Category: Icetips Blog

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When running Clarion 7 on Vista or Windows 7, some people have run into an issue where they cannot open .hlp files from the IDE. This is not a problem with Clarion 7 as such, but that the templage language still only supports the .hlp file format and Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 do not include the WinHlp32.exe program to open the .hlp files.

Fortunately Microsoft has made them available for download for the past two years or so. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=917607 and download the appropriate program for:

Vista
Windows 7
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2

Note that vendors cannot re-distribute WinHlp32.exe with their products so Softvelocity has to rely on developers downloading and installing the program directly from Microsoft.

Also note that in order to install WinHlp32.exe you must be logged in as administrator.

Arnor Baldvinsson

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I had the need to create an install with Setup Builder 7 that would be time limited so that it would not run after a certain date. Obviously this is no foolprof method since it can easily be bypassed by changing the date in the computer, but for what I wanted it was perfect!

Set Variable %IT_TODAY% to FUNCTION:Get System Info
  (Current Date) -- Format "12"
If %IT_TODAY% Greater Than "20100228" Then
   Display Message Box "This time limited Beta build 
     install expired on Fe..." -- 
     "Time limited Beta install has expired"
   Exit Installation(99)
Else
   Display Message Box "Note that this is a time limited 
    Beta build instal..." -- 
    "Time limited Beta install"
End

Note that the lines wrap and in the actual script this is only 7 lines, which start out bold in the box above.

The first line get's the current date from the computer where the install is running in a "YYYYMMDD" format. The IF statement compares the value with "20100228" - February 28, 2010, and if the current date is greater, then it displays an error message and exits the install. If it is equal or less, then it displays a warning message about this being a time limited install and continues.

Arnor Baldvinsson

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If Clarion 7.1 crashes on startup with something like:

Clarion Version : 7.1.0.6545
..NET Version         : 2.0.50727.3603
OS Version           : Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3
Current culture      : English (United States) (en-US)
Working Set Memory   : 38052kb
GC Heap Memory       : 1989kb

Unhandled exception terminated Clarion

Then the chances are pretty good that you do not have the Visual C++ Runtime Library update that is required. To fix this download and install this file from Microsoft: Visual C++ Runtime Library

This installs the VC2005 RTL and Clarion 7.1 will now load properly.

Arnor Baldvinsson

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Clarion 7.1 final release has been out for about 3 weeks now and so far no issues have been reported with any of our products in 7.1!

Claron 7.1 is getting pretty close to being a very productive product while there are still a few problems here and there I think that next build will probably take care of a lot of the snags that I have had minor issues with.

In February I will start moving the Build Automator to Clarion 7.1 and will report on how that process goes.

Arnor Baldvinsson

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We at Icetips send you all our best wishes for a Happy and prosperous New Year in 2010. Our office will be closed until January 4th but we will still check our email and take care of any support issues that may come up:)

We thank you for your business in the past and look forward to work with you all in the new year.

Happy New Year

Icetips

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Merry ChristmasWe at Icetips Alta LLC wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year in 2010! We appreciate your business and support in 2009. Our office will be closed until December 28 and then from December 31. to January 4. We will still be checking our emails, but repsonse might be a bit slow over those two holiday weekends.

Arnor Baldvinsson and Susan Pichotta

2

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While exploring the Clarion 7 IDE I accidentally came across a neat way to change the font size in the editor. Hold the Control key down and scroll your mouse wheel! It will increase or decrease the font size in a nice smooth action. For old timers like myself this is a very nice way to be able to zoom in to a section of code that I need to take a really close look at!

This works in both the file editor and the embed editor in Clarion 7. You can also set the font size manually by going to "Tools | Options" and then select the "Text Editor" node in the tree on the left.

Arnor Baldvinsson

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If you use the Enable Printer Selection extension on your Icetips Previewer to allow users to select a printer, then there is a bug that can cause problems. Fortunately it is very easy to fix it and it has been fixed in our sources for our next release.

The problem comes up if a user selects a page range to print from the PrinterDialog rather than selecting a page range within the previewer. This causes the FromPage and ToPage properties of the printer object to be set but there were two lines of code missing that reset those properties to default.

There are two places that you need to fix:

"Local Objects|Icetips Previewer|Print to Selected Printer|End of Routine"
and
"Local Objects|Icetips Previewer|Print current page to Selected Printer|End of Routine"

In both of those embeds, place the following code and the problem is fixed:

 Printer {PROPPRINT:FromPage} = -1
 Printer {PROPPRINT:ToPage} = -1

This has already been fixed in the next build which will be out later this week. It would be out today if it were not for a problem that we discovered before the weekend with Clarion 7. The cause of it has already been found and I'm currently working on a fix for it:)

Arnor Baldvinsson

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Today I ran into a problem with a process on a SQL table. It was using a range limit and filters so it was only processing a subset of the data. However, the progress bar of course was stuck with the entire data set so it would go up to about 2% and be done. I have a procedure that I can pass some parameters to count the records in a table for a given filter so I knew exactly how many records the process was going to process. But I got stuck on how to reset the high limit for the progress bar. After some snooping around I found a property that I could set and everything worked like a charm.

 !! First get the number of records.  
 !! SQ is a global equate:     SQ Equate('<39>')

 Loc:Recs = CountSQLRecords(Name(MyFile),|
            'Parent_ID = ' & SQ & Loc:Parent_ID & SQ)
 ThisProcess.RecordsToProcess = Loc:Recs

Put this code into priority 8550 or higher in the ThisWindow.Init method in the process procedure and the progress bar will now go smoothly from 0% to 100%

If someone has a method to call for this, please comment on this post. I could not find any method that worked, compiled and ran! Setting the RecordsToProcess property seems to have no bad effects.

Arnor Baldvinsson

1

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Few days ago we received an email from a guy named "Tony" with the email address of tony@xgymzc.hk.cn. I have since received two emails from this same person, the last one with an email address of tony@skasia.hk.cn.

The first email went like this:

Dear Manager,

We are SK net service company ltd, the registration organization of trademark,internet brand and domain name in Asia.

On 15th,November.We have already received Juda Asia Industry Limited want to register (icetips ) internet brand and related domain names. After our department checked,you are the original owner of the brand,you have the first protection right. please let me know whether your company authorize JUDA to register them or regsiter them by yourself. If we can not receive your reply within a period,we will think that your company given up them and we will help Juda Asia Industry Limited to register them. Looking forward your response! Best Regards, Tony

SK Asia
Tel: 00852-3071 7712
Fax:00852-3071 7730
www.skasia.hk.cn

Today I received the third email and decided to look into this as this was sounding like a scam to me. After some snooping around I found this blog site with comments from over a hundred people about this scam. Basically they try to solicit people to register domain names with them, indicating that they have a client that is going to register your domain name with one of the East Asian domains, such as .cn, .tw, .hk etc. Currently you can simply go to Godaddy.com and register them, although the price can be quite high, for example the .tw domains are $39.99 a year.

I just thought I'd let my readers know about this so you know that this is a scam.

Arnor Baldvinsson