Re: Re: WOPopUpButton

Look, I don't mean to be rude, but.....  that is a dumb idea.

If you just add a text field with your EDU stuff in it (forgetting that 
you would need two text fields to accommodate your original requirement 
for EDU and Education) then every time you do a search it will have to 
do a caseInsensitiveLike on each of the strings...  If your product DB 
gets big then your searches will be slow.  If you add the entity and a 
relationship to it then you can compare objects directly, this will 
yield much faster search times.  Also, if you use the relationship you 
will simply have to use a pop up to select whatever price type you need 
for each product.  If you end up just adding those text fields then you 
will need to type it in EVERY TIME which will make your data entry 
slower.

Unnecessarily slow data entry + slow search times = application that 
needs improvement.

Even if I didn't want the short and long names for this task, I would 
still create the entity and use the displayGroup.  In fact, I do the 
same thing in a lot of my apps for Brand, ie I have a Product and it 
belongs to a Brand.  My Brand entity has an ID and a name field, that's 
it.  But using this data structure I can quickly find all products from 
this brand (and, most importantly, when I add a new product I don't 
have to type the brand name again).

Another thing, how do you plan to present this to the user?  If you 
give them a text field and say "please type Education or Retail or 
Wholesale or Ex Tax....." then you just know they will type "All" and 
won't get any results at all.  Do you think that is a good user 
interface (UI)?  No!  Whenever you want a user to select one of a few 
options, make it as simple as you possibly can for them to pick the 
right one (or at least one that you are expecting them to pick).

I don't mean to sound like I am ranting at you but I can just see that 
you are about to make a big mistake, one that you will soon have to go 
back and fix anyway.  Do it right the first time and let your boss 
think you are a genius (and make sure he/she remembers it when the pay 
negotiations come round!!!).

Trust me when I say that the best way to do this is to bite the bullet 
and add the entity and the relationship.  It'll take you five minutes 
and you'll be rapt with the result.  You will thank me later.

Larry.


  Thanks for your help, I was hoping I could do it without having to get 
authorisation to
  change the database. I figure if I have to make changes to the 
database I may as well just
  add a field to the product description table and search on that field.


  --- In [email protected], Lawrence Kendall 
<lawrence@a...> wrote:
  > No Problem....
  >
  > Yes....  I would have another table in the database.  I assume you 
are
  > using EOModel??  In EOModel, add a new entity and enter the field 
names
  > I described before.  In your database (DB) add your table and the
  > fields.
  >
  > Once you have added this table, add the priceTypeID field to the
  > product entity and make a relationship between them.  Make sure you
  > also add the priceTypeID to the Product table in the DB.
  >
  > Once you have entered your data in the DB (EDU - Education etc) then
  > just hook it up.  All Good!!  ;)
  >
  > I can send you some screen grabs if you need extra help.  Let me know
  > how you go.
  >
  > Cheers then,
  >
  > Larry.



 
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