CapeSoft TickerTape
Documentation

• Introduction
• Support
• Installation
• Adding a TickerTape to your Window
• Options for the TickerTape Control
• Long Tapes and Multilple Tapes
• Example
• License and Copyright
• Version History

I wanted to be able to attract the users attention, with a rather long instruction message. Rather than just plonk it onto the screen, I wrote a small template control so I could have it scroll across the screen. This proved to be remarkably effective.

Run the supplied installation file.

Adding a TickerTape to your window is easy.

• Open the window editor for the window.
• Select Control Template from the Populate menu.
• Select TickerTape from the Class Ticker.
• Point to where you want the control to go on the screen, and click the Left mouse button.

At this point a rather bright, red and black ticker tape control appears.

• Setting the colors. The ticker tape is made up of 2 controls. A Panel control and a String control. The panel control defaults to Black, and the String to Red ( hey - it attracts attention <g> ). You can change the colors for either part by right-clicking on the control, selecting Properties, going to the Color tab, and setting the color.
• Setting the Speed. Right click on the control ( any part is fine ) and select Actions. You can set the speed of the scrolling here. By default it is set to 10. This amount is in 100ths of a second, and represents the delay between each scroll. i.e. the default is 1 tenth of a second between scrolls. If this is too fast make this number bigger, if it's too slow make it smaller.
• Setting the message. You can set the actual text for the message here as well - use 'quotes' for actual text, or a variable name. If you use a variable then you can change the text while the scrolling is happening.
• Setting the Font. The string part of the control is a normal string. The default font is courier. You can change the font if you like. A Fixed-Pitch font, like courier, is recommended for smooth scrolling.
• Setting the visual Control Width. By default the visible part of the string is 35 characters wide. To make the string longer, or shorter, do the following;
  
  
  1. adjust the string length in the normal way from @35 to @nn where nn is the length you want.
  2. adjust the size of the panel control (i.e. the background) to match.
  3. Go to the Local Data button for this procedure, and change the length of the tt:ticker string from 35 to however long you want it.

By default the template will create a data variable for you called tt:tickertape which will be used on the screen. The length of this string is 32 characters.

If you want a longer string displayed, or if you want multiple tapes on the same window, then you must create your own local variable (call it say MyTape) and set it to the length you want. If you are creating multiple tapes then create a different variable for each tape.

See the example, DemoMultiple procedure for an example of this in action.

There is an example in your \Clarion5\3rdParty\Examples\Ticker directory

This template is copyright © 2013 by CapeSoft Software. None of the included files may be distributed. Your programs which use TickerTape can be distributed without any TickerTape royalties.

Each developer needs his own license to use TickerTape. (Need to buy more licenses?)

This product is provided as-is. Use it entirely at your own risk. Use of this product implies your acceptance of this, along with the recognition of copyright stated above. In no way will CapeSoft Software, their employees or affiliates be liable for any way for any damages or business losses you may incur as a direct or indirect result of using this product.

Your questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. Check our web page (www.capesoft.com) for new versions. You can also contact us in one of the following ways.

CapeSoft Support
Email
Telephone	+ 27 87 828 0123 087 828 0123

Version 1.70: Released May 25, 2021

• Add: Clarion 11.1 to install.

Version 1.69: Released Sept 18, 2018

• Add: Clarion 11 to install.

Version 1.68: Released March 2, 2015

• Clarion 10 compatible install.

Version 1.66: Released January 27, 2014

• Clarion 9.1 compatible install.

Version 1.65: Released May 14, 2013

• Clarion 9 compatible install.

Version 1.64: Released November 10, 2008

• Clarion 7 compatible install.

Version 1.63: Released August 11, 2008

• Fix for 1.62 - updated files not included in the release

Version 1.62: Released July 30, 2008

• Allow for multiple templates on the same window.
• Restrict the control template to a window.
• Fix for legacy (was not placing code correctly in Clarion 6.3)

Version 1.61: Released May 16 2002

• Minor changes
• Converted to .saf format

Version 1.6: Released March 2 2001

• Added support for Clarion 5.5a
• Added better support for variable messages.

Version 1.5: Released September 28 2000

• Restricted Control to Window procedures
• Added support for Multiple Tickers on a single window
• Added support for long Ticker strings
• Extended maximum message length to 1024 bytes.
• Added support for speed validation; means that different tickers can go at different speeds on the same window.

Version 1.2: Released May 21 1999

• Support added for Splash templates.

Version 1.0: Released Feb 18 1999