Editing non-editable Form

[arnelgp]

see your form.

 

[jdraw]

@David,

You are asking a question in a database forum and you self-identify as not certain of normalization nor its significance.
Can you describe in simple English what is the "business process(es)" that your evolving database is intended to support? What exactly is the issue your database addresses?

 

[mike60smart]

Hello Mike I have attached a file showing the three forms. Don't feel obliged but if you want to offer any thoughts it'd be appreciated. The positioning is about right but the the top datasheet will acquire a horiz. scrollbar if dragged wider, but the bottom one doesn't (which is preferred). But I can't see what's doing that.
I've left three records to show the data moving to the edit Form when clicked, although the code to update the tables isn't done yet.
I just noticed the main FormUE when opened says the On Load event has a Return Without Gosub error. But there's no return and no on load event either. Maybe as it's being opened directly, as normally its opens after a d-click event.

Like everyone else I think you need to explain the purpose of your database.
What exactly are you trying to achieve?

 

[David44Coder]

Thanks arnejgp just about to take a look.
CJ, sorry that data was meaningless it was just a mockup to show the size and positioning trouble I had.
I've been thinking about this a lot. How I put it to Doc_man (rows 2-8, col 3 shows "Fred".) was probably the wrong approach. I've worked out a better analogy. Say there's groups of names and subjects. They're in a table and repeated many times. Should they be in their own table just once with an ID (key)?. The Form would no longer be bound to that table, but to a query that somehow combined the groups with their sames & subjects table, (outputting text, not numbers). I could still enter data into the Form as it's update event could write a new entry/id where needed.
Is this on the right track to some extent? If yes I need to find out about these "joins" and PK Keys. They're a bit of a mystery at the moment. There
is a join in the union query (attached msg 18 ) but I was given that and never fully understood it.
This is (probably) nothing like the 1st, 2nd 3rd nomalisation stuff, but somewhere to start and also remove a lot of data duplication.

 

[CJ_London]

Sorry to say, I've lost interest in trying to help you understand normalisation. Without knowing the context it is impossible to advise. We are already up to 24 posts and no further forward - I can see this going to 100+ posts, everyone still wandering around in a fog and still no solution.

As far as this description is concerned

Say there's groups of names and subjects. They're in a table and repeated many times. Should they be in their own table just once with an ID (key)?.

I would expect you would require three tables, not one - names, subjects and a linking table - each with their own PK (primary key). But who knows without context.

I've given you examples of normalisation, you can also look in wikipedia or look at a few templates or example database schema, takes a few minutes to grasp the basics - if you still don't understand then I suspect relational databases are not for you and you will constantly be on this forum trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. You might be better off with excel where each cell is independent.

As far as your form and not being able to update your query is concerned - you've been offered several workarounds and I don't think I can add to what has been suggested.

So good luck with your project, but I don't believe I can provide any more help

 

[mike60smart]

Hello Mike I have attached a file showing the three forms. Don't feel obliged but if you want to offer any thoughts it'd be appreciated. The positioning is about right but the the top datasheet will acquire a horiz. scrollbar if dragged wider, but the bottom one doesn't (which is preferred). But I can't see what's doing that.
I've left three records to show the data moving to the edit Form when clicked, although the code to update the tables isn't done yet.
I just noticed the main FormUE when opened says the On Load event has a Return Without Gosub error. But there's no return and no on load event either. Maybe as it's being opened directly, as normally its opens after a d-click event.

Hi David

See the attached redesigned form layout.

 

[arnelgp]

you can just Edit the Union query.
this is the same principle i made on demo #21.

 

[Pat Hartman]

@David44Coder You don't seem to be interested in sharing anything about your business process. With no context, we ae all wasting our time throwing darts at your problem. Just keep doing what you are doing. This sounds like a single user "database" so as the developer and person responsible for data entry, you know you have to be careful with your data entry since there is no safety net.

Just FYI, even when I develop apps strictly for my own personal use, I normalize the tables because it makes life easier for me. This is not just some academic exercise. It is real world usefulness that makes us do it right. Since you've never seen it done correctly, you have no idea how much extra work your spreadsheet method requires. Although, at some point you realized you needed to move from a spreadsheet to a database but you never went further. For starters, it is likely that ALL your data belongs in a single database so you don't need the union query at all. Queries with Where clauses are the method to pull selected data from a table or set of tables. Forms that pass values as arguments to the query's Where clause mean you don't have to hard code the criteria. All of these queries will be updateable unless you have done something to make them not updateable.