U-Beaut Thread Manager for C4 - from Steve Bywaters

by Shawn Mason

Published 1998-11-01    Printer-friendly version

Thread Management. To some, a scary word filled with all kinds of make-believe gremlins. To others, a nuisance that must be tediously managed. Well, for the sake of simplicty, we will use the term Thread Management to mean "the management of threads in order to prohibit multiple copies of the same procedure". In short, if you choose to browse your clients, then open your invoices (thereby, hiding your client's browse procedure), and then choose clients from the menu again. Instead of opening up a new copy of Browse Clients, it will merely bring the existing Browse Clients to the top and make it active. I realize that Thread Management can involve much more than this, but for most people, this is all we really want out of it.

There are, of course, several ways to do this. One is to save every thread opened in a global queue and store, not only the thread number, but the procedure that the thread started. Then, prior to opening a new thread, you must check the queue for an existing copy and if it exists make that thread active. If it does not exist, then start the new thread and save the information to the global queue. This involves a lot of overhead. (READ - "overhead = time = bugs".)

Well, since we use a RAD development tool, there should be a RAD tool to handle this repetitive and quite tedious task. Welcome to the world of U-Beaut users.

Concept

When UBEAUT4 is installed and enabled, it performs basic thread management using these rules - if the procedure selected from the menu frame is not currently running, launch it on a new thread; if the procedure has already been launched, then simply bring that thread to the top. (This is akin to application management from a Windows 95 shortcut, where an application will be launched or brought to the top, as appropriate)

Installation

Installation was simple. Run the Ubeaut4.exe. It adds the templates to your \template directory (one for legacy templates and one for ABC templates). The installation displays a Readme file explaining Ubeaut and how to use it. I strongly recommend reading this because to read it later you must hunt it down. (It is called ReadUB4.txt and is located in the \template directory).

Start Clarion and go to Setup and then Template Registry. Register the following two templates: Ubeaut4 (legacy) and ABUBeaut (ABC).

Adding to Your Application

Hold on to your shoes because this one is going to shock you. To add U-Beaut to your application, either legacy or ABC, add the U-Beaut global extension. After you finish with this arduous task get ready for some really complicated work. To finish adding the U-Beaut's features to your program you must...well...hmmm...well....that's it. Just add the global extension. Well, you can't get any easier than that, can you? The Global extension looks like this:

U-Beaut Global Extension

Complicated, huh?

One Additional Feature

If you looked at the above snapshot carefully, you will have noticed that there is a tab entitled "Close All Threads". This is a nifty little addition (it is a control template) that looks like this:

Close all threads options

This control template allows you to do a few more things. You can have a menu item (or button) that can close all open threads (unclutter the screen). If you wish, the user can close the entire app or s/he can close all threads but the current one.

Documentation

Well, due to the simplicity of the product, you might expect the documentation to be simple too. It is. So simple, that the only documentation is the readme file displayed at install. If you read this, though, I believe you will find it to be enough.

If you have used a previous version of U-Beaut, then you will have noticed the major differences in implementation. The original version for CW20 required some changes to core template set. The new version does not. If you install the new version over the CW20 version, then you need to read the readme file to find out how to alleviate this problem.

Support

For support or questions, you can email the author, Steve Bywaters. I found him to be responsive and friendly.

Overall Impression

I have used U-Beaut for years now. I have been very pleased with the product and would highly recommend it to anyone who needs its brand of simple Thread Management.

[Review Editor's note: Now that you are wondering just what it means, 'Beaut' is Australian slang for: great, fantastic]

Category	Product Score
Ability to do the task	Excellent
Ease of use	Excellent
Ease of Installation	Very Good
Documentation	Fair
Technical Support	Very Good
Modifies Shipping Templates	No
Black-Box DLLs/LIBs	No

U-Beaut for C4 lists for $30 US and can be purchased through BMT Micro's secure web site using the following URL: https://secure.falcon-net.net/BMT/order1153.html. A demo is also available for download at the same site: ftp://ftp.bmtmicro.com/bmtmicro/UB4demo.zip.

For more information, contact Steve Bywaters at stevebywaters@compuserve.com.

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Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942