How can I take Date as an entry?

[getusama]

Can anyone tell me how i can take DATE as an entry from a user in a text field?


Thanks

[szlamany]

We personally have the user enter dates as MMDDYYYY - such as 12222006

After they click enter (or tab) out of the textbox we validate the value and put slashes in it for display - not it's 12/22/2006.

When the focus again goes to that textbox we remove the slashes - so the focus arrives at a textbox with 12222006 in it again.

Our systems are meant for data entry clerks - so datepickers and other silly date controls are worthless to us.

[getusama]

Hey szlamany

Thanks ... I hope if I store it this way may be using the masked control and store it in the database (Access 2003) it would store correctly


Thanks

[szlamany]

I certianly did not say to store it that way!

This was all about input and display.

We store all our dates in MS SQL as DATETIME fields - that's the only way to get a date to sort and WHERE-clause properly.

[getusama]

Hi again szlamany

I've beentrying the way to have said but it does not seem to work

[lovely_angel_for_you]

why dont you try using mscal.ocx, this way you will be able to select the date and select date is entered in a tex box

text1
image1
cal1

image1 click > cal 1.visible = true
cal1 click > text1.text = cal1.value
cal1.visible = false

the date will be stored in mmddyyyy format in text1.text and save that directly in msaccess date field or sql datetime field.

[getusama]

hi lovely_angel_for_you

thanks for replying but you see my problem is that I'm using the same field to take different entries and that is why i need a way that i can ask my users to enter directly into the text field.


Regards

[lovely_angel_for_you]

If you mean that you are asking them to separately enter date, month, year...then you can use the mscalendar control as well...

image1 click > cal 1.visible = true
cal1 click > text1.text = Format(cal1.value, "mm/dd/yyyy")
cal1 click > text2.text = Format(cal1.value, "D") 'only pick date
cal1 click > text3.text = Format(cal1.value, "M") 'only pick month
cal1 click > text4.text = Format(cal1.value, "yyyy") 'only pick year
cal1.visible = false

Does that solve your issue, or is I am not able to understand, as I am feeling lot sleepy.

[getusama]

Hi lovely_angel_for_you

below is a snapshot of my current window that i'm working on:




As you can see I need to make use of that just one field to take entry for Name, Date and Amount.

The name and amount seems to work but now i've having problems with the date ..


Any suggestions??


Thanks again

[lovely_angel_for_you]

Hi,
Really sorry could not reply earlier. If you are still facing the issue let me know, I will go ahead and make a sample code on the same and see if that can work.

What I suggest is:
random code, create syntax

on trade_click()
if trade.selected = date then
mscal.show

mscal_click()
search.text = mscal.value

on search_click()
if trade.selected = name then
check len(search.text) > 5
if trade.selected = date then
check len(search.text) > 5
if trade.selected = amount then
check len(search.text) > 5


what is happenign is that when user clicks on date as search criteria a calendar pops up using mscal.ocx they select the data, we format the date in desired options, and search for the same in database.

I have tried similar thing in one of my apps.

If you still need any assistance just let me know. Once again, sorry for not checking earlier, and replying so late.

Best Wishes
Lovely

[RhinoBull]

...Our systems are meant for data entry clerks - so datepickers and other silly date controls are worthless to us.

What a hassle... [serious]
All data processing systems meant for data entry and the more you let user select the fewer errors (and validations) you may expect.
Personally, I can't believe that Steve but I'm sure you have plenty of reasons... Care to expalin? Thanks.

[getusama]

Hi,
Really sorry could not reply earlier. If you are still facing the issue let me know, I will go ahead and make a sample code on the same and see if that can work.

What I suggest is:
random code, create syntax

on trade_click()
if trade.selected = date then
mscal.show

mscal_click()
search.text = mscal.value

on search_click()
if trade.selected = name then
check len(search.text) > 5
if trade.selected = date then
check len(search.text) > 5
if trade.selected = amount then
check len(search.text) > 5


what is happenign is that when user clicks on date as search criteria a calendar pops up using mscal.ocx they select the data, we format the date in desired options, and search for the same in database.

