QuickStart: Customizing the Error Dialog
On this page you'll find:
What is the vbWatchdog HTML error dialog for?
In place of the old VBE error dialog, we have provided a new programmable error dialog that is designed to be very flexible and provides full access to all of the advanced features provided by vbWatchdog
To invoke the dialog, call it from your global error handler like this:
Public Sub MyGlobalErrorHandler()
ErrEx.State = ErrEx.ShowErrorDialog()
End Sub
Customizing: Before we get started
The new error dialog uses a basic form of HTML to allow formatting of the dialog contents. The error dialog uses a template-based system. This allows you to setup a simple template in your startup routine which is then effective throughout the running of your application.
There are actually two dialogs; the main Error dialog, and an optional Variables dialog that is opened from an optional button on the main dialog. Both of these dialogs are fully customizable using the same set of properties.
To customize the main error dialog, we use the properties of the ErrEx.DialogOptions object. To customize the variables dialog, we use the properties of the ErrEx.VariablesDialogOptions object.
Customizing: Getting started
To get started, download the Sample.mdb and use the "Customize..." option which will open up the main form that we use for testing out changes that we make to our error dialogs.
There are six menu options provided on the customization form (3 for the main dialog, 3 for the variables dialog):
1. Customizing the HTML section templates:
There are two main HTML sections that you can edit, called "Main body" and "More info section". The main body HTML is always visible, whereas the More Info section is only visible if the user presses the "More Info" button on your error dialog. The "Callstack Section" and "Variables Section" are sub-sections that you can import into your main sections (we will discuss this in more detail later on this page).
This is how the two main sections look in the actual error dialog:
These are the basic HTML tags that are supported:
<b>Bold</b>
<u>Underline</u>
<i>Italic</i>
<font face=Calibri size=10pt color=#808080 bgcolor=#F5FA70>Some Text</font>
<s>Strikethrough</s>
<br>Linefeed or vbCrLf
The pipe character ("|") can be used to represent column/indented data. When the dialog is painted to the window, the vbWatchdog HTML parser will ensure that column data (separated by the pipe character) is aligned correctly.
The following special tags can be used to represent the data relating to the error being handled:
| <ERRDESC> | equivalent to ErrEx.Desctipion |
| <ERRNUMBER> | equivalent to Hex(ErrEx.Number) |
| <ERRNUMBERHEX> | equivalent to ErrEx.NumberAsHex |
| <ERRDATETIME> | equivalent to Now() |
| <SOURCEPROJ> | equivalent to ErrEx.SourceProject |
| <SOURCEMOD> | equivalent to ErrEx.SourceModule |
| <SOURCEPROC> | equivalent to ErrEx.SourceProcedure |
| <SOURCELINENUMBER> | equivalent to ErrEx.SourceLineNumber |
| <SOURCELINECODE> | equivalent to ErrEx.SourceLineCode |
| <CALLSTACK> | parses DialogOptions.HTML_CallStackItem for each call in the callstack. |
To display callstack data, you must use the <CALLSTACK> tag inside one of the main sections (either the Main body, or more usually in the More info section). When vbWatchdog encounters the <CALLSTACK> tag, it will then import the HTML code that you have specified in the "Callstack Section" for each call frame in the callstack.
Here's a list of the special tags that are available in the "Callstack Section":
| <SOURCEPROJ> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.ProjectName |
| <SOURCEMOD> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.ModuleName |
| <SOURCEPROC> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.ProcedureName |
| <SOURCELINENUMBER> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.SourceLine |
| <SOURCELINECODE> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.SourceLineCode |
| <VARIABLES> | parses DialogOptions.HTML_VariablesItem for each variable declared in the current procedure. |
To display variable information, you must use the <VARIABLES> tag inside of your Callstack Section. When vbWatchdog encounters the <VARIABLES> tag, it will then import the HTML code that you have specified in the "Variables Section" for each variable identified in the callframe that is being displayed.
Finally, here's a list of the special tags that are available in the "Variables Section":
| <VARSCOPE> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.VariablesInspector.ScopeDesc |
| <VARNAME> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.VariablesInspector.Name |
| <VARTYPE> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.VariablesInspector.TypeDesc |
| <VARVALUE> | equivalent to ErrEx.Callstack.VariablesInspector.ValueDesc |
2. Customizing the buttons on the dialog:
3. Customizing the properties:
Adding custom HTML tags
You can now create custom tags in your HTML template strings. This feature enables you to add variable data to your error dialogs at runtime without having to change the actual HTML template.
To define a new custom tag, just include it in the HTML template encased in tag brakets and with a leading exclamation mark, like this:
<!MyCustomField>
In your global error handler, before you call ErrEx.ShowErrorDialog, you can now set the value of the custom tag by setting:
ErrEx.CustomVars("MyCustomField") = "My data..." You can pass a maximum of 512 custom named tags in this manner. As a bonus, you can also use custom tags (and the normal context tags) in the WindowCaption string.
