Replacement for the Bennet-Tec TList 7 ActiveX control (tree grid)¶

Project: User Interface

Problem¶

Bennet-Tec TList 7 (TList7.ocx 7.0.51, CLSID {A3FC1700-924C-11D5-8FE5-0004ACD846EA}) is a combined tree, list and grid control; the vendor is dormant. Applications use ItemGrid:ColDefs and ItemGrid:Cells:Value, EditInfo cell editing, ItemTag, EnumIndex, HasSubItems, ItemFontBold, lazy Expand, and OLE drag and drop. Events: GridCellClick, Expand, ItemEditingChange, GridCellEditingChange, OLEStartDrag, OLEDragOver, OLEDragDrop and OLECompleteDrag. The vendor's insecure SaveData method is not needed.

Work¶

1. Implement a new TList widget class on FWD's tree base (the TREEVIEW / TREELIST infrastructure), exposing the TList item and grid API directly: the item grid with its column definitions and cell values, cell editing, the item tag and enumeration index, lazy expansion and drag and drop. Share the cell editing with the ctList and ctGrid replacements.
2. Register the control's CLSID in the OCX registry (ocx-registry.xml), mapping it to the target widget, as #11919 did for ctToolBar.
3. Decode the design-time state the control keeps in the .wrx storage at conversion time, so that it exists after conversion.
4. Implement the members and events listed above on the target, with the vendor's semantics: argument types, return values, defaults, and the order in which events fire. Members of the type library that are not used become no-ops with a conversion warning, as the OCX pipeline already does.
5. Follow the OCX emulation playbook attached to #11919: an OpenEdge test program with goldens for each member and event, recorded input sequences for the interactive parts, and Lyra automation.
6. Update the gap marking and the OCX registry documentation.

Testcases¶

Each member and event above, exercised on Windows OpenEdge with the real control to produce goldens, then run against the FWD replacement on the web and Swing clients. The vendor help files are the reference where behaviour cannot be observed directly.