In the following article I will share a technique that I implemented in our current development, which needed FM8 techniques, as our client currently uses that.
I needed a progress bar, which looks great to show a script progress on a found set.
I didn't want to use containers and started thinking about how I would be able to create the progress bar without them.
Here's what I came up with:
The progress bar is a simple repeating field calculation(text) with 100 repetitions.
It uses the following calculation:
Let ( [r1=123;g1=80;b1=200;r2=10;g2=180;b2=50] ;
If ( Truncate ( (Get(RecordNumber)/Get(FoundCount)) * 100 ; 0) ≥ Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber );
TextColor ( "█" ;RGB(
r1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (r2 - r1) / 100));
g1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (g2 - g1) / 100));
b1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (b2 - b1) / 100))
)
);""))
The first part of it is a LET calculation where I set up the beginning and the ending RGB colors, which will be used to calculate the actual repetition font color. The second part is a percentage calculator based on the current record and the found set.
The last part is used to calculate the actual RGB color.
The layout is simple, I just added the 100 repetitions, resized it, and set the font size to 72 points. I also added a fill color to the containers, that is what you can see under the gradient bar.
By modifying the rgb values you can come up with any color gradient you like:
I attached a sample file where you can find the calculation, investigate it, etc.
You can download it here.
Please check the demo file, and use this technique it if you like it.
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