Advice on my new job?

[adagio2004]

I hear where you’re coming from szlamany.

What I was talking about was the following form…



Product code : ______

Description : ___________________________________


Group: _____ ________________________________


Note that the underlines to the right of group denote a display only field. This is the group code description.

You key in a group code, and the group code description is filled in so that you can visually confirm you have keyed the correct group code.

They way I always looked at this was that the user either knows the group code, or they don’t.

If they don’t, then they press F3 and get a list of groups, they (maybe scroll and) click on the one they want then click on OK (or press ENTER). The group code is then sent (via sendkeys) and it’s like the PC has keyed the code for them.

If they do know the code, they key it.

The codes I’m talking about are unique. I always used numeric codes, but if the system for picking codes is good, then the user doesn’t need to know any codes.

What I found really bad was the fact that with the alphanumeric coding system, the user could set up many codes as the same thing. The user chose the codes. There was nothing to stop them making every group code ABC. And that’s the way this company works.

Then, when they have to enter the group code in the above form, they are forced into the search facility.

I understand the possible problems with having unique codes etc that can arise. But we always worked on that issue, we had routines for generating those codes, it weren’t really rocket science.

As another point about these codes, they have a standard whereby, as you type a code, the system tries to do a complete match based on what you typed so far. EG, if you have ABC on file and you key A, the form pulls up the entire set of information for ABC. If the next key you press is J and you have AJK on file then the form is filled out with the info for AJK. I’ve pointed out how this is a no go for broadband access etc but I feel I’m playing a losing game.

Rgds

Adagio2004

[szlamany]

From what you described - they cannot get out of that "dumb-terminal" full screen edit mode of mainframes of 20 years ago.

That's a shame.

We have one school district that has 1000+ teachers/admin/secretaries connected to SQL over a WAN during a typical school day. If we didn't research the effect of "size" of data transmission we would be burned right now.

I really wish you the best - it seems this company must have some reason to be developing - big customer base? - and maybe with some better direction they will have a product that performs and succeeds.

Ps. That type a letter - bring up all the records - type the next letter - fine tune the list - that is not the way it works in SQL and VB. Client server takes you far away from the data and the user must realize that a [VIEW] button to fill a drop down list is the way it works. No more free lunch - it costs too much.