidth to give a larger grabbing area.

**A side note from the Technical Support Department**

As always when we do a new release we like to remind our clients that when coding with our controls, we strongly recommend that you set the properties for the controls in code whenever possible. As there are new releases of many controls in the SCCOM and SCNET products, if you have set your properties for the controls in code, then replacing existing controls with newer versions is much easier as most IDE s allow you to remove the old control and add the new version with the same name and they will automatically map the existing code for you. A few checks for event handlers and you are set.

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Some of our older products in the .NET environment may not have the .tag property available on all the objects. Those objects usually have a Cargo(String) or Data (Integer) property. What you can do to leverage those with more generic objects is to create a  collection.dictionary which will store a key/value pair. You can then create a unique ID and store your object in the dictionary along with the unique ID. I usually use a guid and place that in the Cargo property and at the same time add my object to the collection  here is a quick snippet of code  

    Partial Public Class MyObject

        Public Name As String

        Public Location As String

        Public StaffID As Long

    End Class

    Public StaffInfo As New System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary(Of String, Object)

    Private Sub DbiSchedule1_BeforeTimeBarDrop(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.BeforeTimeBarDropEventArgs) Handles DbiSchedule1.BeforeTimeBarDrop

        'Create a new guid to handle the record keeping

        Dim newGuid As String = System.Guid.NewGuid.ToString

        e.TimeBarItem.Cargo = newGuid.ToString 'Add the guid to the Cargo property

        e.TimeBarItem.Text = "Test"

        e.TimeBarItem.End = e.TimeBarItem.Start.AddMinutes(90)

        'Create my extended object, in this case some extra staff info to attach to the timebar

        Dim newObj As New MyObject

        newObj.Name = "Paul"

        newObj.Location = "Office 2A"

        newObj.StaffID = 102

        'Add the pair to my dictionary, now in other timebar events, I can use the .item feature

        'of the dictionary collection to get my object

        StaffInfo.Add(newGuid, newObj)

        e.AllowDrop = True

    End Sub

      Private Sub DbiSchedule1_TimeBarDoubleClick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.TimeBarDoubleClickEventArgs) Handles DbiSchedule1.TimeBarDoubleClick

        Dim curStr As String

        'Get my staff object from my timebar using the key stored

        'in the Cargo property

        Dim curObj As MyObject = StaffInfo.Item(e.TimeBarItem.Cargo)

        curStr = "Text: " & e.TimeBarItem.Text & " Name: " & curObj.Name & " Office: " & curObj.Location

        MsgBox(curStr)

    End Sub

    Private Sub DbiSchedule1_AfterTimeBarRemoved(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.AfterTimeBarRemovedEventArgs) Handles DbiSchedule1.AfterTimeBarRemoved

        'If I remove a timebar from the schedule, I don't need the item in my dictionary.

        StaffInfo.Remove(e.ScheduleItem.TimeBars(e.BarIndex).Cargo)

    End Sub

This can actually be used anywhere you can stick some text on an object, while I do prefer the inheritance method of extending objects, that does require re-casting and alternatives are never a bad idea, mayhap they can lead you to your own timesaving concepts.

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As a developer I find some of the features of our controls to be really exciting. One of my newfound treasures with the release of Calendar Tools 3.0 for .NET is the ability to add my appointments to the common PIM repository. We've had this feature in previous releases, however at that time it was only used as a repository, it didn't directly interact with other controls. Now we have the ability to "attach" a dbiPIM control to several of our CalTools controls (dbiDayView, dbiCalendar and dbiMonth). What this means then is that during a data load, I only have to add my data to the PIM object, this will then broadcast the objects to all the controls. This also holds true for modifications and updates. So for a quick example I'll walk through adding the PIM object to the toolbox, then the form, then hooking in two controls dbiDayView and dbiCalendar.

To add the dbiPIM4.dll to the toolbox, right click a header in the toolbox, select Choose Items, then click the browse button. By default the base libraries are now in C:\DBITech\dbiBaseAssemblies, select the dbiPIM4.dll and then click OK. Now simply drag that dbiPIM control to the form you are working on, this will add the dbiPIM to the ComponentTray in your form (default name is DbiPIM1). As you can see in your property pages, this will allow collections for Alarms, Appointments, Contacts, Locations and Tasks. This information will be broadcast to all the controls we hook up to the PIM object.

