A Demonstration Application

This application provides a simple demonstration of the ease with which the Visual Basic Ecco Toolkit allows a developer to write programs to perform sophisticated data management within Ecco.

ATTENTION C++ PROGRAMMERS: Sample code in C++ has been provided by Kerry Zimmerman and is available from our web site.  Press here to download.

BIRTHDAY.EXE pops up a dialog box containing a drop-down list of the months of the year. Select any month of the year, press the OK button, and BIRTHDAY.EXE will extract all persons listed in the Ecco file who have a birthday occurring during that month, and place those persons in a list box sorted by birthday.

BIRTHDAY.EXE was literally written and debugged in less than 20 minutes, user interface and all.  The demo archive includes the source code for BIRTHDAY.FRM.  This source code will show how simple it is to control Ecco and to extract data from Ecco files using the VB Ecco Objects collection. The source code will also illustrate some of the specifics of coding which are documented in this reference.

'Insert in Global
Dim MyEcco As EccoApp
Dim MyFolder As EccoFolder
Dim MyItem As EccoItem
Dim MySelection As EccoItems





  





  
 






  
Private Sub Form_Load()






  





  
 






  
'Initialize





  
Set MyEcco = New EccoApp






  





  





  





  
 






  
'Substitute your own developer id for the code below





  
'This application will run prior to January 1, 2002





  
MyEcco.Register "xxxxxxxx", , , #1/1/2002#






  





  
 






  
'Link to an Ecco folder called "Birthday"





  
Set MyFolder = New EccoFolder





  
MyFolder.Name = "Birthday"





  
If MyFolder.ID = 0 Then 'Birthday folder wasn't found





  
    z = MsgBox("This Ecco file doesn't have a birthday folder!", vbInformation)





  
    End





  
End If





  
 






  






  
'Center the form on the screen





  
BirthdayForm.Top = Screen.Height / 2 - BirthdayForm.Height / 2





  
BirthdayForm.Left = Screen.Width / 2 - BirthdayForm.Width / 2






  






  
 





  
With MonthCombo 'Initialize the dropdown list of months





  
    .Clear





  
    .AddItem "January"





  
    .AddItem "February"





  
    .AddItem "March"





  
    .AddItem "April"





  
    .AddItem "May"





  
    .AddItem "June"





  
    .AddItem "July"





  
    .AddItem "August"





  
    .AddItem "September"





  
    .AddItem "October"





  
    .AddItem "November"





  
    .AddItem "December"





  
    .ListIndex = 0





  
End With





  
 






  






  
'Clear the output list box





  
BirthdayList.Clear





  
 






  






  
End Sub






  





  
 






  
Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)






  






  
 





  
Set MyEcco = Nothing





  
Set MyFolder = Nothing





  
Set MySelection = Nothing





  
Set MyItem = Nothing





  
End






  






  
 





  
End Sub






  





  





  
 






  
Private Sub OKButton_Click()






  






  
 





  
BirthdayList.Clear






  






  
sfindstring = "Birthday = " + MonthCombo.Text





  
Set MySelection = MyFolder.Items





  
Set MySelection = MySelection.Find(sfindstring)






  






  
If MySelection.Count = 0 Then 'No birthdays this month





  
    BirthdayList.AddItem "No birthdays found!"






  






  
Else 'Add each birthday to the list





  
    sBirthdays = ""





  
    For Each MyItem In MySelection





  
        BirthdayList.AddItem Format$(MyItem.FolderValue("Birthday"), "mmm. d") + Chr$(9) + MyItem.FullName





  
    Next





  
    MsgBox "Finished!"





  
End If





  
 





  
End Sub