Hi Folks,

I hope someone can give me an idea what to do about this (if anything).

The control in question is "ASP Painter" (www.asppainter.com). ASPPainter
can be used to create new and edit existing images. It has a large number of
painting functions to draw lines, bars, rectangles, polygons, ellipses,
arcs, pie charts, to draw text and fill images. You can load and save images
from/to files, databases and binary data streams.

The implementation in dBase is extremely easy:
// instantiate new OLE client
pic = new oleautoclient("asppainter.pictures.1")

// create a blank canvas
pic.create(640,480)

//Type 0 sets PNG format (default), type 1- Jpeg, type 3 - GIF, type
4 -TIFF, type 5 - BMP
pic.setformat(5)

// start drawing
pic.setcolor(255,255,255,255)
for i=80 to 560 step 80
pic.DrawLine(i,0,i,480)
next i

// Save it
pic.SaveToFile("E:\drawing1.bmp")

// Clean up
pic.Destroy()
release pic
pic = null

Now, here is the problem: After running this code, after some random period
of time, a WINDOWS error message will appear that dbase has encountered an
internal problem and needs to close. Not a dBase unstable message, but the
Windows error. I've (inconclusively) traced the problem to the line
"pic.destroy". If I leave out that line, I don't seem to be getting the
error. But, of course, I am eating up about 1 MB with every run of the
program (according to the task manager, which may not be a meaningful value
under XP?), which only seems to get released once I close down dBase.

Can anybody help me with the following questions:
- Do I need to worry about the memory? Should I conduct a test where I run
this program in a large loop (i.e, 1000 times) and see if I run out of
memory?
- Any ideas what might be causing a Windows error message to pop up, or how
to even trace what the heck is going on?

Last, but not least, any other ideas for controls that allow to draw and
then save this as a file?

I am really stumped - any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,

Jan

From:	Marty Kay
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:43:48 -0500

Jan,

> // Clean up
> pic.Destroy()
> release pic
> pic = null
>
> Now, here is the problem: After running this code, after some random
period
> of time, a WINDOWS error message will appear that dbase has encountered an
> internal problem and needs to close. Not a dBase unstable message, but the
> Windows error. I've (inconclusively) traced the problem to the line
> "pic.destroy". If I leave out that line, I don't seem to be getting the
> error. But, of course, I am eating up about 1 MB with every run of the
> program (according to the task manager, which may not be a meaningful
value
> under XP?), which only seems to get released once I close down dBase.

What, if anything, does the control's documentation say about the Destroy()
method?

See if changing the code to as follows prevents the error:
pic.Destroy()
// release pic
pic = null

- Marty Kay (dBI) -

From:	Jan Hoelterling
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:24:31 -0600

Thanks for the reply, Marty.

I did some more research on this and found out that I was calling the
"wrong" method. Well, not entirely wrong, but not the right one, either.

From their help:
Destroy
Destroy image and free allocated memory

DestroyALL
Destroy images, objects and free allocated memory

So, I am now calling the DestroyAll method, and the error is even more
sporadic.

> See if changing the code to as follows prevents the error:
> pic.Destroy()
> // release pic
> pic = null

I will try that, thank you.

Jan

From:	Ivar B. Jessen
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 21:10:44 +0100

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:16:21 -0600 chr(10) dbase.third-party-tools
chr(10)Windows Error in dBase with particular control chr(10) "Jan
Hoelterling" chr(10)

>// Save it
>pic.SaveToFile("E:\drawing1.bmp")
>
>// Clean up
>pic.Destroy()
>release pic
>pic = null
>
>Now, here is the problem: After running this code, after some random period
>of time, a WINDOWS error message will appear that dbase has encountered an
>internal problem and needs to close. Not a dBase unstable message, but the
>Windows error. I've (inconclusively) traced the problem to the line
>"pic.destroy". If I leave out that line, I don't seem to be getting the
>error. But, of course, I am eating up about 1 MB with every run of the
>program (according to the task manager, which may not be a meaningful value
>under XP?), which only seems to get released once I close down dBase.

Does it help if you clean up in this way?

// Clean up
pic.Destroy()
pic.DestroyAll()
release object pic
release pic

Ivar B. Jessen

From:	Jan Hoelterling
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 15:28:17 -0600

"Ivar B. Jessen" wrote in message
news:4h0hs0pif62nio7dtd4iacpcbpt24ps841@4ax.com...
> Does it help if you clean up in this way?
>
> // Clean up
> pic.Destroy()
> pic.DestroyAll()
> release object pic
> release pic

Hi Ivar,

interesting idea and not something I had tried. I will try it out and post
success/failture back here.

This is just a cool little control that I really would like to get working!

Jan

From:	Ivar B. Jessen
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Wed, 22 Dec 2004 07:55:46 +0100

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 15:28:17 -0600 chr(10) dbase.third-party-tools
chr(10)Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control chr(10) "Jan
Hoelterling" chr(10)

>> // Clean up
>> pic.Destroy()
>> pic.DestroyAll()
>> release object pic
>> release pic
>
>Hi Ivar,
>
>interesting idea and not something I had tried. I will try it out and post
>success/failture back here.

