StrataFrame Forum » StrataFrame Application Framework - V1 » WinForms (How do I?) » Browsing Records on a Maintenance Form

Browsing Records on a Maintenance Form

Jon Neale — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:12:05 GMT

Hi All,

I am currently trialing the framework so please excuse me if I am asking dumb questions I'm still on a learning curve.

I've created a maintenance form for an employees Personal Details, just basic stuff name, address etc., and added a browse dialog to the form. This works great as the users can come in and search for different people by last name or maybe get a bunch of people in the same department so they can batch input the required details for everyone in that specific department. This all works great.

The second form I'm looking to create is an absence form, recording dates of absence etc., and I'm getting confused over what the browse should do. Ideally I would want the browse to do the same as on the Personal Details form so that the user can again batch input against specific areas/departments, however, each employee may have more than one absence record and I need to give the user the ability to search and review these also. The main toolbar, where you can insert/amend & delete, on a Maintenance form will be related to the Employee Browse and not the absence records. So what I'm saying, I think, is that I need two different BO, one to hold details about the employee and one to hold details of the chosen employees specific absence records.

How would be the best way to try and handle this using the framework, can I have two toolbars one related to the Employees and one related to the Absences?

Should I add a grid to the form which displays the absence records of the selected employee?

Should I even use the Maintenance Form for this?

Please be gentle with me as I only started looking at this on Saturday!!

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance you can give me.

Jon

I am currently trialing the framework and have been really impressed by the eas of putting things together

RE: Browsing Records on a Maintenance Form

Jon Neale — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:12:05 GMT

Many thnaks. I'll give it a go.

RE: Browsing Records on a Maintenance Form

Trent L. Taylor — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:39:12 GMT

Jon,

Thanks for taking the time to use the forum...and I will be nice ;)

Actually you have a number of options here. First, a maintenance form is nothing more than a Standard form with a gradient form header and a Maintenance Form Toolstrip dropped on it. But you can take a number of avenues here. You will want to have a BO for each table represented here (which I think that you already have setup from your description). From your description I gather that the Absence table is a child or link table of the Employee table.

So rather than trying to use a browse dialog for the absence records, I would use a ListView (versus a grid) in conjunction with a ChildFormDialog. Now if you want to be able to modify the records directly on the page to change statuses, etc. then a grid may be a good choice. StrataFrame has some vastly extended functionality for a ListView. With little to no manual coding you can populate a ListView, associate a BO instance (i.e. the Absence BO instance on the form), and even have to show a child form to modify the records. Be sure to look at the StrataFlix sample as it shows exactly how to do this.

But you are going down the right road. So in this case would use either a grid or a ListView (recommended in most cases) to show and/or add absence records.