How can I put Visual CEs relational capabilities to work?
Visual CE has multi-table / multi-form capabilities. For example, say you have a table of ORDERS and ITEMS. Each ORDER record has multiple, corresponding ITEM records, and records in both tables have a column called ORDER_ID which relates the ORDER records to the ITEM records. A Visual CE application can make use of this relational characteristic in the following ways: • On the ITEM form you can have a button that, when pressed, launches the ORDER form and positions at that item’s order. • On the ITEM form, you can have a lookup control that displays information from the corresponding ORDER record (like date of the order, customer, etc.) • On the ORDER form, you can have a grid that displays the items associated with that order. If the user double clicks on a particular item, Visual CE will launch the ITEM form and display that item. • In the ITEM form, you can have a dropdown of possible items and this dropdown can be populated with data from another table, such as an INVENTORY table.
