Data Grid Documentation

[Josh Mellicker]

Trevor,

It's taken me this long to actually start experimenting with the  
DataGrid and just wanted to post in an open letter here how amazing it  
is. And kudos to Runrev for their integration work as well.

Also a lesson for any software developer is your approach to  
documentation - rather than the traditional developer originated  
"here's what we want to tell you" you've taken frequently asked  
questions from users, created ScreenStep tutorials, and exported those  
to a manual, reversing the paradigm to "here's what you wanted to  
know", thinking, well, if no one asks about a certain process or  
feature, then it's either easy or no one cares, and if people keep  
asking about something, it needs more detail and elucidation. User  
Driven Documentation Ensures Relevance. UDDERly brilliant.

Looking into the thought process leading to the creation of the  
DataGrid object, and being aware of your SQL Yoga product, it's pretty  
obvious that part of your vision has to do with a form-based DataGrid  
linking to a multiuser database, in which (in the simplest case) each  
row in the Grid represents a row in a DB table. Of course, with  
relational DBs, the correspondence of form elements to tables gets  
more complex, with some elements referring to linked tables, possible  
sets of data for menus, etc.

Forgive me if this has already been covered, I don't read the list  
much and have not been Revtalking in a couple years so I am a bit out  
of touch. The below is just a train of thought about a few random  
basic needs of a framework connecting a form-based DataGrid that  
provides CRUD functionality with a multiuser DB:

It seems to me that some of the most common elements needed would be:

single line text field
multiple line text field
option menu
date popup
time popup

Each of those objects, it seems, would need 4 custom properties to  
know where that data comes from and is to be stored:

tableName
columnName
rowID
tableIDcolumnName

The single line and multiple line text fields are simple, and you've  
provided the specific example of updating an external data source with  
CloseFieldEditor.

An option menu could be used in two major ways:
a. the menu options are a fixed set (small, medium, large)
b. the menu options come from all possible values of a certain row in  
a table

The option menu probably needs an "edit list..." option allowing the  
user, right in context, to add, edit or delete options.

The date & time popups are simple, just need the ability to translate  
from SQL date and time storage and a cool popup calendar.

On another topic, with a locally data store, data synchronization  
becomes an issue. Every row in every table would need a dateTimeStamp  
so that on a periodic basis (1m, 5m, 10m), the local app could do a  
query of the remote DB to update the local store with the rows changed  
since the last refresh. Any data, before storing remotely, would have  
to compare the remote timeStamp to see if someone else changed the  
data to avoid overwriting someone else's newly stored data.

The purpose of this message (finally! :-) is just to say, if any of  
these thoughts spark even just a sentence or two in response, it could  
be quite valuable, as I am embarking on a project doing exactly this-  
building a framework connecting a form-based DataGrid to a multiuser DB.

Also, in a final thought, if you wanted to do an iChat or Skype screen  
share in which we could build a simple DataGrid project, I'd be happy  
to pay a consulting fee, plus I could record video of it and post for  
the benefit of everyone's greater enlightenment on the amazing DataGrid.




On Mar 6, 2009, at 11:46 PM, Trevor DeVore wrote:

> On Mar 6, 2009, at 6:59 PM, Josh Mellicker wrote:
>
>> I will say, after years of working with the Rev table object, that  
>> if everyone on this list doesn't fly to your town, lift you up on a  
>> chair and parade you around town with confetti and a marching band,  
>> then your efforts have been underappreciated :-)
>>
>> Okay, if that's a little over the top, I hope at least developers  
>> that use this commercially will consider it de rigeur to donate to  
>> a Data Grid Appreciation Fund. I've just sent $50 to you PayPal.
>
> Hey, thanks for the love Josh :-)
>
> Regards,
>
> -- 
> Trevor DeVore