best control to use?

[Nina]

Hi,

I'm working on a little project which calculates the mass of steel products, which are used to build some kind ofsteel construction.

I want to use a database (Access) to store my results (using ADO). But my question isn't about how to use the database ...

Maybe you know, which VB control would be the best to use for my problem. Probably some kind of grid where the user can enter data ... :confused: however, I haven't been working with grids so far : confused:...

I'd like the following fields put in to a row:

<Label>,<Calculationstring>,Result,<type of steelbar>,mass [kg/m], total mass
e.g. <column>, <12 * 3.00>, 36.00, <IPE 100>, 6.00, 196.00

- the user can enter any string for Label and Calculationstring
- the steelbar has to be chosen for a combobox (steelbars, with their masses are supplied in another table)
- the other fields are calulated by entering the calculationstring and the type of steelbar
- rows with data can be added or deleted

any suggestions would be great

:) Thanx!!! :)

[marzuki]

form and couples text box will do. But you can only see 1 record each time. If you use DataGrid, you can see more than 1 record.

For simple job like that, it's better to use Access. No need coding, simple, fast(depend on how big is your data), snapy and damn easy to make. Of course for calculation you need to do coding. But then again, use expression...save your time, no hassle.

[Nina]

concerning access ...
it has been done with access before ... you need to Access on you PC to run it ...
doing this mass calculation is only going to be a part of the programm I want to do ...

one record at a time ...
I need to have all records displayed, that's why I thought about a grid ...
I saw something about using the flexgrid, but you can't enter data there, can you?

well, but thanks anyway for trying to help

[marzuki]

Hi,

Yes, flexGrid display read only data when it bound to data control.

what do you mean by "you need to Access on you PC to run it". Does it mean that it should support networking ? Access can do that.

If the data is going to be very big(Access only support until 2GB) and very important, don't use access as your database. If your software support multiuser, Access might give you a lot of problems too, not to mention about speed and performance. Access is not a "real" database server. Use Database server(MS-SQL Server, ORACLE, etc). but then the license thing will make you headache.

Well, it seems grid is the only way to go for your program.
At the moment I am using third party product for the grid (http://www.shersoft.com)
It give you more fancy and features grid :-).

If money is an issue, go for a open source project (No hard feeling for M$ lovers). You don't even have to pay a cent, except for your telephone bill and internet usage.