Use of FlexGrid controls (ii)

Indent band Area
If the stripe is displayed vertically, you can indent the stripe into several columns. This allows the user to view the band information more clearly. The columns indented in front of each stripe contain blank, unused cells. As a result, users cannot move the focus to these areas. The formatting features of these cells are defined by a number of indentation formats, such as the gridlinesindent definition. See the "vertical display of bands" picture in "changing the layout of bands" earlier in this section.
To indent bands
1. Right-click Hierarchical FlexGrid and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Property Pages dialog box for Hierarchical FlexGrid appears.
2. On the band tab, select Stripe indent and specify the number of columns that the stripe needs to indent.
3. Click OK to apply the striped attribute to hierarchical FlexGrid and close the Property Pages dialog box.

Using striped functionality for a non-hierarchical recordset
You can also format a hierarchical-structured recordset band by using the Property Pages dialog box for FlexGrid.
A non-hierarchical Recordset contains only one band, that is, Band 0. There are no other bands, because the bands are based on the recordsets in the Command hierarchy.

Use band extension and shrink capabilities
The expansion and contraction feature facilitates easy viewing of the organization of the recordset, making it easy to scroll through Hierarchical FlexGrid. This feature enables users to view a large amount of data, or to view information in a compressed form. If a band is available, the upper-left corner of the band displays a default extension (+) or a narrowing (-) bitmap. Expansion and contraction functions can be used regardless of the vertical or horizontal bands.
When the band is in an extended state, a narrowing (-) bitmap appears. In the extended state, the band displays the maximum number of data. When the band is in a shrinking state, a narrowing (+) bitmap appears. In an extended state, the band displays the smallest amount of data.
In a shrinking state, a zone may display areas that are not populated with data. There are also special provisions for the format of unfilled areas.
Zone with shrinking state

When a stripe is in a shrinking state, none of its records are displayed, and the columns in that band are not displayed. These columns are displayed when the user expands the band. The striped zone with the expanded state has a uniform height. Where necessary, the smaller bands will be enlarged to maintain a consistent height with the larger bands.
Band with extended state

Band expansion and contraction
This section explains how to add extension and shrink functionality to bands in Hierarchical FlexGrid. It also shows how to use extension and shrink functionality.
To add extension and shrink functionality in a zone
1. Right-click Hierarchical FlexGrid and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Property Pages dialog box for Hierarchical FlexGrid appears.
2. On the band tab, select expandable bands. Second, select the bands you want to extend from the band list.
Note to make a stripe extensible, it must have at least one stripe area. Therefore, if only Band 0 is available, the extensible Stripe checkbox will not be available.
3. Click OK to apply the striped attribute to hierarchical FlexGrid and close the Property Pages dialog box.
To use the expand and shrink features
1. After you add the striped feature to hierarchical FlexGrid through the Property Pages dialog box, choose Start from the Run menu. -or-press the F5 key.
2. Click the extended (+) graphic in the upper-left corner of the band to view the maximized (extended) recordset information.
3. Click the Shrink (-) graphic in the upper-left corner of the band to view the minimized (shrinking) recordset information.
Note If the extended stripe contains a shrinking stripe, it will remain in a shrinking state until the child band is expanded.

Get structure information
The structure information for hierarchical FlexGrid contains detailed information about the settings for bands and columns. In the default settings, the order of the columns in each band is the same as in the corresponding adorecordset. After you obtain this information, you can use them to control how the data is displayed in the Hierarchical FlexGrid.
To get information about the band and field information
Right-click Hierarchical FlexGrid and choose Retrieve Structure from the shortcut menu.
Or
Access the Hierarchical FlexGrid Property Pages dialog box and select the Band tab. This tab contains the structure information for the Hierarchical FlexGrid.
After acquiring the structure of the data, the information is saved with the Hierarchical FlexGrid. After you obtain the structure information, the information after each band and field update is displayed in design-time Hierarchical FlexGrid.
Note that if the structure of the DataSource changes, only the structure can be extracted to make these changes reflected in the Hierarchical FlexGrid.

Clear Stripe and column information
If stripe and column information is cleared, they revert to the default settings.
To clear bands and field information
Right-click Hierarchical FlexGrid and choose Clear Structure from the shortcut menu.
Note If you modify the stripe or column properties of the Hierarchical FlexGrid, a warning message appears. At this point, you can click OK to reset the Hierarchical FlexGrid to the default state and to cancel all user-defined setting values.

Customizing each area in the Hierarchical FlexGrid
The Hierarchical FlexGrid contains several areas that can be customized. To customize these areas, you can use the Hierarchical FlexGrid Property Pages dialog box, or you can use the Code Editor window to implement it programmatically. Customization of these areas will help to improve the readability and practicability of the Hierarchicalflexgrid interface.
These hierarchical FlexGrid areas include:
1. Standard
The standard area for hierarchical FlexGrid is the cells that contain data binding information.
2. Band Area
The striped area contains the display information for each recordset in the Hierarchical FlexGrid.　For more information about this, see formatting for bands. 3. Fixed
A fixed region contains fixed or static rows and columns.
4. Header
The column header area determines information about the recordset that is bound to the Hierarchical FlexGrid. When used, these column headers are repeated for each stripe in the Hierarchical FlexGrid. For more information about this, see formatting for bands.
5. Indent
When a stripe is displayed vertically, the indented area of the hierarchical FlexGrid is the area where a data stripe is indented into several columns. The indented column in front of each stripe contains a blank, unused cell. For more information about this, see formatting for bands.
6. Unfilled
The unfilled areas of the hierarchical FlexGrid include the cells to the right and bottom of the Hierarchical FlexGrid work area. The range is blank and contains cells that are not used.