Hi Folks,

   Running BT 9.4 SR3

   I have a very simple label, that gets its data from a tab-delimited text file. The file has multiple records, but only 1 field per record, the location number. I want to print the human readable version of the location, the barcode version of the location and then I want to print an up arrow or down arrow based on a portion of the location.

   example location: 705-15-3

   If the last digit is a 1, I want to print the down arrow, if the last digit is greater than 1, print the up arrow.

   I am getting the arrow from the Text (from Symbol font character) and setting it in Screen Data.

   I have created the label object, and have tried various vbscript commands to get the last digit from the location, and then tried various ways of modifying "Value" to get this to work. I know that I am having trouble with getting the location from the database.

   In my label definition, under Database connection setup I see

      All Databases

         TextFile 1

            LOCS

               Field 1

   In other places, I see this field referred to as "LOCS.Field 1", note the space between "d" and "1".

   For a simple test, I created a text field, populated the sample data with 99, then wrote vbscript somewhat like the following...

   dim loc, currentValue, shelf

   currentValue = Value (if I do not include this line, the editor complains about not accessing Value)

   loc = Field("LOCS.Field 1")

'

   shelf = Right(loc,1)

   if shelf = 1 then

      Value = 88

   end if

   Doing a test print, nothing prints in this position on the label, but the text version and the bc version of the data do print correctly. There are no complaints when saving the code for the label or when the test print runs. If I vary the code "loc = Field("LOCS.Field 1"), removing quotes, getting rid of the space between "d" and "1", etc, I get errors when trying to print the label, thus, I think I am referencing the field correctly.

   Searching the forums for "field(" got me lots of hits... 137 I think, but I could find nothing that really addressed the correct syntax for referencing database fields... everyone has x = Field(<fieldname>), some with, some without quotes. Can someone point me to documentation or whitepapers that talks about using VBscript, embedded in a BT label, to access the current fields on the label, and the fields in the referenced database?

   Next issue is getting the arrow to appear at the correct time.

   My first thought was to create 2 text objects, having code in each one that would set it Value to "" when the shelf number was not correct, causing one arrow object to print, while the other would not.

   up arrow object

*  do not print the up arrow when this is shelf 1

   if shelf = "1" then

      Value = ""

   end if

   down arrow object

*  do not print the down arrow if shelf is greater than 1

   shelf = CInt(shelf)

   if shelf > 1 then

      Value = ""

   end if

   Not elegant, but should work. I don't think this logic is working, and I get strange things happening in the design interface. If I set Value to "", rather than display the arrow, I see many characters from the font symbol set. Maybe that just the way it's supposed to work... don't know.

   If I could I would rather do the following.....

      create 1 text (from Symbol font character) object

      write vb code that says

      if shelf = 1 then

         Value = down arrow character

      else

         Value = up arrow character

      end if

      Problem is that I do not know a way to reference the font set, and the correct character to get this to happen.

   Any wild thoughts that you have on these issue would be appreciated.... humor, even at my expense is also allowed!!

thanx in advance,

ron