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XAL / SQL

Started by Raiko, 2008.11.26, 18:29:47

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Raiko

Anyone here who knows Concorde XAL?
(XAL: eXtended Application Language and it is quite similar to SQL.)
Problem: I need to get a company logo printed on the sales invoices and it takes
some programming to make it work.

Raiko

I'm trying to create a logo on the sales invoice report in the accounting
program Concorde XAL for OS/2. One way to do it could be to create a field for
the logo in the report, but that involves some programming and the manual
says nothing about the procedure for graphics.

Searching the net I noticed the following in a news group, (forgot to take a note of which one):

"To create graphics on XAL document you need to create these as a TrueType font and
embed them in the report itself."

Does anyone know of any os/2 program that could do this, and how to proceed ?
Or any other suggestions ?

warpcafe

Hi Raiko,

well,well... Concorde XAL. That must be seven years or more ago now that I last heard of it. ;)

To answer your question: To my knowledge, there are some tools at hobbes for dealing with TTFs under OS/2, but most of them are rather to convert them to something. I don't know of any program available for OS/2 to *create* TTFs, since that format has not originated at IBM ;)

I know of professional programs to create TTFs, but the good ones are expensive. ;) And they don't run on OS/2 nor are they platform-independend (dunno if there is any chance of a java version of such - might be worth trying to look for, which I didn't do...)

The only thing that comes to my mind is that -IIRC- CorelDraw was at some point able to create TrueType fonts (although not THAT easy... anway...) perhaps one of the latest OS/2 version of it is already able to do it? IIRC creating a TTF is basically the same as doing vector drawings (per character) and then just making sure to "compile" them into the correct format... sounds like one should be able to do that perhaps with other "drawing" software as well...?

No guarantees however. ;)

Hope this helps... cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Raiko

Quote from: warpcafe on 2008.12.11, 11:38:50

well,well... Concorde XAL. That must be seven years or more ago now that I last heard of it. ;)

It later became Navision, then Dynamics and now owned by Microsoft......

I know someone who has programs to convert the graphic to TTF, so then the problem is to
get the resulting TTF in "OS/2 format" and how to proceed to make it available to XAL.

Needless to say, but ideas are still welcome..........:-)

warpcafe

Hi,

Quote from: Raiko on 2008.12.11, 21:29:04
I know someone who has programs to convert the graphic to TTF, so then the problem is to
get the resulting TTF in "OS/2 format" and how to proceed to make it available to XAL.

hmm... what do you exactly mean by "OS/2 format"?
The TTF files are more or less platform independant... should work "as usual" by using e.g. the fonts palette application to add the TTFs to the fonts list.

And then once available, you must certainly "somehow" edit a template in XAL to tell it to include a specific font and then print the required character (no idea how *that* works though).

Cheers
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Raiko

Quote from: warpcafe on 2008.12.11, 21:35:31
Hi,

hmm... what do you exactly mean by "OS/2 format"?
The TTF files are more or less platform independant... should work "as usual" by using e.g. the fonts palette application to add the TTFs to the fonts list.

And then once available, you must certainly "somehow" edit a template in XAL to tell it to include a specific font and then print the required character (no idea how *that* works though).

Cheers
Thomas

Sorry I misunderstood and got the idea that the resulting TTF was platform dependent.

XAL has it's own report editor so that's no problem, but to get it to appear on the template/report
I guess I have to bind the specific TTF to a key on the keyboard. 

Please have a look at:
http://users.breathe.com/l-emmett/sslogo.html

I think it will give you a better idea about what I'm trying to achieve.

warpcafe

Hi Raiko,

why do you want to "bind the TTF to a keyboard key"? Mapping a whole font to a key doesn't make sense - and most probably will not be supported. What should that produce? Instead, no keyboard mapping should be required to achieve what you want to do:

In my understanding, when you create the new TTF, you tell it to map the logo to a specific character, like "A". (Meaning: When "A" is printed or displayed, usually an "A" appears but with the newly created TTF, the logo will appear as that is the "shape" that's mapped to the "A"s character position in the font)
Then, in the report editor, you simply should tell it to print "A" -BUT- specifiying it to use the customized (new) TTFont in that spot... and that's it...?

It's basically the same what happens if you type "ABC" while using the Wingdings font for example: Instaed of "ABC" some symbols will be printed... am I getting something wrong here?

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Raiko

The way the report builder works it would be easier to change the mapping of an "unused"
key to the logo in the font being used for the whole report. XAL has some rules for using
different fonts in a report, like you cannot specify a font on field level or two different fonts
on the same line of text. The manual states it has to be specified per "blocks".
Also, when using a new font it takes some additional steps in setting up the printer inside XAL.

As you say, it is basically the same as typing ABC using Wingdings, but "setting" it up in XAL
is way more complicated than a word processor. Would be nice if you had access to XAL, probably
you would even find the way to use the bmp logo in the report without editing or creating a
new font.

Perhaps I could send you a copy of the "procedure" XAL uses for printing the report ?
(It is a simple text file.)

Thanks for all the help so far.

warpcafe

Hi Raiko,

I was afraid that it wouldn't be as easy as that... ;)
OK, send me the stuff and I'll try to figure out.

OTOH, I now understand what you mean.
I think it can be made possible to use an existing font, create 1 new "symbol", overwrite so-to-say an existing character and then "re-compile" the TTF. But I think there must be an easier way to include a logo into a printout?! ;)

Let's see what we can do. Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Raiko

Hi Thomas,
Sounds promising....:-)
Please first take a look at the info.txt in the attachment.
Per

Raiko

I have succeeded in getting the logo printed by editing a font, however, I cant get it to
print in the size which is needed. Anyway, I'd like to find another solution to this task and
could provide access to the software to someone who would be interested in trying to
make this work in a better way.
.....and there will be a reward for a good solution.
Anyone interested?