The functions pic.destroy() and destroyAll() does not appear to work,
in other words you are creating a monster that you can not kill :-)

From the command line type,

pic = new oleautoclient( "ASPPainter.Pictures.1" )
? pic // object

release object pic
? pic // object

pic.destroy()
? pic // object

pic.destroyAll()
? pic // object

release object pic
? pic // object, the object survives all attempts to kill it.

Typing 'pic = null' or 'release pic' just removes the reference to the
object, but does not remove the object from memory.

>This is just a cool little control that I really would like to get working!

Yes, for simple vbs samples it is very easy to adapt the code to run
from dBase, I tried the example 'color.vbs'. The more advanced
examples look rather complicated.

With your example I got a bmp file which resulted in

Error: Unexpected type: D:\vdbproj\Grafik\ASPpainter\drawing1.bmp

when double clicking the file name in the Navigator or pressing F2.
Pressing shift+F2 opened the file in MSPaint. The file extensions jpg
and png worked without said error.

Ivar B. Jessen

From:	David Stone
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Wed, 22 Dec 2004 10:49:28 -0800

"Ivar B. Jessen" wrote:

> The more advanced examples look rather complicated.

No kidding...looks very good for simple graphics needs, but I would not use this
tool as a cheap stand-in for a graphing OCX. Also unfortunate that it doesn't
save to metafile format...only bitmap flavors, AFAICS.

David

From:	Jan Hoelterling
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Wed, 22 Dec 2004 13:27:57 -0600

Hi David,

I am open to other suggestions... This is the best I could find that seemed
to work with dBase.

Please let me know what other options I should consider.

Thanks,

Jan

From:	David Stone
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:05:19 -0800

Jan Hoelterling wrote:

> I am open to other suggestions... This is the best I could find that seemed
> to work with dBase.
>
> Please let me know what other options I should consider.

Jan, are you trying to use it to create graphs?! I use the TeeChart ocx for
that, and it saves to various image formats including metafile (also saves to
clipboard). For an app I am writing that generates product labels I use the
ViewPro ocx...essentially Vic's Printer/Preview class on steroids, and saves to
various formats including metafile. The "screen" on which the graphics/text
appear is actually a print preview screen, but the user doesn't particularly
need to know that...;-). It has some very nice zoom capabilities.

Actually, TeeChart could be used for creating custom graphics as it allows
access to API shapes (via code), but that'd be overkill, I think.

If you're just doing simple stuff (lines, basic shapes, etc), ASPPainter looks
fine...and at $75 it's much cheaper.

David

From:	Jan Hoelterling
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:29:58 -0600

Hi David,

well, what I am doing is better described as diagrams, not graphs. I looked
at TeeChart, it does not seem to do what I need to do, because I need to
just draw rectangles, circles, lines, gradients, put text labels, etc. Not a
predefined chart type as such, but still a graphical representation of
numeric data.

I will take a look at that ViewPro - it looks very powerful, but may be
overkill for what I need.

Thanks for the info!

Jan

From:	David Stone
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:33:58 -0800

Jan Hoelterling wrote:

> because I need to just draw rectangles, circles, lines, gradients, put text
> labels, etc. Not a predefined chart type as such, but still a graphical
> representation of
> numeric data.

Jan, it sounds like ASPPainter might be about right, then. You can develop your
own "wrappers" for its methods to easily generate the image components that you
need.

David

From:	Ronnie MacGregor
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 18:40:30 -0000

In article , jhoelterling@compuserve.com
says...

Hi Jan

> - Any ideas what might be causing a Windows error message to pop up, or how
> to even trace what the heck is going on?

To find out if the problem lies with dBASE or the control, have you
tried the same routine from another language ?

> Last, but not least, any other ideas for controls that allow to draw and
> then save this as a file?

This can be done with some limitations using a paintbox control.

If interested let's take this to e-mail.

--
Ronnie MacGregor
Scotland

From:	Jan Hoelterling
Subject:	Re: Windows Error in dBase with particular control
Date:	Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:21:48 -0600

Hi Ronnie,

thanks for your reply.

"Ronnie MacGregor" wrote in message
news:MPG.1c327e3af0bedf64989693@news.dbase.com...
> To find out if the problem lies with dBASE or the control, have you
> tried the same routine from another language ?
Great idea, I will do that!

> > Last, but not least, any other ideas for controls that allow to draw and
> > then save this as a file?
>
> This can be done with some limitations using a paintbox control.

I am interested, but I have a feeling what I need to do may be a little too
involved .But since I have no clue about what the paintbox can do, I may be
speaking out of turn. Can you please send me an email to jhoelterling NOSPAM
at compuserve.com with your address?

Thank you,

Jan