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376

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 02:28 PM »

that seems to work well*
but I want items NOT ticked done to highlight - is that possible?

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 02:24 PM)

That is what the StartDate: A:ItemColor="Red" does. Turn on when you put a StartDate

* BTW still doesnt affect items already ticked done before adding A:ItemColor="red" even after restart
Doesnt bother me - just for the record

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 02:24 PM)

Auto-assign rules are applied on Add (A prefix), Modify (M prefix) and Erase (E prefix) details here:
http://sqlnotes.wikispaces.com/Fields

377

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 02:14 PM »

OK, now if that is correct, don't you see a problem that arises when grids are renamed?  If the name of that checkbox field doesn't change, then things get a little confusing because the user will have to remember what the grid USED to be called instead of what it IS currently called.  Right?

-superboyac (February 13, 2008, 02:03 PM)

Not really. The grid properties (grid>properties) and the source bar clearly show the fields which specify which items are displayed. It is true that when you create a new grid AND the grid name is not that of an existing field, then a field is created with the same name as the grid. But this is just a convenience and to hide some of the subtilities to beginners. But sooner or later, users must realize that grid names and what is displayed in the grid is not necessarely related.

Renaming field can have consequences on equations, other grids, etc so I'm hesitant to rename fields on grid rename...

How about a prompt on grid rename (only when the grid name = field name) ?

378

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 01:51 PM »

Am I not correct that when a grid is created, a checkbox is automatically created by SQLNotes with the same name as the grid?  And doesn't this checkbox determine what is presented in that grid? 

-superboyac (February 13, 2008, 01:23 PM)

You are perfectly right. Excellent!

As to the problem reported, it is a bug. To improve performance, if the item count was greater than 500, I would silently disable hierarchy. I'll no longer do that.

Next release due tomorrow!

379

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 12:35 PM »

1- If you don't want to have all songs top level, you need to set the hierarchy=on (it all depends on the grid source: is it something that songs have or something artists have?)

2- Keep in mind that there is no link between the data (fields) and the presentation (grids). This is by design.

Think of it as a box or a cube. You put info into the box (fields). The cube faces (grids) display some of the info in the box. You control what is displayed on each cube face

380

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 12:08 PM »

It would be great if I could colour the not done items (automatically)   - would that be possible under Manage Fields/Auto-assign rules ?
YES YES => itemcolor = "red" 

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 11:48 AM)

in my enthusiasm there I didnt realise this marks done items as red
can I reverse that someway to undone ones being red?
Also notice it only affects items newly marked as done - others remain unhighlighted even after restart..

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 11:53 AM)

To remove the color, you can double-click on the itemcolor field "(which will display all colored items in the scratchpad grid) and select all items affected and in the properties pane, erase the color. This will apply it to all selected items

A better system for coloring would be
1- in StartDate (or some other field), add A:ItemColor="red"
2- in Done: add A:ItemColor=

381

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 11:00 AM »

thanks Pierre

I have a done (yes/no) field
if I set Parent=sum(children) and all sub-items are ticked, then Parent is automatically ticked as expected
BUT
if I add a new sub-item or deselect one of the subitems the Parents dont respond (nor after refresh)
(You know the way, job is done but oops something forgotten or some minor extra..)
Is there something else I can change to affect that or is that a bug?

Another minor thing you prob aware of:
On some fields I changed the Heading name of field -
this doesnt show on actual heading of column until you restart the programme

BTW I (sucussfully) added estimated time and cost fields to billing grid so I can now look at estimates and work done

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 09:47 AM)

Yes/No Done field: Very interesting use, one which I hadn't thought of. Very good. And yes this is a bug. It is now fixed (in next release, no more daily builds until next release). But you need to use the max function, not the sum (parent=max(children). Next release will be out tomorrow.

Heading: yes this is a known small bug. You can report it in the bug tracking if you wish.

382

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 13, 2008, 07:20 AM »

thanks again Pierre for all the direction 

Duration field equation is: 

[Select]

WorkTime( StartDate , EndDate , 8) - ( NonBillable )

-tomos (February 11, 2008, 06:27 AM)

could you (or anyone) tell me what the 8 in there is?
I cant show it without the "code" - cause I get instead

-tomos (February 13, 2008, 07:13 AM)

WorkTime is a user-defined function (view>user code):
----------

Code: Visual Basic [Select]

1. Function WorkTime(d1, d2, HrsPerDay)    ' d2 is the later date. Handles multi-day tasks
2.         dim diff, days, hrs
3.         if isnull(d1) then exit function
4.         if isnull(d2) then exit function
5.         d1=cdate(d1): d2=cdate(d2)
6.         diff=d2-d1
7.         if diff>=1 then
8.                 days=datediff("d",d1,d2)
9.                 WorkTime=days*HrsPerDay
10.         end if
11.         Hrs=(diff-int(diff))*24
12.         WorkTime=WorkTime+Hrs
13.         workTime=formatnumber(workTime,2)
14. end function

-----------
Basically, it calculates the worked time based on the start and end. The '8' is used when start and end are on different days. If start is on monday and enddate on thursday, then the duration will be 4 days * 8 hrs = 32. When working full-time on a project, it can be a time saver to simply enter mon-fri and it will bill the correct number of hours

383

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 12, 2008, 10:08 PM »

At one point I did buy on impulse... now I code on impulse

384

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft Sync Framework

« Last post by PPLandry on February 12, 2008, 05:43 PM »

bump... Anybody has any experience with this ?

