LiveCode Forums.

Hi,

I want to display a chronology of historical events, running across the screen from left to right.
Covering a few thousand years, so that's a very very wide screen.
I've looked at the lesson concerning scrolling a large image, but my data isn't an image.

What control should I use which :
(a) can handle a huge width
(b) can ask LC to fill in data when needed, rather than have it all on the card (similar to a datagrid method)
(c) can contain linked text, buttons, etc.
I was thinking perhaps the scrolling field, but not sure that that object can ask for a fillin as required. But perhaps look at the scrollbar value and create content on the fly ?
Or is there some other LC object I should be thinking about ? Or is the datagrid the way to go ?

Hoping to be pointed in the right direction before I go down a dead-end route...

Thanks

You could do a couple of things:

1. a chart/graph - I do something similar where the chart is a set width and I provide buttons to scroll the dates. When the user advances the date I query the data again (a db backend), and redraw the graph with new start and end dates.

2. a group that has locked size and position - as you add items (labels, or shapes I would guess?) if they are placed beyond the bounds of the group, it (the group) will get scrollbars so the user can scroll to see the added items.

Thanks for these ideas - I hadn't thought of the first.

If I set up a group, by placing items outside the group I take it you mean the new items are part of the group, but out of sight. Hence the scrollbars ?

If I do this, the next question is - how much memory gets used up by a group with a lot of items - is the ram usage based on group width x group height x bitdepth, or are the items within a group just stored as coords and item-types, if you see what I mean. I'm asking really if the memory usage is the same as having a large image, I'm hoping not.

Thanks

Kevin

Yes, part of the group, but out of sight (beyond the bounds of the group).

No idea about memory usage.