I have tried similar thing in one of my apps.

If you still need any assistance just let me know. Once again, sorry for not checking earlier, and replying so late.

Best Wishes
Lovely

Thanks a lot
You have been very kind to actually take the time out to do all this but I have by now completed my whole software and for the date entry I have used masked edit control. I would definitely keep your suggestion in mind the next time I work with dates.

Regards

[szlamany]

...but I'm sure you have plenty of reasons...

[edit]Keep in mind these are my reasons - don't debate them - offer your own!

Simple example - user is going to sit down and enter grades (marks) for a student for a class. Let's take the numeric keypad and display a little image of it and indicate that the [1] key is A, [2] is B and so on. Now the user can sit their hand on the numeric keypad of the keyboard (something that hasn't changed much in that past 30 years) and use just those dozen of so keys and enter marks faster than the regular keyboard.

First requirement to make this experience really meaningful to them is to have [ENTER] perform the advance to next entry box - [TAB] might be more PC-regular for this - but certainly hurts entry.

Next - you have 3 processors in a room that need to load several hundred health claims a day. It's mostly numeric data once again. First spot they hit in the grid is the "date of service" - they do not want to look at the screen - these processors are trained by constant experience as to exactly how many clicks and enters are needed to enter a claim - they want to enter 01282007 for today's date. The slashes (although on a PC keypad) are extraneous - it would be painful to require them to enter them.

So what is the best control to enter MMDDYYYY if all 8 characters are numbers? I cannot imagine suggesting anything past the same textbox they use for every other entry they do. I've seen all the odd date controls you might encounter...

Right-click time in lower-right task bar - adjust date/time. Click to the right of the current hour - it's a little mini-text box. You cannot enter anything - you can only hit delete to remove the HOURS values? That is so not intuitive. You and I know exactly why the control works that way - having spent hours coding selection logic (SELSTART, SELLENGTH) - but a low-end user? They are lost. Here is a simple time value broken into several mini-textboxes...

By saying "data entry system" I was trying to differentiate between the GUI one might use for QUICKBOOKS (for example) and one that you might use for entering payments at a cash register.

First rule, in my mind, of a "data entry" GUI is that the mouse must never be required. That certainly doesn't mean you put tons of alt/shift/control methods into place - but instead the "focus" moves naturally from item to item based in keyboard enter's.

btw - I watched someone at a shop today enter a purchase into a quickbooks like tool... The looked at the SKU of the product - painfully typed it fat-fingered on the keyboard - and then immediately grabbed the mouse to hover aimlessly around the screen trying to figure out what to click next...

How terrible that GUI is for "data entry purposes".

When our clerks are entering attendance at school in the morning - they enter an ID # for a student - again numeric - on the keypad. Click ENTER. Next spot is the "type of attendance" - it defaults to the grid value of the row above (A absent, T tardy, AE absent excused, AU absent unexcused - whatever the "table" allows for them). Most of the time they simple click ENTER again. Now the time entry. Kid is tardy - it's 09:50 AM - what do I make then enter - 0950 - the colon can be displayed after ENTER. I think we even allow 950 and "assume" the leading zero. No arrows - no "masked" edit fields...

Given the job of entering 100+ absent/tardies every morning - they are done - in minutes. When we find a school with barcoded student id cards then they can even "scan" the value for the first entry spot...

I've got clerks entering attendance at schools, birth certificates at town hall, plots at the city gravesite, permits to put sumppumps in peoples basements. Must keep it simple - always...

[RhinoBull]

Oh boy, I didn't mean you start on writing a book nthough... And won't debate your reasons - was more of curioucity.

... but

...Click to the right of the current hour - it's a little mini-text box. You cannot enter anything - you can only hit delete to remove the HOURS values? That is so not intuitive....

That is not a textbox - that is a complex control, sort of DTPicker without a calendar.
I used to (no long ago) work for a company that had about 200K customers.
I can't imagine them using numeric keypad all day long and believe me they did alot of data entries each day. All the systems we developed were modern and very simple to use and navigate but also very complex by design and architecture. What you are saying about some clerk entering data using numeric keypad is very much in the PAST - it's so far back in the PAST it's redundant to even mention it - a friend of mine calls that the "old timer mentality".

