[RESOLVED] Change color of a lable based upon date comparison

[Dazza_67]

Hey Folks, I am setting up a an employee database and I want to be able to compare the expiry date of the employee's drivers license to the current date. The idea is that if the employee's license is due to expire in the next 30 days it will send an alert to the main calendar (yet to be developed) msg side bar which at this stage will be a label array. it is always the simple things that stump me, i have been playing with this for 2 days, very frustrating for something that should be so simple. Thanks Daz

[Shaggy Hiker]

It isn't clear to me quite what the question is. The general design sounds pretty reasonable, but when you say "send an alert", that could mean several different things, so that might be the issue...except that you say you haven't written that part, yet. Normally, sending an alert might be by raising a custom event that the calendar would then handle. That may be over engineered, though, because it could also just be calling a function on the main calendar, or setting a property, or even letting the main calendar ask for the information.

Changing the color itself isn't much of a problem, as you just decide whether you change the fore or back color. The fore color is a less obvious change, but can look pretty nice. If you want to bludgeon the user with the fact that something needs to be done, then change the back color, cause nobody will likely miss that.

So, I guess I'm not sure what you are asking about.

[jmcilhinney]

I'm with Shaggy, i.e. I don't really understand what you're asking. If it's just how to compare the dates, that's easy, e.g.

If licenseExpiryDate < Date.Today.AddDays(30) Then
    'The license expires in the next 30 days.
End If

If it' something else you want, you're going to have to explain more clearly.

[Dazza_67]

Thanks Jmcilhinney, That snippet is exactly what I was after. Shaggy, I have to apologize I have asked the question back to front, when the program starts it will check the license dates, among other things, and if a license is going to expire in the next 30 days it will add a message, similar to the task bar in outlook. I like your idea of changing the forecolor.
Thanks for your help

[jmcilhinney]

I should point out that the comment in my code example wasn't completely accurate. It would be more correct to say this:

'The license has expired or expires in the next 30 days.

If you want to differentiate those that have already expired then you need another comparison, but I would hope that you could implement that for yourself.

[Dazza_67]

I should point out that the comment in my code example wasn't completely accurate. It would be more correct to say this:

'The license has expired or expires in the next 30 days.

If you want to differentiate those that have already expired then you need another comparison, but I would hope that you could implement that for yourself.

Yes Thanks for that, Cheers Daz