I'm trying find a way of checking to see if a form has any open tabs. I need to check for open tabs of another form in the same application (i.e. from within my custom menu form, I need to see if a tab for my Checkbook form is open.) I'm thinking, with all of the great tools Sesame has, there must be a way of checking for this condition.

I've tried @FormResultSetCurrentPosition("FormName") and @FormResultSetTotal("FormName"), which at first glance, appeared to be doing the trick by returning a "-1" (negative one) if all the tabs were closed, and a zero or higher if one tab was open. The problem is, they also return a "-1" if the Add and Search/Update tabs are both open.

Is there a function that I am overlooking that can tell me absolutely that all the tabs for a particular form are closed?

I was thinking of trying to set a global variable for "current tab" when you entered/left a tab.  Then you could just check the global variable to see the value of the "current" tab.

My thought was that you could make an invisible fileld at the top left of each tab that would automatically be the first field entered, programming there could set the global variable.   You could use multiple global variables if you needed to monitor multiple forms and tabs.

But no way to clear it if you leave a tab and go to untabbed area.  
Unless you only have tabs and no free space on the form that is not on a tab. ???

But hopefully this concept will trigger another better idea by someone...... 

Thanks for responding guys!

Bob,
It appears you are referring to tabpages on a form. I am referring to the form itself being open. (I am running mass updates from a custom main menu that update another database in the same app.) But still, I think your idea may work for my situation because since I am referring to a form tab (vs. tabpage), I can set a global value upon form entry and again at form exit. This may do the trick.


Mark,
I am not quite sure exactly what you mean. I understand the concept - I just don't know where/how I can add the form's mode to the name of the form. Is there a function to dynamically change the name that appears on the form tab? Or are you suggesting that I make copies of my form, and use one for adding and another for updating?

Mark,

This is the EXACT answer I was hoping for!  8)

I had no idea that we could do that. I don't see that mentioned in the programming guide. Is it documented somewhere?

Carl,

I'm looking for where this got documented.  Meanwhile, here's the note from the 1.0.3 Change Log:

# Expand Form commands like @FormFieldValue to accept (but not require) the full path to the Form and the mode, to allow for situations where the same Form is open in multiple tabs. You can now specify which Form and mode to affect. Examples:
@FormFieldValue("Countries!Cites:(add)", "Population", 1)
@FormFieldValue("Countries!Cites:(update)", "Population", 1)
@FormFieldValue("Countries!Cites:(search)", "Population", 1)

# Improve Form commands to better determine which instance of a Form to affect. If the Form Path and mode are not supplied, Sesame will look for a matching Form name in the following order:
Current Form
Child of current form recursively
Parent of current form recursively
If not found, fails setting the @Error flag.
Example:
@FormFieldValue("Cites", "Population", 1)

I have impemented Mark's suggestion, and it works perfectly!!!

Like I said, it's EXACTLY what I was hoping for!

Bharat,

I'm not closing the open forms via programming. I am using the info in an If..Then statement that either performs some actions on the database (via mass updates), or pops up a MsgBox that diplays a message telling what needs to be done before this task can run (i.e. close the open tabs of the target database).

Besides, I don't believe you can close an open form with programming. (I've tried that before and nothing happens.) I think it's by design.

And actually, I would not want to close any open tabs automatically. I know I could cause the record to be saved first, but the data on the form still may not be completed yet. If I have to close it manually, then I can be sure it is saved in a completed state.

Carl, got it. Thank you.