Form details to be displayed in the grid - sql-server

I have basic question from my side, as I am Beginner level in Delphi XE2.
I am using VCL form and entering the Form details in the edit box and to be displayed in the grid with several basic operation like Add, Delete and Update/Retrieve. Whereas the details have to be saved in the SQL server.
If I am using the form later on, i need the Previous data in the grid from the SQL. For those operation my Update/Retrieve field operation must be done on Delphi or SQL server.
Hope everyone would have come across these basic forms. So help me.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Rajan.

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/Developing_Database_Applications
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/Developing_Database_Applications_Index
Those are basic topics about making your application connecting to database.
ExpressQuantumGrid is very complex and expensive control on it's own, it does not have online help but does have offline one, and there is "Task-based help / Connecting to Data" section that covers what u need about that certain grid. Do you really use tcxgrid component or just put that tag at random guess ? You say u have no Delphi experience but did you really purchase DevArt library which price may be almost as large as Delphi itself ? If you did you may try opening their VCL demos and reading their sources how they were implemented.

Related

VB program guidance

I am trying to create a program that will have a form to add users with multiple information (first/last name,tel,vat,email etc.) and store them in a database.
Then I want to have a standard form and will choose from the database the user each time I want to print the form. This way when the user is chosen all fields will be filled with the info from the database.
I have no clue with VB at all so all I ask here is for some guidance.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Sounds like you need to learn .NET first, so head over the Microsoft Virtual Academy and wade through VB Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners.
If you are interested in making a user website, then this Microsoft tutorial is a good place to start. It shows how to create a Movie database with maintenance screens. You should be able to adapt it to "users".
You can also search the MSDN Developer Code Samples.
Happy coding.
P.S. Stack Overflow is for specific technical questions, not general inquiries. That's why your question is getting down-voted.

How can I develop a database for users to access via a browser

Years ago (pre-web) I used to be a Fortran developer (yes it was a very long time ago!) but these days I run a small non-IT business. I would like to develop a database application for my clients to access via a browser (or maybe down the line via a mobile phone). I haven't done any programming for a while apart from some VB macros in Microsoft Excel. I would be grateful if anyone could suggest the best language/technology to learn to get me heading in the right direction.
As Neil said in his comments there are dozens of different, valid answers to this.
Usually I would suggest going with a language you already know, but neither Fortran or VBA are really suited for this task, as far as I know.
Personally I would suggest Django, which is a web framework written in Python. It simplifies many common tasks and it is very well documented.
But there are many more possible solutions.
Before I started with a framework I'd break the problem into pieces. If you've never done anything with a database before you'll find that challenging enough without piling web or mobile on top of it.
Model your problem and get a good object or data model in place. Test that thoroughly without thinking about UI. Once you have that, perhaps you can expose it as services that any UI can call.
You'll quickly become overwhelmed if you try to do it all at once.
Here's another thought: If these are paying customers, why not do yourself and them a favor and hire someone that knows how to do this? It's great that you used to write Fortran, but if you haven't kept up you won't be doing your business any good by putting out a bad first effort for customers to see.
Do it right - get a professional. Do your learning on your own time.
You can use ASP.NET and SQL Server to get something online that will allow users to edit a database table fairly easily. They've simplified it to the point where you can drag and drop the necessary controls (GridView and a SqlDataSource for instance) and define your datasource in a wizard for most simple table CRUD functionality. Basically give users the ability to edit a table without writing any code.
If you need to do something a little more difficult it's easy to write code that will add functionality to the original drag/drop stuff you did.
There are lots of good resources out there for asp.net and C# also, so it will help you get up to speed quickly.
Keep in mind that I work almost entirely with .NET/SQL Server so my opinion will be slanted towards them...

Data Binding tutorials using Microsoft Expression Blend4 for WPF application

I am new to to Microsoft Expression Blend 4 and WPF. I am not finding tutorials about Data Binding for XML and also for DBs. If you have any resources, please post the it.
Thanks and regards
Harsha
My biggest recommendation is looking into Entity Framework.
If you've already got your database designed, you can auto generate code that lets you access and databind to your db. You can enable lazy loading so data doesn't get loaded from the database until you first access that data. You modify your data all you like (and it does it in memory), then you can choose when to persist those changes to the db by calling a Save() method, or you could cancel the changes you've made and revert them back to what was in the db before you made changes.
It's pretty slick and I definately recommend giving it a try.
I might suggest looking at a basic tutorial and a sample project to see what all you can do.
Here's a starting point: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386876.aspx

