Create Procedure with Recorder

As I mentioned to Jim, one of my main hesitations of moving onto Pan X is there are so many new functions, formulas and statements. The older I get the dumber I get. The last few years I have relied on the Recorder to do the code work for me (mostly simple stuff, but easier to do than try and remember code from when I was working on Pan on a daily basis). So, long story short, does Pan X still employ the Recorder? That would be a selling point for me to get back in the saddle.

Update: Starting with version 0.1.031 (3/3/17), Panorama X now DOES include a recorder. The rest of this post is retained for history, but the discussion of the pros and cons of a recorder feature is now out-of-date.


Panorama X does not include a recorder. I hope you won’t let that stop you from getting into Panorama X.

The Panorama 6 recorder is quite simple minded, it can only record a couple dozen statements. Most recorded procedures only use a handful of statements:

field
sortup
sortdown
find
select
total
groupup

In Panorama X, all of these operations can be automated with the new “favorites” feature. Using the favorites feature, you can easily save your most frequently used searches, sorts, and summary calculations. In other words, exactly the same things you would normally use the recorder for. I think using the new favorites feature is actually easier. I demonstrate how to set up and use these types of favorites in this free video:

The recorder feature was always great for demos. Because of that, I hope to include it again someday, even though I don’t think it really is that useful compared to the new “favorites” feature. But if it is ever implemented again, it most likely won’t be for at least a year, since the recorder is a “nice to have” feature rather than a “must have”, and it would be a fairly time consuming feature to do.

Keep in mind, there is no reason you have to use any of these new functions, formulas or statements. These new features are there to make your life easier, not more difficult. If you don’t use them, that’s ok, you don’t have to. Many Panorama users don’t use any functions, formulas or statements at all!

Thank you very much for your nice reply. I am going to go through some more of your videos and see what I can learn. My biggest problem is by the time I learn something I forget what I wanted to do with it…ha, ha.

Wow.

Loss of the Recorder will be a very significant loss. It was the quick and dirty way to get a procedure written or at least started. It was sometimes all that was needed. If it wasn’t exactly what was needed, it was a great starting point to clean up and make good.

Certainly it was not capable to do any heavy lifting, and for that, a developer would need to understand the language of Panorama, but to those that were not fluent in Panorama speak, the Recorder was their training wheels. It will be much more difficult to get on the bike when you don’t have that assist to just get me going and let me feel the wind in my face.

Robert Ameeti
(949) 422-6866

I hope not to sound dumb, but I think when you say Recorder your talking about the record Procedure that is the side button and records the way you do actions.
I have used this for years to help me record my tough actions. Since I am no programming and wanted to do these procdeures this button help me do programming one step at a time, then put the pieces together. I found this invaluable and I can only hope it’s in the new Panorama.

I wonder if something similar to “Blueprint” could be generated when creating a Favorites menu. That would be a good first step in doing some processing and then adding code to go to a form or to print something would be fairly simple.

Just a thought…

I think that idea has some potential.

I agree with the others, the recorder was more tan a simple tool, it was very helpful to put together a series of commands without typing them into the procedure, especially if the new procedure required a good number of commands . I would then modify and enhance the procedure as needed.

This thread should get an update at the beginning of the thread to share that we now have a Record option in the Procedure window.

But alas, it is not working for me. I open a new Procedure window, click on the Record icon, it goes Red, then I click on the data sheet, perform multiple actions, but nothing appears in the Procedure window, and thus I am lost. ;-(

Perhaps you could be more specific as to what the multiple actions are? Not everything is recordable (nor was every operation recordable in Panorama 6). I just tested some sorting and selecting actions and they recorded just fine.

It works for me - it puts the code directly into the procedure window as you do things - have you checked this?

Sorry about that. I did check the Help for the Procedure Recorder and I did not see any exception for my usage.

I was using Field / Split Field. It does record for other actions.

I was finding Split Field to be a very nice implementation. But interestingly, I’m now finding it inconsistent. Earlier today I was successfully splitting on ‘spaces’ but now, it is not splitting on spaces. Other characters are fine, but not spaces.