On Oct 20, 2005, at 1:35 AM, Matthew Fairclough wrote:
1. Instead of opening a new app for every table (which would confuse my users no end), I have been trying to open each table as a separate tab (much like FieldSpecEditor). Each tab would be identical to the current forms. In this way there is only one window, and if a user wanted to do other things (such as a report), they would just open another tab. I haven't had any success with this. How can this be done?
One of the dangers when supplying sample apps is that it creates the impression that this is the only possible way to create an application, when nothing could be further from the truth.
This app, like the others, are typical of apps created by the AppWizard. They are good for simple apps, but quickly reach their limits when you try to make them do much more. The FieldSpecEditor is likewise only useful in the context of wizard-generated apps.
To create the sort of app you want, you'd need to create it in code, rather than rely on a wizard or visual design tool. The Form Designer is making progress, but it doesn't deal with containership matters, such as pageframes, yet. It's ironic, too, in that I spent some time last night looking over the code for adding the ability to add controls to pages rather than to the form itself. It's not a trivial project, so for the foreseeable future, custom apps will need to be coded by hand.
2. I need to customise the search page to search on foreign keys with drop down menus. The options in FieldSpecEditor seem limited. How can I add custom fields to configure the search form (and also the entry form) to a greater degree?
Again, you'd need to code that. You can add a child bizobj to the main bizobj that will supply you with the keys you need, and set that as the DataSource/DataField for the dropdown list. You'd also need to write the code to include any selected value in the search. The wizard/datanav framework does a lot of this stuff for you, but it only handles the simple cases.
3. Many of the reports I will need to produce involve joins from several tables. For example, a report of each orditem with the total number of orders. Where would such code go?
I'll leave this one for Paul, as he knows the reporting stuff way better than I do. But at some point, you'll have to grab the selected values from the controls and construct the SQL join code, and then pass that to the bizobj for execution. This would then produce a result set that would be used for the report.
I really would like to use Dabo. The benefits to Dabo would be an international (non-IT) company using Dabo as it's primary recording system. I'm sure that would make for good press.
I'm very willing to put in the time to help you get this going. It certainly would be a positive milestone for Dabo!
-- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-users