But, as I said I was just curious.

[szlamany]

That is not a textbox - that is a complex control, sort of DTPicker without a calendar.

I wasn't implying it was a textbox - I was mocking it as being a little mini-textbox And a low-end user stuck at that moment doesn't know what to type to remove/over-write the hour value - that's stupid thinking. That's having an engineer develop a method to change the time for a PC and not think about a user who might only have to do this once in a life time.

You certainly don't bump into that "complex control" in too many places in the Windows-world...

But I am really curious myself - what does everyone else do to flesh-out the easiest control / method / gui-action to accomplish the entry of "xyz"???

Does anyone even think about it from that point-of-view - or do you all just flip through the "toolbox" of controls for the task and hope the user likes what you picked?

ps - I've spent about 20 hours since friday night fixing a payroll bug that got in the way of me delivering a W2 solution to a customer so they can have them in the mail by Wednesday - postmarked - so I'm a little tightly wound right now

[leinad31]

Here's a sample on using a treeview to list dates in db (year, month nodes) for display of relevant records. You can do same variation for name and amount, separate them with tabs (but you'll be using the same treeview, listview control).
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=446979&page=2

In this way, the user doesn't have to always know the exact value for search and he can easily look up other/related data too. You can do other interface variations, such as keeping the three synced (save values used by other listings) so same record/info is selected when you transfer from date grouping to name grouping to amount grouping.

szlamany: not that I disagree with using the textbox... the assumption of course is that the user continously interacts with or makes lots of input in a single input form so limiting data entry to keyboard makes a lot of sense to save time. In his case though, he's just using it for a search, and single textbox... also, possibly form was shown with a button click... so I suggest keeping data entry on the mouse for the entire search step.

[RhinoBull]

I have no intension of trying to convince you to change the way you do your business - not at all.
However, I also don't see any points in having someone regardless of his/her experience in data entry to type numbers that will eventually be turned into a date - there are better ways of handling dates entries including all sorts of calendars controls and DTP is just one of many and btw far not the worst one.
Also, I fully realize that it's kind of difficult to have the "old-timer" accountant to use rich Windows environment rather than books or DOS.

Still, it's the 2007!

[lovely_angel_for_you]

Wow...dont leave me out of this...I have enjoyed the last 15 minutes reading the entire post...however I really believe that any sort of data entry completely depends on where it is being used...and who is developing and I have experienced a lot "WHO is getting it developed".

I have in past 3 months made applications similar to each other...however the person in charge for the projects in all three applications wanted different things for entry...e.g just to logon to the applications...one wanted integration with ntlogin of windows...other wanted to create a different username/password and third one just wanted the application to open and select username from dropdown....different people different requirements....

I work in a company that deals with clients from four continents....timezones are different...someuse ddmmyyyy...other mmddyyyy....and still others just ddmmyy....so it became kind of ordeal to make in a standard...and there came in handy the mscal.ocx.....however before that i developed an app for lyrics collection...and those days i was not good in controls...where current date was required and mmddyyyy was the format...just let the user add any thing....3 text boxes...[mm] hit tab [dd] hit tab [yy]....and keep on using tab for another 7 times to complete the rest of the form.....

again in the above scenerios....number of entries per user was less that 1 in every 15 minutes....so using the mouse and drop downs works...

I recently visited a bank...using the app with old C....dosedit kind interface...they want the new update screen where quick mouse moves can work....other bank...using the updated quick mouse moves wants as less an entry as possible with lesser clicks....

again it completely depends on how the work is being done....what is the work....who is developing...who is getting it developed...who is gonna use it....

Hope we all make good apps....that dont crash....

Regards
Lovely
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P.S. whoooshh....ignore the post if you are unable to understand...as if you ask me something....i wont be able to understand it myself....wrote over the cup of coffee with cake...while i am feeling sleepy....