Best Way To Go About Creating An Inventory

[03myersd]

I'm planning on creating a program to manage an inventory of my games, cd's, etc. to build up my knowledge of databases. I have no idea where to start though. Has anyone got any ideas? Or better yet examples that I can have a look at? Thanks.

[CodedFire]

Wrox have a book that is called beginning vb2005 express. It basicly walks you through creating a personal organiser. It has an extremely good intro into proper data base programming not just data binding.

The book is about €23 which is quite resonable considering that it covers a huge about about programming. Its also very easy to follow. On the subject of data bases it uses vb 2005 express along with SQL server 2005 express which are both free and included with the book.

You should ask the mods to move this to general developer as that would be the best catogory fo this

Good Look!

[03myersd]

Ok I should maybe mention that I'm using VB6 and have no plans on using anything other than MS access. Thanks for the reply though.

[CodedFire]

Oh ok, ive never used ether but i would look into .net. (i know you have probably heard why a million times!) all i can say is i first tried vb6 and found it very hard to get support from anywhere.

You should still check out wroks books though! Any book ive ever got from them ive read cover to cover and they are rarely door stoppers they try keep them small.

Good Luck anyway!

[Hack]

I'm planning on creating a program to manage an inventory of my games, cd's, etc. to build up my knowledge of databases. I have no idea where to start though. Has anyone got any ideas? Or better yet examples that I can have a look at? Thanks.

Write down, on a piece of paper, all of the information that you want to store regarding a particular game.

Based on what you have written down, you have a starting point with respect to creating the database tables you will need to store that information.

Once you have the tables built, then you can start thinking about how you want to display the information in your tables with your VB6 program.

But, the first few steps do not involve programming. They involve system design, and that is done with pencil/pen and paper.

[eranga262154]

Write down, on a piece of paper, all of the information that you want to store regarding a particular game.

Based on what you have written down, you have a starting point with respect to creating the database tables you will need to store that information.

Once you have the tables built, then you can start thinking about how you want to display the information in your tables with your VB6 program.

But, the first few steps do not involve programming. They involve system design, and that is done with pencil/pen and paper.

Nice guideline. Common for any project.

First design. Then implement. Then maintain(up-to-date development).

[03myersd]

Exactly what we are taught in school....

Analysis-->Design-->Implementation-->Testing-->Evaluation-->Documentation

Thankfully I managed to get 95% on the test we did on software development today...

I know what I want to have in it. And I can design the database. Its just the way it should look in VB etc that i'm looking for suggestions on.

[eranga262154]

What suggestions you are looking. If you have completed the design part now it is time to implement, that mean you need guidelines on VB?

[03myersd]

I haven't yet completed the database. My plan is to be able to add to it using my program. But yes I do need pointers code-wise.

[eranga262154]

I'm not expert in VB. But I'll try to give some guide lines to you, may be useful. More like guidelines to design. I'm not sure, how someone can give code-wise help. It is up to you. Ask a question, and people will help you.

1.) If you are going to develop GUI base application just write on a paper how it should look like. Need to learn about controls in VB.

2.) Definitely need knowledge about DBMS in VB. SQL queries as well. Use of Access can be simple.

3.) Start from the simple step, just start creating VB Project and when you comes with a question, put it in the forum.

[si_the_geek]

In terms of actually designing the database and writing the code, you will find several useful things in our Database Development FAQs/Tutorials (at the top of the Database Development forum).

I would recommend reading the "Normalisation" article (and others in the Design section), and spending more time than you want doing what Hack suggested - spending an extra hour on getting the database design right could easily save you more than a week later. If you want us to check your design, we will be happy to do that.


In terms of how the interface should look, that depends on the database design and how you want/need the interface to be. If you want suggestions from us, we'll need to know what info is being stored, and what kind of functionality you want.

[eranga262154]

ER Diagram and ER Modeling also helpful for database development. I feel that the use of it is so easy to develop DBMS on a project.

[Lord Orwell]

a nice layout is one that doesn't force you to view all the information at once. YOu could have a basic layout showing game and disk number it is on and have a "plus" you click that will expand to show the details. I wrote a program like this a few years ago that i used the listview to display the data in. Changing the view automatically hid the extra fields.

[03myersd]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Unfortunately i've been rather busy lately with work, homework, etc. and so have not got round to it. Once I do (should be sometime in the next week) ill be sure to get straight back onto this thread. Thanks again.

[Al42]

Try looking into theMSHFlexGrid control. You can make a pretty nice database interface with not too much else. (Look into entering data directly on the grid - there have been many posts about the technique.)