Allow to disable the virtual columns (First letter, Upper-, Lowercase, Signed format, etc...) LL23

The new LL23 has virtual columns (first letter, upper-, lowercase, or signed format).

This makes the tree for large DBs to big. Also if you search for a fieldname now  you get 4 rows displayed per matching column. In the past there was just one row per matching column.
In the past I saw 10 columns, now a maximum of 3!
Now you need much more scrolling.

Also I don't see any advantages for a user. The cases were I need the first or first two chars are rare. Formating numbers is more complex than just to return a value signed or not signed.

I would appriciate to disable this feature with a flag. 

At least this special virtual columns should only be shown when you expand them explicitly. They should be collapsed by default.

Regards
Martin Richter

 

Hi Martin,

Actually we’ve received a quite positive feedback for this feature :). However I fully understand that not every feature is for everyone. Talking about searching the tree I get your point. Expanding the virtual formula variables in this case makes no sense. We’ll likely change this behavior for the first service pack in LL23.

The virtual variables themselves don’t use up any tree resources as they’re added dynamically on the fly as soon as a node is expanded. Thus, usually they don’t hurt but sometimes they will be useful. If you see additional/different useful formatting options, feel free to add them as comment to my blog post for this feature here:
https://www.combit.net/en/blog/development/08-2017/virtual-formula-variables-for-drag-drop/.

As always, thanks for the feedback - I’m fully aware of your valuable input for our data provider and repository features. Your comments and requests are incredibly helpful for us.

Jochen

With the first LL23 service pack due in January, you can use the option LL_OPTION_SUPPRESS_FORMULASUBITEMS_IN_VARTREE (value 324) to suppress these items.

Jochen