Hooking the dbiPIM1 into the controls is pretty straightforward, on the controls that support the dbiPIM object there is a property called PIM, in this case I will go to the property designer for dbiCalendar, go to the PIM property, click the dropdown and select dbiPIM1, repeat for the dbiDayView control.

Now add an appointment to the dbiDayView control by selecting a time range, then typing. Once you tab off the appointment (this will commit the appointment to the collection) the changes will be reflected in the dbiCalendar. Now double click the appointment in the dbiCalendar, change the text, and click save and exit. You will see the changes reflected back to the dbiDayView control.

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Correction from last month:

To help developers get acquainted with some of the changes we have added, there is a new feature to all of our .NET demo  applications. You can now click the view property page link in runtime and you will open a modal form with the property pages for the Calendar control in the demo.  This way you can modify settings on the fly and see the results immediately.

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Hello and welcome to this week s DBI Tech Tips, since we are having a two-for promotion we thought we d toss in a two-for tip 

For the COM developers out there, we have been asked how to trap the ellipse click in ctMday. By itself, the control just shows the ellipse to indicate that there are more all day appointments than are visible in the column. To that end, it was never intended to be clicked on, we always thought a whiteboard type approach with a listbox was within the domain of the developers. We ve had some requests wherein people want to throw a dialog with a listbox or a custom tree view for that particular area when the ellipse is clicked.

So we put some ideas to the task and discovered that we can use the internal drag/drop methods/events to capture when the all day area has been clicked, but not on an appointment. Here is the code in vb6 

Dim booIsDragDrop As Boolean 'Used to indicate wether or not we are in true drag/drop mode.

Dim curX As Integer

Dim curY As Integer

Private Sub ctMDay1_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, x As Single, y As Single)

booIsDragDrop = False 'Set the booIsDragDrop to false, in case we are using actual drag/drop code

Me.ctMDay1.DragDrop x / Screen.TwipsPerPixelX, y / Screen.TwipsPerPixelY 'Fire the drag/drop event to get the current position in the control

End Sub

Private Sub ctMDay1_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, x As Single, y As Single)

'Use the mousemove to capture the current x/y of the mouse

'for use in the appoinmentat function in DropList

curX = x / Screen.TwipsPerPixelX

curY = y / Screen.TwipsPerPixelY

End Sub

Private Sub ctMDay1_DropList(ByVal nIndex As Integer, ByVal nTime As Integer, ByVal nColumn As Integer)

If booIsDragDrop = False Then

  Me.Label1.Caption = CStr(nIndex)

    If nIndex = -1 And Me.ctMDay1.AppointmentAt(curX, curY) = 0 Then

        'Enter code here to throw a listbox or custom dialog listing all the allday appts.

        MsgBox "This is an ellipse or a blank area of allday for col:" & CStr(nColumn)

    End If

Else

    'Do our actual drag/drop code

End If

booIsDragDrop = True 'Set the default in case an actual drag/drop fires.

End Sub

And for our .NET users we came across an interesting use of the enum class for setting default items in a combo box. Basically you use the gettype and getValues methods inherited by all enums to bind the enum to the combo box. So with two lines of code, we can bind our dbi.enumFillType to a combobox and set the enum on a control as the value in the combo box changes. Here is a quick sample  

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

        Me.comboFillType.DataSource = System.Enum.GetValues(GetType(Dbi.enumFillType))

    End Sub

    Private Sub comboFillType_SelectedIndexChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles comboFillType.SelectedIndexChanged

        Me.dbiLabel1.FillType = Me.comboFillType.SelectedValue

    End Sub

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In this space we usually try and focus on DBI controls or some non-standard ways to do specific things with our controls.  Yours truly has been doing some dev work lately on internal systems and I came across an interesting dilemma. So, today is going to be a bit different, we're going to focus on a particular issue common to most controls in a WinForm environment.

Here's where we begin - I wanted to add a fade-fill effect to my WinForm background.  Ok  says I,  I have the web, this should be no problem . I did some research and came up with a few ways to add fade-fill effects (custom 2d pens, fills, backimage properties and onPaint overrides  yikes, my screen was jittering along like a June bug).  So I thought to myself, I ll just toss a dbiLabel on my form, dock it to fill and set a gradient fill, presto  in no time I had a nice looking form. There's a trap though, any control that supports transparency will go transparent to the container (form, container, tabpage) but not other controls within the container.

