Most of the time when you are wanting to enter information automatically in fields as a result of a user interaction it is easiest to use some kind of event trigger from the form. Regularly you want to close down a form and alter a field value in a table on a form which is not presently open.
While the events associated with individual fields and the code therein on forms is generally very good at executing code consecutively making it very predictable, it doesn’t always like you calling another field on another form from a different form often producing an error.
In such cases it is better to alter data entry completely programmatically rather than relying on forms to be loaded before altering fields. The code can still be triggered by an event on a form however.
This code looks to a table of Attendees (T008Attendees) on Courses and selects an individual booking based on its reference booking (I have set this to ParameterID).
The letter sent and letter sent date fields are then updated. As many fields as you want could however be updated. Makes for a very nice user experience.
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim rst As DAO.Recordset
Dim strSQL As String
Set db = CurrentDb()
strSQL = "SELECT T008Attendees.PKID, T008Attendees.LetterSentDate, T008Attendees.LetterSent FROM T008Attendees WHERE (((T008Attendees.PKID)=" & ParameterID & "));"
Set rst = db.OpenRecordset(strSQL, dbOpenDynaset)
With rst
If .RecordCount > 0 Then
.MoveFirst
.Edit
!LetterSent = 1
!LetterSentDate = Date
.Update
End If
End With
A while back I got the opportunity to work with a friend who times athletic races. After a bit of questioning he showed me some of his equipment and how it worked. I realised I could probably put together some home made timing software and so I set about doing it. The following is an overview of the stages that I went through to create the software.
Firstly its important to understand how the hardware works. To my mind this is very much a pattern and irrespective of the software you are using it is going to have to perform the same tasks in the same order.
Pre race test and hook up
Each competitor is given an RFID chip that has a unique number registered to it. (Numbers can be changed but requires specialist equipment)
A timing box is used to both power the matts (aka antennae) and act as a clock. When someone goes over the matt the chip emits the number and sends to the box. The box then places a time stamp on the chip and places in a file. A file or stream of all these strings is then pushed out of the timing box to awaiting computer.
Computer is listening and takes this information and software does the rest
In terms of the information that is produced by the box this is remakably simple – a raw hex string for each read.
My solution has three main tables
T1 – Raw times
T2 – Competitors
T3 – Chip Tag numbers.
The hard coded chip numbers are hex and each competitor is allocated a chip – they are actually being allocated this hex key but the number equates so on the chip itself will be a readable number eg 14001, 14002 the actual raw code from the box is often something like 45ab32c
What the software then does.
Step 1
Ensure exact duplicates reads are not entered generally because of multiple imports of same file.This is done by setting the full hex key as a primary key disallowing the same value to go into the Raw Times table multiple times.
Step 2
Hex to Decimal translation
Step 3
Drop times before race start time.
Simple select query.
Step 4
Match Reading to competitors – A simple join after hex to decimal translation of information from 3
Step 5
Sort times within competitor in ascending order
Data sort on dual columns
Step 6
Gate times – Competitors get multiple reads over the matt. I have set up something called a gate ( no idea whether this is a standard pattern or not but its what I call it ) Then a gate period is subjectively decided, lets say 30 seconds, (this can be altered for lapped races where you know a racer can’t complete a time in a certain time). A Query is then set up to look to the first time of a competitor and the gate period is added. The software continues looking down the times and deletes any times greater than the first gate time but less than the first gate time plus the gate period.
Step 7
Count timing points
In some races there are laps some are point to point – a lapped race can be thought of as recursive non lap race in that it is a series of non lap races where the end of one non lap race is the start of another. All times for each competitor are sorted in increasing order and an additional field is added with incremented numbers 1,2,3,4 etc. Typically there will be 2 a start and a finish. There can be one where a gun has gone off and competitors are not running across a start matt. In that instance everyone is considered as having the same start time the time of the Starting pistol and start one is given the 2 point and 1 is assumed to be a pre-set time.
Step 8
Pivot the times
Place point number as column header – name of competitor as row heading and time value as the value of the pivot.
Step 9
Calculate the lap times
Simple n+1 time minus n time
Step 10
Add up individual times to get total race time sort by any additional category eg gender age etc… sort time order and allocate prizes appropriately.
Step 11
Pick up whatever pretty report writer you can get your hands on – excel will do at a push and print out and hand to race organisers.
Step 12
Make pretty forms so you can easily change competitors add in extra times for missed times allow for edge cases like DNFs DQs penalties etc.
Sunday 11th of May I had the opportunity to test the software out by acting as lead timer on the Castle of Mey 10k the most northerly 10k in the country. Glad to say worked perfectly.
Below is a video of the 2015 race where we were in the McNicol Van
I quite often put together various databases / applications to help me with my side projects. This is a good example. In an effort to help me remember my Russian verbs I put together a small database to assist in learning and remembering verbs.
One table consisting of
PKID
Memory Number
Russian Imperfecive Form
Russian Perfective Form
English Translation
Conjugation Type
Conjugation Class
Reflextion
Memory Aid
Page in Book
Works nicely in conjunction with the code that alters the keyboard mapping when going between cells (follow LINK for details). I am entering the list of verbs based on the popularity of use as listed here.
And I have field (Page in Book) listed so that I can relate back to my personal reference manual.
“The big silver book of Russian verbs 555 fully conjugated verbs in all Tenses” by Jack Franke – McGraw Hill – 2 nd edition
Here’s an image of the simple form that I put together only took half an hour. I use a left click AZ sorting right click ZA sorting on columns much like applications such as Outlook and ITunes the difference is my sorting tends to be a bit more intelligent in that I will generally sort on multiple columns. EG if I have a sort on a name field first name for example I will make the surname the secondary sort. I personally really dislike the double click as an event I think it is highly imprecise. The memory aid is some tricks I took from a Tony Buzan book. Future development will be ability to print out list and a further child table that will allow recording of related conjugations and yes the example screen shot shows that I still need to input some more information.
I eluded to it in my last post but when I have tabulated forms I like to have the labels activated and set to sort alphabetically ascending on left click and descending on a right click.
I use the mouse down event as trigger for this.
If Button = acLeftButton Then
Me.OrderBy = "Q001Contacts.CompanyName, Q001Contacts.Surname, Q001Contacts.Firstname"
Me.OrderByOn = True
Else
Me.OrderBy = "Q001Contacts.CompanyName DESC, Q001Contacts.Surname DESC, Q001Contacts.Firstname DESC"
Me.OrderByOn = True
End If
I use this pretty much on every single tabulated form that I have – This is not so different from Outlook or Itunes. What is different is that I tend to use a slightly more intelligent sort. In the above code you can probably see that for this particular column (its the company column) I first sort on company then I sort on the surname of the individual and then on the first name. I find it frustrating on things like Itunes or Outlook that you can be left searching around within a sort category sometimes as it is unclear what order within the sort that things are arranged by.
I use the left and right click rather than double because I used to find that double clicking would first sort the list one way and then immediately sort the other. A double click I believe sends mixed messages to the system and encourages lag. I still hate the idea of double clicking on things.
If I could change one thing about standard UI design it would be to get rid of the double click!!!
Needless to say I have banished double clicking from all my UIs.
