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NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM


Started by Bryan Luckock
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NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM

I note with interest that one of your competitors, in their latest release, has significantly increased the number of fields per form. Has the Dataease team considered the possibility of this much improved functionality and having had the thoughts would it be implemented soon


Written by Bryan Luckock 19/09/16 at 05:56:45 Dataease [{8}]FIVE

Re:NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM

We have looked into this limitation and not found that it is an important one as it is very easy to work around.

It is not very often one need a form with more than 255 fields and when one do, one can simply solve this problem by making an additional table or two and insert them as subforms with a 1 to 1 relationship.

I don't know which product you are talking about - and I assume that many of them have different limits to how many fields you can have in a form - but if we were to do this it would be at a big version upgrade like 1.0 to 2.0 because it change the file format and hence it would block the user from downgrading after.


Written by DataEase 19/09/16 at 07:31:47 Dataease [{8}]FIVE

Re:NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM

Hi Bryan

In over 20 years of using DataEase, I have never reached the max number of fields.  I have seen applications which were nearing the limit, but in all cases, this was solved by using sub forms.  

Thus always try splitting your data in one or more related forms, especially data that needs multiple entries.  Example: Company Details.  The contact persons details may vary from 1 to multiple.....hence instead of having Contact1, Contact2 etc....have a subform linked via a relationship based on company code and you can have as many contacts per company as needed.  

So, having the ability to have 4000 fields instead of 255 may seem great at first glance, but may be a nightmare to maintain etc.

Kind Regards

Josef


Written by Josef Vella 19/09/16 at 07:59:25 Dataease [{8}]FIVE

Re:Re:NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM

For a user like myself who is not very savvy on Dataease, I take the easy option. It is easier for me to use one form with all info and calculations on than a multiplicity of subforms and relationships.

Yes having 4000 field is very enticing, but I do not know how that will be a nightmare to manage


Written by Bryan Luckock 19/09/16 at 12:50:55 Dataease [{8}]FIVE

Re:Re:Re:NUMBER OF FIELDS PER FORM

Obviously it can't be detrimental to have more fields available in a form and you don't have to use all 4000 of them ;-)

Competition is good and we can see from the list of new features in Ffenics 2.0 that they have picked up on some of the ideas we have implemented in DE85 too.

They have different priorities and goal than us, and it is obviously a great thing that DataEase users that remain in DFD or DFW 5.x/6.x has a choice for where they move next.

There is a misconception in the user base that there is fierce competition between Ffenics and DataEase. That might have been true at some point but not any more.

We want to move DataEase away from where DataEase for Windows has been and where Ffenics is solidly planted and we don't blame any customers that choose to go down the Ffencis route rather than following us.

We have never made it a secret that our goal is to take DataEase back to where it was during the DFD era, rather than build on the awkward functionality that was introduced with DFW.


Written by DataEase 19/09/16 at 12:51:42 Dataease [{8}]FIVE
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