Working with Data Areas

The main.divetab script typically imports outside divetab scripts to help organize the presentation of your data. Data area scripts can become quite lengthy as you define more pages, because related pages need to be defined in a single script. In addition to using logical names for page ids, you can add white space and comments to help make the scripts more readable and maintainable.

Here is an Closedexample of a menu area that links to a data-area located in a separate file, one data-area within the same script, and a document-area.

divetab version = "0.0" { 
  menu-area id = "main_menu" { 
    title "Working w/<br />Data Areas" 
    icon "/divetab/images/55.png"
    banner "/divetab/images/banner-landscape.png" retina = false orientation = "landscape" 
    banner "/divetab/images/banner-portrait.png" retina = false orientation = "portrait" 
    
    // the following two areas lead to data-areas 
    import-area "/divetab/scripts/data area/00_working-w-cross-pages.divetab" 
    area id = "report-pages" 
    // includes DiveTab User Guide 
    area id = "example-document" 
  } 
  
  areas { 
    data-area id = "report-pages" { 
      icon "/divetab/images/22.png" 
      title "Report Page" 
      sections { 
        
        report-page { 
          title "Report Page 1" 
          cplan "/cplans/basic_102.cplan" 
          
          dimension "Resp Team" 
          dimension "Vendor" 
          
          text column = "Cases" 
          text column = "Net Sales" { 
            value-format "$#,###.00" 
          } 
        } 
        
        report-page { 
          title "Report Page 2" 
          cplan "/cplans/basic_101.cplan" 
          
          dimension "Corporate Product Group" 
          text column = "Cases" 
        } 
      } 
    } 
    
    document-area id = "example-document" { 
      path "/divetab/documents/DiveTabUserGuidePC16.pdf" 
      title "DiveTab PC User Guide" 
      icon "/divetab/images/55.png" 
    } 
  } 
}

Here is the Closedresult of the code in DiveTab.

Two data areas (one imported) in an menu-area.

Here is the Closedcode for the imported DiveTab module. 

divetab version = "0.0" { 
  data-area id = "cross-sample" { 
    icon "/divetab/images/22.png" 
    title "Cross Page" 
    sections { 
      cross-page { 
        title "Cross Page 1" 
        cplan "/cplans/basic_101.cplan" 
        
        dimension "Corporate Supplier" 
        cross-dimension "Corporate Product Group" 
        
        text column = "Cost" { 
          value-format "$#,###.00" 
        } 
        text column = "Cases" { 
          value-format "#,###.00" 
        } 
      } 
      
      cross-page { 
        title "Cross Page 2" 
        cplan "/cplans/basic_101.cplan" 
        
        dimension "Resp Team" 
        cross-dimension "Premise" 
        
        text column = "Cost" { 
          value-format "$#,###.00" 
        }  
      } 
    } 
  } 
}

Here is a sample Closedresult of the code in DiveTab.

Example of a Cross page contained in a data-area in a separate file.

Data areas are often preceded by a definitions block, which is used to store attributes that are used multiple times in the same file and are given ids for easy referencing. The definitions block can include column-sets, expand-sets, and an elements block. The end result is less coding for you, and a consistent data layout for your DiveTab users.

NOTE: Using a cbase-input attribute within a cplan attribute does not work with divetab files.

See also: