Items.ItemBarEx Property (ExG2antt)

The ItemBarEx property is an extension of ItemBar property, that allows changing the properties for a set of bars, using expressions. For instance, you want to select all bars whose value on the Country column is France, or move all bars of type "Task", change the color for all checked items, change the percent for selected bars, and so on.

Compared with ItemBar property that can access bars based on bar's Key only, the ItemBarEx property can access bars based on any:

bar's property specified by the ItemBar property. For instance, "itembar(0) = `Task`" specifies all Task bars (0 indicates the value of exBarName property), or "itembar(257)" specifies all selected bars ( 257 defines the value of exBarSelected property), or "itembar(0) = `Task`and itembar(257)" indicates all Task bars being selected
caption, value or user-data associated with any cell in the Items section of the control. For instance, "cellcaption(12) = `France`" queries all bars hosted by items that have France on the column with the index 12.
check-box / radio-button state of any cell on any column. For instance, "cellstate(0) = 1" queries all bars hosted by checked-items in the column with the index 0.
item's extra user-data being defined by the ItemData property. For instance, "itemdata = `the item data`" queries all bars hosted by items with the user data set on "the item data".
item's selection state. For instance, "itemisselected" queries all bars hosted by selected items
item's focusing state. For instance, "itemisfocused and itembar(0) = `Task`" queries all Task bars hosted by focused item.
item's level, that defines how many parent items the item has. For instance ""not(itemlevel=0)"" queries all bars hosted on child items. A root item's level is 0, while a child item has the level of its parent item plus one.

For instance:

ItemBarEx("itembar(0) = `Task`",exBarMove) = 1, moves one-day forward all Task bars.
ItemBarEx("itembar(0) = `Task`",exBarMove) = -2, moves two-day backward all Task bars.
ItemBarEx("itembar(0) = `Task`",exBarEnd) = "value + 2", resizes all Task bars ( adds a 2 days to ending-margin of each Task bar )
ItemBarEx(True,exBarTransparent) = "cellstate(0) = 1 ? 0 : 100" hides shows bars being checked, and hides those are un-checked.
ItemBarEx("(itembar(0) = `Task`)",exBarMove) = "#8/3/2017# - itembar(1)" moves all Task bars, so they all start at the same date-time #8/3/2017#
ItemBarEx("(itembar(0) = `Task`)",exBarMove) = "#8/14/2017# - itembar(2)" moves all Task bars, so they all end at the same date-time #8/14/2017#
ItemBarEx("itemisselected and itembar(exBarName) like `Task*`",exBarPercent100) = "value + 1", adds 1% (percent) to each "Task" bar found in the selected items.

The Criteria and Value parameters of the ItemBarEx property support the following pre-defined functions:

cellcaption (unary operator) retrieves the value of the CellCaption property. The single-parameter of the cellcaption operator must be of numeric type, specifying the index of the column. For instance, "cellcaption(12) = `France`" defines all bars hosted by items where France is found on the column with the index 12
celldata (unary operator) retrieves the value of the CellData property. The single-parameter of the celldata operator must be of numeric type, specifying the index of the column. For instance, "celldata(0) = `the cell data`" defines all bars hosted by items whose cell's data is "the cell data" on the column with the index 0.
cellstate (unary operator) retrieves the value of the CellState property. The single-parameter of the cellvalue operator must be of numeric type, specifying the index of the column. For instance, "cellstate(0) = 1" queries all bars hosted by checked-items in the column with the index 0.
cellvalue (unary operator) retrieves the value of the CellValue property. The single-parameter of the cellvalue operator must be of numeric type, specifying the index of the column. For instance, "cellvalue(1) = cellvalue(2)" defines all bars hosted by items who have the same value on columns with the index 1 and 2.
itembar (unary operator) retrieves the value of the ItemBar property. The single-parameter of the itembar operator must be of numeric type, specifying any value listed on the ItemBarPropertyEnum type. For instance, "itembar(0) = `Task`" defines all Task bars.

The Criteria and Value parameters of the ItemBarEx property support the following pre-defined keywords:

itemdata keyword returns the item's user data. The ItemData property retrieves or sets the extra data for a specific item. For instance, "itemdata = `the item data`" queries all bars hosted by items with the user data set on "the item data".
itemisfocused keyword returns a boolean value that indicates whether the item is focused. The FocusItem property returns the handle of the item that has the focus. At any time, the control can have a single item with the focus, instead can have more selected items. For instance, "itemisfocused and itembar(0) = `Task`" queries all Task bars from the focused item.
itemisselected keyword returns a boolean value that specifies whether the item is selected. The SelectItem property specifies whether the giving item is selected or unselected. For instance, "itemisselected and itembar(0) = `Task`" queries all Task bars from the selected items .
itemlevel keyword returns the item's level. This value is 0-based, which indicates the root-items. A root item's level is 0, while a child item has the level of its parent item plus one. For instance ""not(itemlevel=0)"" queries all bars hosted on child items.

Additionally, the Value parameter of the ItemBarEx property supports the following pre-defined keywords:

value keyword returns the previously value of the ItemBar(Property) property. The Property parameter defines the bar's property to be queried / changed. For instance, "value + 1" increases the previously value by one-unit. Based on the type of the value, the value could be added or concatenated. For instance, if the Property is exBarCaption, the value + 1, actually appends 1 to the bar's caption.

For instance, the Criteria parameter could be:

True, queries all bars within the chart, or False which specifies no bars will be queried.
"itembar(0) = `Task`", queries all Task bars in the chart
"itembar(0) = `Task`and itembar(257)" indicates all Task bars being selected
"itembar(0) = `Task`and itemisselected" indicates all Task bars from selected items
"itemisselected" queries all bars hosted by selected items
"not(itemisselected) and itembar(0) = `Task`" queries all Task bars hosted by not-selected item.
"cellcaption(12) = `France`" queries all bars hosted by items that have France on the column with the index 12.
"cellstate(0) = 1" queries all bars hosted by checked-items in the column with the index 0.

The expression may be a combination of variables, constants, strings, dates and operators. A string is delimited by ", ` or ' characters, and inside they can have the starting character preceded by \ character, ie "\"This is a quote\"". A date is delimited by two # characters, ie #1/31/2001 10:00# means the January 31th, 2001, 10:00 AM.

This property/method supports predefined constants and operators/functions as described here.

		Type	Description
		Criteria as Variant	A String expression that defines the criteria / formula to select/query the bars in the chart, or a Boolean expression that specifies that all or none bars are selected to be queried. For instance, "cellstate(0) = 1" queries all bars hosted by items whose check-box in the column with the index 0, are checked, or "itemisselected and itembar(0) = `Task`" queries all Task bars from the selected items. The Criteria parameter of the ItemBarEx property supports predefined functions and keywords as defined bellow.
		Property as ItemBarPropertyEnum	A ItemBarPropertyEnum expression that defines the bar's property to be queried. For instance, you can use exBarsCount to query the number of bars that matches the criteria.
		Variant	For the get_ItemBarEx property, it indicates the value of the bar's property being found ( for instance, if the Property is exBarsCount, the ItemBarEx property returns a numeric value that specifies the number of bars that matches the criteria). For set_ItemBarEx property it could be a string expression that defines the formula to change the bar's property, or any other value to assign to the bar's property for all bars that matches the criteria. For instance, "value + 1", indicates the previously value plus one. The Value parameter of the ItemBarEx property supports predefined functions and keywords as defined bellow.