Sesame Library | Some Handy New Sesame Features

No mistaking the Retrieve Spec

In the early days of Sesames development, we asked a lot of Q&A users what they liked or disliked about Q&A. A common gripe with Q&A for DOS was that all the screens looked the same. The worst effect of this is when users mistakenly overtype previously entered data (or add a new record comprised of search criteria) because they think they are in the Retrieve Spec. This results in that familiar phenomenon of a batch of records that are blank except for company names like New Jersey.. or ..software.

Well, with Sesame, youll have no excuse for these faux-pas any more, because Sesame will tell you which mode you are in! Its brilliant yet simple. Sesames Mode Indicator panel on the toolbar changes colour and legend. Initially, with no application or form open, the panel is grey and says Application. Open a form to the Retrieve Spec and the indicator turns blue and says Search. (See below.)

When you run the search and your form is showing data, the Mode Indicator turns green and it reads Update. (See below.)

When youre in Add Data mode, the indicator colour is deep red and says Add Data. (See below.) As I said, brilliantly simple.

Sesames dynamic sorting

Sesame incorporates all of Q&As sorting facilitiesand much more. In Q&A you cannot perform a dynamic sort. That is, to re-sort a set of sorted records, you must return to the Retrieve Spec, press F8 and re-specify your sorting criteria, then run the Retrieve again. In Sesame you can perform a dynamic sort in one of two ways.

1. You can click on the Sort button in the column heading of Table View. (Well be taking an in-depth look at Sesames Table View in a forthcoming issue.)

2. Or you can retrieve some records (a result set), display the Sort Spec window, specify the new sort, and apply it.

Heres how you would do that.The lower left area of the Sesame screen contains the multi-purpose Spec Window. (See Figure 4 on next page.) This area of the Sesame screen can show any of several different specs and is context-sensitive. You switch specs by clicking on the spec selector buttons (the left and right arrow icons) at either end of the header bar (currently showing Mass Update Countries below).

This will take you, for example, from the Mass Update Spec to the Export Spec, to the Sort Spec, and so forth. You can establish a sort order either at the Retrieve Specjust as in Q&A for DOSor after you have retrieved your records.

To sort by a field, you click on the row selector to the left of the field name in the Sort window. (See below.) That field jumps to the top of the list and its selector acquires an S to show it is a sorted field. Alongside it is an A to show ascending sort. If you click on this A it changes to a D for descending sort.

You can add other fields to the sort list for second and third sort levels. You click on the S to cancel sort on a given field. You can also drag fields up and down to change the sort order.

Notice that the header bar in the Sort window includes a small down-arrow icon. Clicking on it opens a drop down menu that includes Run the commandin this case, meaning Sort the records. The same dropdown also includes options for selecting and deselecting all fields.

When you click on Run..., the data is sorted as you specified. In the example shown below, the countries are sorted first on the Continent field (ascending, A-Z), then by the population field (descending, 9-0). So, the records for Africa will be shown before the records for America. And within each continent, the countries with the largest populations will come first.

The resultwhether in Table View or in Form Viewis that you can see your data presented in any order you choose, without having to return to the Retrieve Spec.

Copying records between databases

If youve ever used Q&A for DOS to copy records between two databases (File / Copy / Selected Records), you may know what a major irritation (or recipe for disaster) it can be if the two databases are even slightly different.  One might have an extra field or two, or worsea field that was moved to a different position on the form. This can result in a type of data shiftthat is, data being copied from the source database to the wrong field(s) in the target database.

Having determined that such a problem exists following a copying operation, you need to determine the nature of the mismatch. You then have two choicesto make the same change to the other database so its data is in sync or, after somehow reversing out the bad records in the other database, redo the copy operation, this time filling out a Merge Spec. This is the screen where you say that you want field A copied to the 22nd field in the other database, field B copied to the 23rd field in the other database, and so forth. If there is just one field thats different between the two databases, then you need to use the Merge Spec to specify the position of every field. Its aggravating, to say the least.

In Q&A for Windows things are much easier. You can map fields between the two databases by field names. Sesame follows this model and allows you to match fields by name rather than by position on the form. When you open Sesames Copy Spec you see a list of fields in each of the databases.

You can drag a field from Source Fields to Destination Fields and position them together. This is useful if the two databases are not similar and the field names differ. But theres also a Match Names button that automatically pairs up fields with the same field name. You can then make manual adjustments if you wish. It will save you time and frustration when copying data between similar, but not identical, databases.

Alec Mulvey is a director of Lantica Software, LLC and also owns Keyword Software & Consultancy in Ascot, near London, England. Alec has been building Q&A applications and training clients for 12 years. Keyword Software is the UK distributor for the International English edition of Q&A. alec@keywordsoftware.com, http://www.keywordsoftware.com.