I have a simple expenses database that I started many generation of Panorama ago (1990!). It used to update a cell with the date and time whenever I changed any part of that record. The field name was MODIFIED. It would add a strange long negative number, but when I applied this formula to it: Modified: {datepattern(regulardate(MODIFIED),“mm/dd/yy”)+" "+timepattern(regulartime(MODIFIED),“hh:mm:ss am/pm”)} then the date and time that particular record was changed would display in a form.
It worked in Pan6, but now I’m thinking PanX might not support timestamps on modified yet. If that is the case, is there a work around that does the same thing?
thanks for any suggestions!
The feature you are talking about is the Time Stamp Field, it is described on pages 301-303 of the Panorama 6 Handbook. This feature is not yet implemented in Panorama X. I will bump this up in priority a bit.
You don’t really need Panorama X to do it for you though.
The negative number you’re describing is a SuperDate created by SuperDate(Today(),Now()).
To do your time stamp, create your Modified field if it doesnt already exist, then a procedure named .ModifyRecord. Then add:
Modified = SuperDate(Today(),Now())
.ModifyRecord runs automatically whenever the data in a record is changed.
Actually, .ModifyRecord runs anytime a cell is opened for editing and then closed regardless if the value has been modified or not. The info(“modifiedfield”) function also has this behavior so they act more like .EditedRecord and info(“editedfield”). This may or may not make a difference in your particular code application but should be taken into consideration. The Panorama 6 Time Stamp Field seems to trigger only when the actual value of the edited field changes.
Thank you so much for these clear replies! I will implement .ModifyRecord for now, and switch to Time Stamp Field when it becomes available. The community here is the best resource!
I’ll bet this seems like a minor feature – maybe you’d think it would be a half hour of work? It turns out it required changes to 30 source files and took 9 solid hours to implement this feature. Heck of a way to spend a beautiful spring Saturday! Here’s a picture my wife took at the local botanical garden while I was slaving away
Both the picture and the addition of the timestamp are gorgeous! Here in the northern midwest, it’s still too cold for such beauty outdoors, but I very much appreciate the amount of work necessary to bring such a “small” upgrade to fruition. Thank you!
It appears that currently the only place this is documented in the 0.1.032 release notes. However, you could find this in the help by enabling full text search and typing in time stamp.
By the way, 10.0.01 is quite a bit newer than 0.1.032.
Do I need to do something special to the field to make them show up in the time stamp list? Only about 10 of 40 fields in my database our being offered for time stamp, in no particular order, and none of them are the one I would like to nominate?