385

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 12, 2008, 05:29 PM »

This is getting hard to follow 

-PPLandry (February 11, 2008, 02:23 PM)

tell me about it will send you the file..

-tomos (February 12, 2008, 02:08 AM)

Got the file, I will look at it this evening or tomorrow.

[edit] File modified and sent back. Main reason Duration was not updating was that Hierarchy calculations were turned off. Simple set for the Duration Field: Parent=sum(Children) and click the Update button.

386

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 12, 2008, 05:27 PM »

Are you using the latest build?

In fixing the CPU utilisation bug (idle was using from 5-10%, now 0%), this was an unfortunate consequence. It is fixed in the latest build.

387

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 11, 2008, 02:23 PM »

@tomos,

This is getting hard to follow 

Project is a text field, it lets you enter what project it is related to. You probably what inheritance set for this field (to ease pivot tables) Field properties: values->subs checked

I was proposing to create a yes/no field, called projects which would contain all active projects. You would check that field for each of your projects and then set the grid source to this field.

>it still isnt showing the Duration of subitems
You need to change a sub-item to have force a column-level calc. (i.e. recalculate the parent)

>In Duration field:- I notice "Value=>sub-items" is NOT selected
This should not be checked (this is inheritance) since you want parents=sum(children)

>Could this be something to do with the Non-Billable and Duration fields
No, equations are set-up so that empty field are ignored
Non-billable simply changes the EndDate time. i.e. if startDate is 09h00 and you've worked 6 hours + 2 hours non-billable, then EndDate will be 17h00

>If column calc is not working as expected, make sure that items do not have 2 or more parents

Best is if you can send me the file and I can phone you to work it through.

388

Coding Snacks / Re: structured plaintextfile based note taker

« Last post by PPLandry on February 11, 2008, 12:32 PM »

I still can't understand how SQLNotes work.

-justice (February 11, 2008, 02:12 AM)

Neither can I.  And these days I am a bit unforgiving if I can't work out a program fairly quickly. I also think SQLNotes would just be another case of "over-engineering".

-johnk (February 11, 2008, 11:58 AM)

As the designer of SQLNotes, let me try to simplify as much as possible. It is based on the same principle as Ecco Pro, an award winning PIM. Each notepad can display the content of a folder. The content can be a flat list or an outline of items (think 1-pane outliners). Each item can contain any number of user-defined values (think Excel) plus a text pane (think 2-pane outliners).

Hope this helps!

389

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 08, 2008, 09:28 AM »

>Also, for some reason the Duration also isnt showing properly in Ardfert job
"0" should be "4" hours there...

Ardfret has a start and end time, so the row equation calculates a duration. Conflict between the row and column equations. One of the two has to win. It seems that the row equation wins, I'll see if it is logical to have it that way. For now you can remove the start-end times for Ardfert

I would set the grid source to a yes/no field named "Projects" (and set it for Ardfert)

390

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 08, 2008, 08:58 AM »

There are several different "states" of the grids that is useful to me.  If there was an option to save multiple different "named states" of the grid, that would be very useful.

-superboyac (February 07, 2008, 06:21 PM)

Could you not handle this with separate grids ?

Is it only expand states that you want to remember, column configuration or grid source/filter/sort ?

@tomos: I'm checking that up today (blue items are context parents, they should not be displayed but shown for convenience, to give context)

391

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 09:27 PM »

sounds good...works good too!

so, going back to that filter
this is maybe more an organisational question/thought than an SQL-Notes one...
-
I could really use the same grid for estimates and work-done/Billing
(kind-of what I was doing for the last while, but in a more chaotic uncomprehending kind of way )
estimate items having no startdate
and work done having start/end dates
then,
simply use filter to remove one or the other as required...

doesnt work though cause source is "StartDate" (estimates having none)-
"StartDate or Duration" seems to work okay with filtering for estimates/work-done
any fundamental objections - shout, otherwise I'll try it for a while

off to dreamland, thanks again for help

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 04:54 PM)

There are many ways to handle this. I've proposed a few in another post.

