Exontrol - ExG2antt - How to start?

How to start?

The following screen shot, shows a general idea how parts and objects of the control are arranged:

click to enlarge

The following steps shows you progressively how to start programming the Exontrol's ExG2antt component:

Load / Save Data. The control provides several ways to serialize your data, as listed:

LoadXML / SaveXML methods, to load / save data using XML format.

DataSource property, to load / update / save data from a table, query, dataset and so on.

GetItems / PutItems methods, to load / save data from a/to safe array of data.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	.LoadXML "https://www.exontrol.net/testing.xml"
End With
loads control's data from specified URL.

Chart. The control's chart displays tasks based on the time-unit scale, using a multiple-levels header.

UnitScale property, determines the base time-unit scale to be displayed on the chart.

Label property, indicates the predefined format of the level's label for a specified unit, to be shown on the chart.

LevelCount property, specifies the number of levels to be shown on the chart's header.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Chart
		.LevelCount = 2
		.UnitScale = exDay
	End With
End With
specifies that the chart's header should display two levels, and the base time-unit scale to be day.

Bars. The chart's bars collection holds the types of the bars the chart can display. By default, it includes Task, Milestone, Summary, Project Summary, ...

Add method, adds a new type of bar, including a combination of any of already predefined bars to display split or/and progress bars.

Copy property, clones an already predefined bar.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	.Chart.Bars.Add("Task%Progress").Shortcut = "TProgress"
End With
defines a new task bar to display a progress bar inside. See Item-Bars, to see how you can add tasks/bars to the control's chart panel.

Links. See Item-Links, to see how you can add links between tasks/bars to the control's chart panel.
Notes. See Item-Notes, to see how you can add notes on the control's chart panel.
Columns. The control supports multiple columns, so always you can add / remove / move / hide any column

Add method, adds a new column.

ExpandColumns property specifies the columns to be shown/hidden when the column is expanded or collapsed.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Columns.Add("Check")
		.Position = 0
		.Def(exCellHasCheckBox) = True
	End With
End With
adds a new column that displays check-boxes, and that's the first visible column.

Editors. Any cell / column of the control supports built-in editors, that let user edits data

EditType method, specifies the built-in to be assigned to a cell or column.

Editor property, gets access to the column's built-in editor

CellEditorVisible property specifies the built-in editor for a particular cell.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Columns.Add("Date")
		.Editor.EditType = DateType
	End With
End With
adds a new column that displays and edits column's data as date type.

Items. Any item can hold a collection of child items. Any item is divided in cells, once cell for each column in the control.

AddItem method, adds a new item.

InsertItem method, inserts a child item

InsertControlItem method, inserts a child item that hosts another control inside.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Items
		.AddItem "new item"
	End With
End With
adds a new item.

Cells. An item contains a collection of cells, one cell for each column in the control. Any cell can be split or merge with one or more neighbor cells.

CellValue property, specifies the cell's value.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Items
		h = .InsertItem(.FocusItem,"","item 1.1")
		.CellValue(h,1) = "item 1.2"
		.CellValue(h,2) = "item 1.3"
		.ExpandItem(.FocusItem) = True
	End With
End With
adds a new child item of the focused item, and fills the cell's value for the second and third column.

Item-Bars. Any item can display one or more tasks/bars.

AddBar method, adds a new bar of specified type, giving its time interval.

ItemBar property, updates properties of specified bar, like caption, effort, and so on

DefineSummaryBars method, defines child-bars of a summary bar.

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Items
		.AddBar .FocusItem,"Task",#4/1/2006#,#4/14/2006#,"new"
	End With
End With
adds a new task to the focus item, with the key "new".

Item-Links. Any two-bars of the chart, can be linked.

AddLink method, links two bars.

Link property, gets access to the link's properties

For instance,
With G2antt1
	With .Items
		.AddBar .FocusItem,"Task",#4/1/2006#,#4/14/2006#,"A"
		.AddBar .FocusItem,"Task",#4/18/2006#,#4/30/2006#,"B"
		.AddLink "AB",.FocusItem,"A",.FocusItem,"B"
	End With
End With
adds two linked bars A and B in the same item.

Item-Notes. The chart panel of the control supports notes, that can be associated with any date or bar in the chart.

Add method, associates a note to a date or task/bar.

For instance,

With G2antt1
	With .Chart.Notes
		With .Add("D1",G2antt1.Items.FirstVisibleItem,G2antt1.Chart.FirstVisibleDate,"Date:<br><%dd%>/<%mm%><br><b><%yyyy%></b>")
			.PartCanMove(exNoteEnd) = True
			.PartVOffset(exNoteEnd) = 20
			.PartHOffset(exNoteEnd) = 20
		End With
	End With
End With

adds a note associated with first visible date.