Well that was something I thought a bit more about. What if I had a label that sits overtop of a textbox or an image.  I set the backcolor to transparent and instant grey box. What I needed was a little routine that would take two controls and set the backimage of the topmost to the image behind it. So I made this little function, it basically takes a copy of the display of one control and slaps it into the backimage of the topmost control. The only caveat (trick) is that the control being the topmost control has to support a backimage property. This can also be used at the form level as the form is a container control. Keep in mind there isn t a lot of error checking, just something to toss out there for perusal.

    Private Sub FormLoad(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

        SetBackimage(Me, Me.Button1)

    End Sub

    Private Sub SetBackimage(ByRef ctrlColor As Control, ByRef ctrlTransparent As Control)

 Try

            Dim intX As Integer

            Dim intY As Integer

            intY = ctrlTransparent.Top - ctrlColor.Top

            intX = ctrlTransparent.Left - ctrlColor.Left
 

            If intY > 0 And intX > 0 Then

                Dim curImage As New Bitmap(ctrlColor.Width, ctrlColor.Height)

                ctrlColor.DrawToBitmap(curImage, New Rectangle(0, 0, ctrlColor.Width, ctrlColor.Height))

                ctrlTransparent.BackgroundImage = curImage.Clone(New _

                Rectangle(intX, intY, ctrlTransparent.Size.Width, ctrlTransparent.Size.Height), _

                Imaging.PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb)

            End If

        Catch ex As Exception

        End Try

    End Sub

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Hello all you developer types. Today s topic is going to be about dbiExplorerBar and ways to achieve a multicolumn approach. One of the most unique features of the control is the multiple layouts available out of the box. The navigation style   which looks like so

Can be used to house a default multicolumn view, which is configured by setting the dbiExplorerBar.ControlType = enumControlType.Navigation, the dbiExplorerBar.MultiColumn = True and the dbiExplorerBar.ColumnSize = width of column. With those settings you simply add items to the control and they get laid out in a nice table-type view.

Now to extend that even further, we often are asked how you can mix the types. For example say I want an explorer style with multiple columns. Well that is pretty easy as well, as the explorer type of the control allows for panels which can host other controls such as tables, lists and even images.  I used the image technique in the upcoming SmartClient demo (image on the right) to show that it is not only possible, but quite easy to manage

On the right, I get the full benefits of the explorer style (note the multi-column list, the standard list, then the multicolumn image list at the bottom). This allows for a cleaner more customizable and attractive workspace (ok don t beat me up on the color scheme, I am looking forward to the Expressions products so the marketing folks can take the heat for the look and feel, I ll stick to the coding). Feel free to poke around the demo and see what you can do with dbiExplorerBar.

Smart Client Demo's

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As you have no doubt heard by now SS.NET 2.0 has been released and we want you to be able to see some of the awesome new features available quickly and easily. To that end we have released 7 demos available as SmartClient demo applications. To download these, you will need .NET Framework 2.0 and MS   Internet Explorer 6  or later.  They will install in the download sandbox so you don t have to worry about having Solutions::Schedule 1.0 for .NET or Solutions::Schedule 1.5 for .NET installed, you can run these applications just by clicking the links. Oh and the links can be found here  

http://www.dbi-tech.com/SmartClientSamples.asp

Also don t forget our last tech tip (#2 below), the double clicking of the logo will still open the property pages so you can tweak away to your heart s content

Tech Tip #2     Solutions::Schedule 2.0 for .NET   Property Pages in Demo Run-times

Solutions::Schedule 2.0 for .NET is now in release. This is a huge step forward in both the presentation and organization of the Schedule. To help get you acquainted with some of the changes we have added, there is a new feature to all of our demo applications. This way you can modify settings on the fly and see the results immediately. Just wanted to let people know about this as we used this feature a fair bit in the production cycle to test and adjust things without having to hardcode everything. Oh and the tip part   if you get the schedule setup just right, you can use the XMLWrite in the property page to  save  your work, then simply use the XMLRead in the designer to  load  your work into your own Schedule.

