Bulk Editor

Bulk Editor
	Bulk Editor control
Name	Bulk Editor
Internal Name	CtrlBulkEditor
Purpose	Display and edit multiple objects
Context object	MetaClass
Version	2+

The Bulk Editor is designed to display and edit the properties of a multiple UBIK^® objects. Technically, it reads the MetaProperty definition of each Instance of the context object (directly from the context object if it is of type MetaClass, otherwise it gets the MetaClass of the context object and reads the definition from its instances.

Basics

Appearance

Rows and columns

The control reads the current context object and displays a row for each instance of it and a column for each found property (since 3.7.0 a set of preconfigured columns are hidden by default and the instances are sorted by default by CreationTimeStamp), its appearance depending on the respective data type of the MetaProperty. The following data types and thus different columns and editing controls are currently supported:

Data type	Example	Comment
Bool		A boolean value to be read/set via a Checkbox
DateTime		A Date/Time value where the format is according to regional settings; a double click opens a dialog to pick a date from a calendar
Double	-	A floating point value, optionally with unit of measurement
FileReference		A path to a physical file; a double click opens a dialog to pick a file from the file system
GeoData		A geographical coordinate; a double click opens a dialog to enter the values separately
Guid		A pointer to another object
Reference		A reference to another object; a double click opens a picker to select the target object
Int	-	A discrete number
String	-	A text value

Selective lists

If a certain property has a selective list defined, the respective column will display a Combobox with all items of the list instead of the value field. The value can then only be selected from the list, but not be edited manually anymore.

Index values

If a certain property has index values defined, the respective column will be colored LightSalmon and become expandable. Expanding/collapsing can be done by either right clicking the column header or using the expand/collapse button in the Toolbar. When expanding, the editing column will multiply itself by the number of index values and present an own LightYellow column for each index value.

A multilanguage MetaProperty is actually a string property with index values defined for each system language!

Captions

each column shows the string representation of the respective MetaProperty as its header text
the first column of each row is always titled _RowObject and shows the string representation of the corresponding instance

Tooltips

There are two kinds of Tooltips used in this control:

when hovering over the header of column, a Tooltip will show the type of the column
when hovering over a cell which's text is deprecated, a Tooltip will show the full text

Editing

When editing a value, it will only be written back to the respective property when you leave the cell. At that very point in time, the Bulk Editor also runs an integrity check against the rules and tests if the value you've entered can be stored on the property. If this fails, the row and cell will show a red exclamation mark with a Tooltip telling which rule was violated. The exclamation mark on the cell disappears once you've entered a valid value for this property, the exclamation mark on the row only disappears if all properties of the respective UBIK^® object have a valid value. If a warning range is defined in the validation, an exclamation mark on yellow background will be shown to inform the user about a value that has to be paid special attention to. However, values showing the warning sign are accepted as a valid input.

While editing a value, you can use ESC to undo your editing!

To improve performance, cells containing huge XML data are shortened by only showing the starting characters of the code. When the XML cell is marked or clicked for editing, the full text will be loaded. Please be aware that this can be a time consuming task!

Drag & Drop

The Object Editor control is a source and a target for Drag&Drop operations:

Any object can be dropped on a cell if the dragged object matches the data type of the respective property
A single instance object can be dragged from the Bulk Edito by dragging the header of the row
Objects stored in a cell can be dragged using the right mouse button

Toolbar

Bulk Editor Toolbar

The Bulk Editor features a Toolbar with the following items from left to right:

Item	Purpose
View Style	Indicates or changes the View Style of the control; changing it will result in reloading of the control
Navigate to context object	Attempts to navigate to the current context object
Save	Saves all instances currently shown in the control
Filter namespace	Filters all current instances by the Namespace of the set context object
Select columns	Opens a sub menu with all displayed columns and allows to show/hide them explicitly
Expand/Collapse index columns	Allows to show or hide the index columns if the currently selected column has index values
Print	No functionality yet
Cut	Cuts the value of the current cell into the clipboard
Copy	Copies the value of the current cell into the clipboard
Paste	Pastes the value from the clipboard into the current cell
Move to first object	Selects the first row
Move to previous object	Selects the previous row
Current object	Shows or sets the current row; enter a value and press `↵ Enter` to select a specific row
Move to next object	Selects the next row
Move to last object	Selects the last row
Delete	Allows to delete all selected rows

Context menu

Right clicking on a cell that stores a UBIK^® object will bring up the standard Navigation context menu. In addition, cells of type GUID or Reference will show a Remove menu item, where clicking it will set the value of the cell to null.

View Styles

The Object Editor has only one view style at the moment.