Re: Please help: need advice on approach
From: alpine (alpine_don'tsendspam_at_mvps.org)
Date: 04/27/04
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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:06:36 -0600
I have an application that uses something similar to the first
approach that you describe. Writing your application in this manner
will make it extremely flexible and will probably save you tons of
time in the long run. If you normalize you DB structure correctly,
you can provide ancillary tables that store all of the pertinent info
about what setting names and values go with which instruments.
HTH,
Bryan
____________________________________________________________
New Vision Software "When the going gets weird,"
Bryan Stafford "the weird turn pro."
alpine_don'tsendspam@mvps.org Hunter S. Thompson -
Microsoft MVP-Visual Basic Fear and Loathing in LasVegas
On 27 Apr 2004 10:08:32 -0700, paulsmith5@hotmail.com (Paul) wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am developing an application in which a user will be asked to select
>a number of instruments from a list and then describe the instrument
>settings (these settings will be used throughout the application).
>Each instrument could potentially have totally different settings
>although there may be some similarity across instrument types.
>Furthermore, the list of instruments may be expected to grow over
>time. I wondering if anybody has dealt with recording similar types of
>data in the past and how they handled it, both from a database and
>interface point of view. There is a case for having a grid like
>approach with 2 columns e.g. setting_name and setting_value where only
>applicable settings are loaded at runtime. The user then enters in a
>setting_value for each corresponding setting_name. An advantage of
>this approach is that if I needed to add a new instrument I would
>simply have to add in a new group of settings to my database. However
>when presenting the settings in this way, I cannot see any easy way of
>dealing with conditional settings (i.e. where a user may be expected
>to enter a value for a setting only if a previous setting value meets
>a certain criteria), instances where the user is required to select
>from a range of options, or the whole issue of validation. An
>alternative approach involves developing individual wizard type
>interfaces for each instrument similar to the different interfaces you
>experience whether either setting up an Access or SQL Server DSN. This
>approach may give more freedom as regards layout and validation but
>I'd have to add a new wizard for each instrument if its individual
>settings differed. On that point could I develop each setup wizard as
>a separate activeX component.
>
>I'd appreciate any thoughts from anybody who has faced a similar
>problem.
>
>Thanks
>
>Paul
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