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Well to start with, I d like to wish everyone a happy holiday season and a very prosperous new year. As you will have noted if you read any of the above information, SolSched 2 for .NET is now in release. This is a huge step forward in both the presentation and organization of the Schedule.  Just wanted to let people know about this as we used this feature a fair bit in the production cycle to test and adjust things without having to hardcode everything. Oh and the tip part   if you get the schedule setup just right, you can use the XMLWrite in the property page to  save  your work, then simply use the XMLRead in the designer to  load  your work into your own Schedule.

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One of the more frequent questions we get here in the support department regards manipulation of the list in dbiSchedule (as well as the new dbiList) and why does the developer have to do so much of the initialization work themselves. And the answer to that would be in the flexibility of the list itself. As it is a dynamic list/treeview control unto itself, there can be many permutations of headers, parent nodes, child nodes, graphics and formatting. One of the ways to set this is to define these properties in the data load, and that is perfectly legitimate, but there may be a better way. Once again we are going to hit on one of my best programming buddies   you faithful readers know what s coming next   Inheritance. I was recently asked to put together a sample showing how to use a header / child relationship in a restaurant setting. As I began my coding I found myself defining the header dbiScheduleItem on the data load. I was iterating through my list and using a couple of case statements then setting up my items that way. I didn t like that. I am a simplified kind of programmer. I like reusable code and I love my collections and inheritance. So I  thinked  a bit and decided what I wanted was more akin to a Microsoft Word type style. I wanted a Header type node where I could set up some fancy fill effects. But I wanted to make it easy to change the backcolor by department. Then I wanted my Standard list items which I wanted to pizzazz up a bit. So I put together my own partial classes that directly inherited the dbiScheduleItem then set the properties that I wanted. After that instead of coding each item as a new dbi.WinControl.Schedule.ScheduleItem or Dbi.WinControl.dbiNodeItem, I declare a new MyClass. Here is a bit of the code to achieve this

      Partial Public Class ItemHeaderDefault

        Inherits Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem   Or Dbi.WinControl.dbiNodeItem

        Public Sub New(ByVal Text As String)

            Me.Text = Text

            Me.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(0, 102, 118)

            Me.BackColorTo = Color.FromArgb(0, 102, 118)

            Me.FillType = Dbi.enumFillType.Vertical

            Me.Font = New Font("Lucida Sans", 9, FontStyle.Bold)

            Me.ForeColor = Color.White

            Me.Header = True

        End Sub

End Class

Partial Public Class ItemDefault

        Inherits Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem   Or Dbi.WinControl.dbiNodeItem

        Public Sub New(ByVal Text As String)

            Me.Text = Text

            Me.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(235, 222, 132)

            Me.BackColorTo = Color.FromArgb(251,175,93)

            Me.FillType = Dbi.enumFillType.VerticalEdge

            Me.Font = New Font("Lucida Sans", 9, FontStyle.Regular)

            Me.ForeColor = Color.FromArgb(0, 102, 118)

        End Sub

      End Class

Now to utilize these I instance my own Classes then add those items to the Schedule

       Dim Head1 As New ItemHeaderDefault("Kitchen")

        Head1.BackColor = Color.White

        Head1.BackColorTo = Color.LightGray

        Dim Head2 As New ItemHeaderDefault("Bar")

        Head2.BackColor = Color.White

        Head2.BackColorTo = Color.LightBlue

        Dim Head3 As New ItemHeaderDefault("WaitStaff")

        Head3.BackColor = Color.White

        Head3.BackColorTo = Color.PaleGreen

        Dim Kim As New ItemDefault("Kim")

        Dim David As New ItemDefault("David")

        Dim Jeff As New ItemDefault("Jeff")

        Dim Katlyn As New ItemDefault("Katlyn")

        Dim Shelly As New ItemDefault("Shelly")

        Dim Clark As New ItemDefault("Clark")

        Dim William As New ItemDefault("William")

        Dim Janine As New ItemDefault("Janine")

        Dim Paul As New ItemDefault("Paul")

        Head1.Items.Add(Kim)

        Head1.Items.Add(David)

        Head1.Items.Add(Jeff)

        Head2.Items.Add(Katlyn)

