ppRichEdit component very frustrating

rbuser

I am finding the ppRichEdit component very testy and frustrating
I'm trying simply to set attributes to the component. Font, Style,Size and
Tabs.

The following is a sample listing:

State
County County County County
County County County County

State
County County County County
County County County County.......

I want the Font :=10, Name := "Arial" and 3 Tabs, and the style of only the
States to be fsBold

Here is the code:
With ppRichText1 do
begin

{ Set the Name of the state to bold }
for I := 0 to slStateList.Count -1 do
begin
if SelLength <> 0 then
iStart := SelStart + SelLength
else
iStart := 0;

iEnd := Length( RichText ) - iStart;
lFoundAt := FindText( slStateList[I],iStart,iEnd,[]);

if lFoundAt <> -1 then
begin
SelStart := lFoundAt;
SelLength:= Length(slStateList[I]);
SelAttributes.Style := [fsBold];
end; // lFoundAt

end; // slStatelist

{ Set the text to Arial 10 }
SelectAll;
SelAttributes.Size := 10;
SelAttributes.Name := 'Arial';

{ Set the Tab Stops ( the actual tabs are embedded in the string) }
Paragraph.TabCount := 3;
Paragraph.Tab[0] := 150 ;
Paragraph.Tab[1] := 300 ;
Paragraph.Tab[2] := 450;
end;

This works fine in the print preview but in the actual print out only the
Tabs, Size work; I don't know what the font is but the whole thing is bold!
If I place the code for setting the font,size at the beginning of the
procedure the Tabs don't work!
If I place the code for setting the font,size, and tabs at the beginning of
the procedure nothing works!
If is use SelStart and SelLength instead of SelectAll the font, size and
Tabs work but the Style [fsBold] doesn't!

I've never run into a situation where the placement of code had such a
dramatic affect. How can I make the seemingly simple procedure work?!!

rbuser

What verion of RB are you working with?

Ed Dressel
Team DM

rbuser

6.01

digitalmetaphors

I took demo #29 and it has bolding and underlining, so I added tabs and tab
stop positions to it and changed the font size. It all previews fine and
prints fine.

So, your OnPrint works when the report is preveiwed. What happens if you
set Report.Showmodal to false so that it prints to the printer. This should
cause it to print correctly. You could also try setting CachePages to
false, so that the pages aren't regenerated for the printer, since they are
already generated for the screen using the default printer.

The rich text manipulation works just the same as if you were working with a
TRichEdit control, since this is the default implementation.

What happens when you trace through the OnPrint code when printing to the
printer? You should be able to see if there is a length of text which is
selected when setting the attributes.

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

This is the first time I've used any RichText control. To set the
Report.Showmodal to false would be against my clients wishes and doesn't
really solve the problem. CachPages is already set to false. I have traced
though the code and a length of text was selected this, however, did lead me
to the following conclusion:

After 6 frustrating hours I've discovered that what was happening was that
when I set the Style to [fsBold] is was keeping everything there after bold
instead of just the selected text. What I did then, was after setting the
State to bold is set everything else up to the next occurence of State to
[]. This solved that problem. Why everything esle was happening I don't
know.

Now I have worked out that problem, a new one has arisen. When I set the
DeviceType to dtReportTextFile the contents of the RichText component
doesn't export!!!!!.

digitalmetaphors

It isn't currently supported when printing to a text file device. We've
added support for memos, but not rich text, yet. It is on the todo list.
You'll need to copy your report and create one which is specifically
designed to print to the text device. Instead of using a richtext control,
use a memo. One customer has reported:

Set TppReport.PrinterSetup.PrinterName to "Screen". At that point you can
choose the "Courier" screen font (you may have to exit Delphi and get back
in before it shows up). Set all of your text to Courier (screen font) 12
point and everything seems to work just peachy, at least from what I've been
able to tell.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors