Box on HP       Make a real gray scale box on a HP laserjet

 The following user-defined functions are provided to users of R&R Report
 Writer by Concentric Data Systems, Inc. You may use and distribute these
 functions as you wish. Bear in mind that these functions are hardware
 specific and do not work in all report situations, so read the directions
 below carefully. On the other hand, used properly, these functions are
 quite powerful and may satisfy many application needs.

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 BOX.UDF is a collection of R&R Version 5 user-defined functions for
 creating lines, boxes, and shading on a Hewlett Packard PCL compatible
 laser printer. Lines, box borders, and the area within boxes can be any
 degree of gray-scale shading from 0 (invisible) to 100 (solid).

 . _hline        Type: Character
   _hline(c_w,c_t,c_b) = CHR(27)+"*c"+w+"h*c"+t+"v*c"+b+"g2P"

 . _pop          Type: Character
   _pop() = CHR(27)+"&f1S"

 . _position     Type: Character
   _position(c_h,c_v) = CHR(27)+"&a"+h+"h"+v+"V"

 . _push         Type: Character
   _push() = CHR(27)+"&f0S"

 . _shade        Type: Character
   _shade(c_w,c_h,c_s) = CHR(27)+"*c"+w+"h*c"+h+"v*c"+s+"g2P"

 . _vline        Type: Character
   _vline(c_h,c_t,c_b) = CHR(27)+"*c"+h+"v*c"+t+"h*c"+b+"g2P"

 . BOX           Type: Character
   BOX(c_w,c_h,c_t,c_b,c_s) =
   IIF(t#"0".AND.b#"0",IIF(w#"0",_hline(w,t,b)+IIF(h#"0",_vline(h,t,b)+
   _push()+_position("+"+LTRIM(STR(MAX(0,VAL(w)-VAL(t)))),"+0")+_vline(h,t,b)+
   _pop()+_push()+_position("+0","+"+LTRIM(STR(MAX(0,VAL(h)-VAL(t)))))+
   _hline(w,t,b)+_pop(),""),IIF(h#"0",_vline(h,t,b),"")),"")+
   IIF(s#"0".AND.w#"0".AND.h#"0",_shade(w,h,s),"")

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 When you create a calculated field using BOX, place it on the report
 layout as close to the left margin as possible, and set the field width as
 wide as possible. This is necessary to insure that the escape sequence is
 not truncated.

 All arguments to the BOX function are character strings. So, either place
 the desired value within quotes, e.g. "100", or else use the STR function,
 e.g. STR(100). Note that there are 720 decipoints per inch.

 BOX(w, h, t, b, s)

 w = width, the width of the box, line, or shaded area in decipoints,
     or 0 for a vertical line

 h = height, the height of the box, line, or shaded area in decipoints,
     or 0 for a horizontal line

 t = thickness, the box or line thickness in decipoints, or 0 for a shaded
     area with no border

 b = border, the gray-scale density of the line or box border from 1 to 99,
     or 0 for a shaded area with no border, or 100 for a solid line or border

 s = shading, the gray-scale density within the box or rectangular area
     from 1 to 99, or 0 for a box with no shading within

 A workaround for boxes you want closer to the right margin is to create a
 calculated field expression in the following format, which stores the
 current printer cursor position, moves it to the right a specified number
 of decipoints (999 in this example), prints the box, and then restores the
 cursor to its original position:

      _push()+_position("+999","0")+BOX(...)+_pop

 Note also that in R&R Version 4 you can overlap fields on the report
 layout and that you can set line heights to 0 points. These are useful
 tricks for over-printing report data with boxes and shading. Otherwise,
 R&R will leave space on the report as if the calculated field containing
 the box escape sequence contained actual report data.

 The UDFs called by the BOX UDF, namely _push, _position, _hline, _vline,
 and _pop, may be useful in other applications. Study the BOX UDF formula
 to see how they are used. In fact, you could implement them directly in a
 dBASE, Fox, Clipper, Quicksilver UDF and use them in your programs for
 other applications.

 Another hint is that variable sized lines, boxes, and shaded areas can be
 created by computing the arguments to the BOX function. For example, you
 might pre-process a count to see how many records there are, and multiply
 that number by the record height in decipoints to create a variable height
 shaded area dependent on the number of records in the group!