        Head2.Items.Add(Shelly)

        Head2.Items.Add(Clark)

        Head3.Items.Add(William)

        Head3.Items.Add(Janine)

        Head3.Items.Add(Paul)

        Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(Head1)   or Me.DbiList1.Items.Add(Head1)

        Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(Head2)   or Me.DbiList1.Items.Add(Head2)

        Me.DbiSchedule1.Items.Add(Head3)   or Me.DbiList1.Items.Add(Head3)

        Head1.Expand()

        Head2.Expand()

        Head3.Expand()

As you can see the inheritance allows me to set those properties in one place and modifying the items is then pretty straightforward when the end-user comes back and doesn t like that particular shade of yellow.

If you need any clarification don t hesitate to drop us a line at support@dbi-tech.com or hit our webpage for some support at http://www.dbi-tech.com/Support/Default.aspx

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5 year schedule plan proxied on a 5 day schedule!

 With this view the user will see a 5 year schedule.

 Smallest increment will be equal to one month.

 There will be 12 minor increments per year

 When using value point

 Schedule will be 5 days and the time type will be days

 Conversion =

 1 day schedule = 1 year actual

 2 hour schedule = 1 month actual

 To create the algorythm to get the desired results

 we used the following formula

   month     position of increment     Math calculation   hours

   Jan                1                   poi - 1 * 2 =      0    

   Feb                2                   poi - 1 * 2 =      2

   Mar                3                   poi - 1 * 2 =      4

   Apr                4                   poi - 1 * 2 =      6

   May                5                   poi - 1 * 2 =      8

 and so on

                     11  1

 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  12   Position of increment

 J F M A M J J A S O N D J

 |                       | These are the major time lines in the schedule

 |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| This is the minor time line in the schedule

 To achieve this I used the following

 RulerDivisions = 12;

 and

 GridFrequency = 10;

 and

 this.dbiSchedule1.TimeDistance = 120;

 and

 this.dbiSchedule1.SnapToGrid = true;

 Please note that using snap to grid requires that

 the above properties are set by a common factor

 by this we mean that the time distance can

 evenly be divided by ruler divisions and the grid frequency

 We used the following 2 functions to either turn the date

 of the schedule into our 5 year date selection

 or turn the 5 year selection into the actual time

         private DateTime Actual2Schedule(DateTime actualDate)  Actual2Schedule

         {

             DateTime schedDate;

             schedDate = SchedStart.AddDays(actualDate.Year - SchedStart.Year).AddHours((actualDate.Month - 1) * 2);

             return schedDate;

         }

         private DateTime Schedule2Actual(DateTime schedDateTime) Schedule2Actual

         {

             DateTime actDate;

             actDate = SchedStart.AddYears(schedDateTime.Day - 1).AddMonths(schedDateTime.Hour  2);

             return actDate;

         }

 When adding time bars to the schedule

 you need to convert them into the proxied time of the schedule

 We did this as follows

           Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem x;

           declaring the new item

           Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem newItem = new Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiScheduleItem();

            setting the item text in the list

           newItem.Text = "Test 1";

            declaring the new timebar item

           x = new Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.dbiTimeBarItem();

           x.Start = Actual2Schedule(System.DateTime.Parse("Jan 4 2007"));// setting the start time for the time bar              

           x.End = Actual2Schedule(System.DateTime.Parse("March 12 2008")) ;//setting the end time for the time bar

           x.Text = Schedule2Actual(x.Start).ToString("MMM yyyy") + " to " + Schedule2Actual(x.End).ToString("MMM yyyy");

           newItem.TimeBars.Add(x);adding the timebar to the item

           this.dbiSchedule1.Items.Add(newItem);// adding the complete item to the schedule

 When working with timebars, the schedule will think that you are working

 with current time schedule times and not the proxied time so you must

 remember to convert the time bars to that of the 5 year plan schedule or

 you will have issues

   private void dbiSchedule1_AfterTimeBarMoved(object sender, Dbi.WinControl.Schedule.AfterTimeBarMovedEventArgs e)

   {

       e.TimeBarItem.Text = Schedule2Actual(e.TimeBarItem.Start).ToShortDateString();

   }

A special thanks goes out to our support staff Jeff D. and Alan S. for this novel and powerful code snippet.

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