Business record-keeping UI design

[Oso]

I’m looking at PureBasic’s GUI tools with the intention of constructing some record keeping screens (traditionally referred to in the business software community as a ‘file maintenance screen’) and also transaction entry screens.

It would be good to know how others have approached this everyday concept, not to look at the code necessarily but to gain some insight. In my software background, which is mostly centred around databases, we’d usually produce a screen where the first input field is the key to the record. This might be a customer code, employee code, product code and so on. After entering that code, the system would immediately display the record associated with that unique key and provide options to amend the inputs, or delete the record. For new records, the inputs would be blank and the operator could enter them in turn, then save it. Typically there would also be a partial search by name or by another secondary item in the record.

There are many database products out there and languages also, but I don't really want to debate those as the question is about PureBasic. What have others done in PureBasic that works well?

[Kuron]

This was made in and designed for use with PureBasic:

https://www.pahlabs.com/product/productclassbuilder/


It is made for helping create database driven apps.

There are other apps on that site that are database-based and show some nice examples of UI interactions.

Not sure if any of that is beneficial to you, but worth mentioning. Personally, if I was doing a database driven app, I would be starting with Class Builder to make the task a tad easier.

[Phollyer]

You have just described the basic fundamentals of my ClassBuilder Product. I too, begin with screen design, then build a normalized database to support it in my ClassBuilder Application. Classbuilder uses simple, logical screens to allow you to build any table structure from simple to the complex, supporting any number and depth of parent child relationships. It Supports every data element from autoincrement ID fields, to foreign keys, strings, binary, BLOBS, CLOBS, Images, decimals, Integers, longs, etc. It Supports ALL Purebasic supported Databases. It Generates, not only, your Table generation SQL, but it also generates your PureBasic Data layer code, it even generates a large percentage of the code connecting your screens to Database Layer. It generates ComboBox, ListView, and listIconView Gadget Loads, automatically includes Child Level SQL Lists to Parent Level Collection lists. As with ALL tools its output is only as good as your input, the more information you complete the "less" Classbuilder guesses, and the more accurate it's results; With that said, I have done my best to find a happy medium between Ease of Use and Accurate Results. I have endeavored to follow Object Oriented Practices as close as I can.

Feel free to View this, and other products on my site. The Manuals are there to download, as is a fully functioning demo version of the product. Please feel free to contact me here on the forums, or directly via email. And Yes I have a C# Version of ClassBuilder as well, it supports winforms, Oracle, MSSQL, SQLite, and ODBC.

Pete

Https://www.PAHLabs.com

[Oso]

Thanks both for the replies. The UI has become a hugely interesting topic these days, as the scope of what's available has widened in recent years. I had a chuckle at reading the below from back in 2018, Kuron.

Kuron » Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:01 am
Windows GUI is butt-ugly. There is no getting around that. I would take 3.1 or even NT4 over the looks of 10. I can't see very well and the <deleted> is ugly. I can only imagine how bad it is for those with much better sight. macOS and Mint Cinnamon are both appealing to me, but many will find those just as ugly as Windows.

Rather than using UI gadgets, has anyone attempted writing a web browser-based UI for PureBasic, in such a way that the PB application assumes the role of server and offers both the display and capture of data via HTTP? I suspect some may point towards SpiderBasic, but I have to confess, I found it difficult to see where it fits in, even after asking the question — is it a web server. I'm under the impression it is for front-ends and doesn't offer a web server service, but I could well be wrong on that. Perhaps others can enlighten.

[Kuron]

I had a chuckle at reading the below from back in 2018, Kuron.

Ole' Kuron stands behind those comments 250%! The benefit of mostly being interested in writing 2D games is you generally write and use your own GUI system. True to my words, one I was playing around with, looks and acts like the Windows 3.1 GUI. I do like Windows 11 GUI-wise better than Windows 10, but for my Windows systems I run Stardock Curtains. The disgust with Window's butt-ugliness is part of why I invested in a higher end Chromebook for my Internet system. LOVE the GUI in ChromeOS!

I saw a gorgeous example of what you are wanting in the B4J community. Not linking to a competing product out of respect for Fred.

Several here have been playing with such things. WebUI has been wrapped here. If I were after what you are looking for, this would be my first choice to try and make work for my needs.

As to SpiderBasic, sadly real life got in the way and I did not get a chance to use the free year Fred so nicely gave existing users. It does seem to not get as much attention as PB, but also the examples seem to represent a fairly complete product. But with what you are looking for, I would not suggest SB.

[idle]

I made civetweb wrapper to civetserver, its a fork of mongoose which is used in spider basic ide to launch programs. With civetweb you can serve the files from disk directory like www and then when satisfied it generates a compressed archive stored in the datasection Where it extracts the html assets on demand so there's no external dependencies. You can serve it localy or publicly. I was looking at updating the project to run on raspberry pi. You can use a easyjs widgets with it or embed spiderbasic apps

[Oso]

Thanks for the last two posts Kuron and Idle. Yes, I saw the post in early June about WebUI (and your comment at the time, Idle, about Civetserver) and it caught my interest, but time was limited and I couldn't get WebUI to work.

There's recent discussion on that original thread, suggesting the project has moved to Typescript. I'm not sure how that affects things, or where things are at the moment. I feel it's of huge importance to PureBasic — it would be a pity if there isn't more discussion on it.

[idle]

If you want to go with a JS GUI lib you can try JS lib easyUI, see it's demo here
http://jeasyui.com/demo/main/index.php
and look at the crud datagrid example

Both Webui and PB CivetServer are based on the same c library "civetweb"

[Oso]

If you want to go with a JS GUI lib you can try JS lib easyUI, see it's demo here

Does the demo work for you when you try to populate the list — it remains empty for me (Firefox/Windows). In another demo, "Basic Pagination", it shows "Displaying 51 to 60 of 114 items", but nothing there.

[idle]

I'm sure it works fine you can download it and try it for free but I think it costs to use it commercially. I'll forward this to someone who uses it.

[Oso]

I'm sure it works fine you can download it and try it for free but I think it costs to use it commercially. I'll forward this to someone who uses it.

Thanks Idle, I wouldn't mind looking at your Civetserver solution but wasn't sure if it's possible to see.