Creating web forms from a database schema

I'm wondering if there are any applications, preferably freeware, that can take a database configuration, and, with as little hassle as possible, create web forms for inserting data easily.
I'm finding it hard to express exactly what it is I'm after. Maybe I can talk a bit about what I need.
I have a configuration database that, at least usually, contains "the truth" about the servers in our system. It contains stuff like zone names, hostnames, different configuration items, etc, over multiple tables. Right now we're using simple INSERTs directly when adding new servers or other stuff, handling the keys and IDs ourselves. The crux is, they don't want us to develop a simple web form thingy to handle this, instead they want a tool that can generate the web form thingy. Did that make sense?
I'm not sure if anything like this exists or is reliable, but, I thought that if anyone knew, it's this community. Thanks!
As many have already stated, it depends on what technology you're working with:
.Net 3.5 - Dynamic Data or Subsonic's Scaffolding control
.Net 2.0 - Subsonic's Scaffolding control
PHP - CakePHP
Ruby - Rail's Scaffolding component
"with as little hassle as possible"
have you checked things like PHP/MySQL Web Database Application Code Generator 10.02 ?
or phpmyedit ?
seems to me that what everybody else proposed so far requires a fair amount of coding...
Also, have a look at phprunner. It is not free, but looking at the screenshots, it seems to fit your requirements.
ASP.NET has Dynamic Data, that I think fits your description.
There's also SubSonic. Both are free and open source.
Tried Dynamic Data?
Besides ASP.NET dynamic data, you could also have a look at SubSonic
With PHP, if you have the ability to name the tables and columns as you see fit, you could try CakePHP framework, and specifically the scaffolding feature. With scaffolding turned on, the code will create CRUD forms from the schema for you.
Here's the link for learning about SubSonic & Scaffolding http://www.subsonicproject.com/web-forms-controls/the-scaffold/
, enjoy ;)
One more link from the SubSonic forums http://monk.thelonio.us/post/Scaffold-Enhancements-in-SubSonic-21.aspx
You can try Adminer Editor
Adminer Editor is both easy-to-use and user-friendly database editing tool written in PHP. It is suitable for common users, as it provides high-level data manipulation.

Dynamic data for winforms

i have played around with dynamic data website. is there something similar for winforms.
if there isn't anything out there for doing the same with winforms than the question would be why not? we have a massive ERP application that we want to migrate from AS400 to .Net
Winform application. my initial thoughts were to have all the maintenances be as simple as Dynamic Data Website project.
I would think that WPF would be a better starting point then WinForms, as it has support for style to say how item of data are displayed.
Dynamic Data makes it easy to edit your DB on the web. For desktop (and web) apps take a look at the new Microsoft LightSwitch:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lightswitch/gg441300
LightSwitch doesn't use Windows Forms. Rather it creates a Silverlight App that can run both on the desktop and the web. Pretty cool.
Dynamic data is using the routing functionality of the MVC framework. In Windows forms we don't have this approach of fetching data with URLs from a server.
I am not sure how this model could fit into Windows forms.
I think it's pretty hard to create something like dynamic data for Windows Forms.
My biggest concern is here, once you created that Framework, how do you configure it? I mean if you want to change 1 form to be a bit different than the others :-)
I think its better to generate Forms for the various tables in the Database context, using a powerful Grid control from one of the big vendors. And then you can configure those.
Remember this is a different approach then the dynamic data one, where no code is generated before compile time
I think the reason you don't see something like this in winform applications is because it's much easier to store a HTML page inside a database and then display it on the screen formatted properly when using a web application because your browser knows how to format the HTML.
You would have to, stored in the database, know where each label and field would go on the form in some sort of co-ordinates fashion (or you could use a layout 3rd party control) but the amount of work that would take might be tedious to do properly.
The dynamic data website I worked on did not take input from the user. It only displayed different web pages to the user and allowed the admin person to easily make changes to the content. If you wanted a user to beable to save data then that would even be more complex because you have to worry about validation, required fields, etc.
If you have lots of users that need to see different information based on their access level then I would just suggest having a table in the database that tells the system whether or not they should see the field on the form. Then use a 3rd party layout panel to format the visible fields.
my 2 cents
As much as Dynamic Data looks simple and cheap enough to access a database it wouldn't work for an ERP system anyways. Business systems are more than moving data between database and the user interface, they require business rule actions when saving data and while retrieving the may require some massaging to ensure meaningful presentation of storage optimized data.
If you still like to pursue this option it would be very easy to create an application that is build on top of Entity Framework.
I'm not aware of a Dynamic-Data-alike, but (having written one before, years ago, for ASP) I don't actually think it would be that hard, particularly with WPF and its templating support.
Actually if you were really clever you could probably 'borrow' the backend from Dynamic Data, and just reimplement the UI as WPF.
Would make a fun little project actually.
Alternative answer: Use Microsoft Access. No really.
Alternative answer #2: So why not just use Dynamic Data then?

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