Yet another way would be to arrange it this way
+ Project name

• Estimates
•     - Task 1
•     - Task 2
• Work done
•     - Task 3
•     - Task 4

+ Project 2
 ...
And you can simply expand/collapse the sections you want

392

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 05:18 PM »

You can instead set the source to something that the parent item has. (project, some other common folder/field value) or else you could switch between 2 filters, one for estimates, one for work done.

What about if the source was duration or some other common field (common to both estimates and work done) ?

393

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 03:57 PM »

you need to set the BillingNo field for each item that make up the invoice.

-PPLandry (February 07, 2008, 03:25 PM)

now they disappear as expected, logical as usual!  - not my strong point at times though

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 03:50 PM)

There is a neat feature that can be real useful at times. When you organize the info under a main parent item (i.e. a customer, a project, etc). and you want to see task items you've done and billed which will normally be hidden because of the filter, you can:

1- Click the filter button to remove it, or
2- right-click on the parent and select "Show all sub-items". This will show under the parent, all its subs. You can then view/group and now even use the pivot table/chart (special thanks @superboyac for this idea). This is a temporary view, which will be removed as soon as a refresh is done (as it should)

394

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 03:25 PM »

Now, I'm curious -
there's some items here where the job is finished so I've added invoice number to Billing number column -
I wouldnt have thought they'd show with that filter, but they do -
I'm wondering why?

Also wondering is this filter-speak/language something that's unique to SQL or is it something more universal -
and if there's anywhere I can get a few tips with it!!

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 03:07 PM)

When you make the invoice, you need to set the BillingNo field for each item that make up the invoice.
- Select all items that make up the invoice and in the properties pane, enter the BillingNo. That way, if customers want to know what was done, simply search for the billingNo (CTRL-Q, or CTRL-F, or pivot, or ...  )

As to the filter syntax, the software is called... SQLNotes... Any idea why?
Answer here: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Where_%28SQL%29
Filter follows the WHERE clause syntax of SQL. Many references available. Also, CTRL-F generates filters for you (try it for all 4 data types) and it will help you determine the syntax.

395

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 09:09 AM »

that one has "StartDate and enddate and Billing"
which doesnt work here..

gotta go now will try later or tomorrow

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 09:01 AM)

You can try using StartDate as the grid source. Should be fine.

396

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 08:46 AM »

I have another problem now - I've lost the three most recent entries in "Billing" too so I tried the same thing
again without success - even though the missing things are visible in "Projects" (so they not "lost" as such..)
But my main problem right now is that I've changed the grid-source in Billing & want to change it back but didnt keep note of what it was...
Is one (=me!) supposed to keep track of that or is there some easy way to get back to last known or default source

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 08:24 AM)

It is right now "too" easy to change the grid source, and then the grid no longer displays what you want. I'll think of a better, safer way.

There is no Billing grid in the default template, so you created that one?. [edit] The Billing grid as renamed Work Done[/edit] What columns are shown, it can help determine what field(s) were used.
Also, if you find an item that belongs to the Billing grid, give me the filled fields. It will be easy to determine what the grid was based on.

397

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 08:41 AM »

There was a small bug with the date filter when there was no Done field defined. This is now fixed. The Journal should now work

398

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 07, 2008, 07:27 AM »

help...lost a few items from ToDo list -
I deselected box in inbox column
F5 gone

"ToDo or due or FollowUp or inbox"
cause they werent selected as done, I presumed they'd not dissapear!
There wasnt much but I cant remember what exactly they were so cant search..

-tomos (February 07, 2008, 07:18 AM)

There is a number of ways to find your items. One way is to use the journal feature (You can do this in any grid, even a new one, which you would conveniently call Journal) :
1- Activate the date filter
2- Set the date filter to ItemModified =
3- Set the date filter to display 1 day and click on Today
4- Set the grid source (Grid>Show source bar checked, the source is the left-most text box) to ItemModified
5- Press "Enter" or F5
6- You can then use the date filter toolbar to view items modified for each day/week of your choice
7- Once you've located the items, re-check Inbox.

Yoyu can also use CTRL-F (find), CTRL-Q (Quick-find) or if you know that some other field was filled, open that field (double-click on the properties pane. Many ways...

399

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 06, 2008, 04:38 PM »

I still think a good feature would be to save grid "states" I should add it to the list (I'll do it at home).

-superboyac (February 06, 2008, 04:37 PM)

"Grid > Save item state" doesn't do what you want ?

400

General Software Discussion / SQLNotes: the next generation information organizer

« Last post by PPLandry on February 06, 2008, 04:12 PM »

That's what you asked isn't ?

I think that your suggestion was excellent. I had hesitations at first and wanted to allow users the choice between the two methods, but I think this way is the best. Time will tell if I add an option to work the old way too. (one more option, too many is as bad as too few)