Display Options Dialog

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DISPLAY OPTIONS DIALOG

The Display Options dialog is one of the main setup dialogs within Baslogue^®. This is where you can customise how various parts of the application appear to the user. This dialog will appear automatically the first time you run the application. After this, you can change these settings at any time by going to "Setup | Display Options" from the main menu.

There are two tabs in this dialog:

Title Used For People - this tab allows you to choose what title should be used to refer to the people that are managed by the system.
Columns Used For People - this tab allows you to show and hide individual columns for people, and to change the caption that is used to refer to each column.
Catalogue Columns - this tab allows you to show and hide individual columns in the Catalogue, and to change the caption that is used to refer to each column.
ISBN Lookup - this tab is where you can set up the ISBN Lookup feature - which allows you to enter new books by retrieving the details via an online ISBN search.

TITLE USED FOR PEOPLE

Choose the most appropriate selection based on who you will be managing items for.

If none of the pre-defined selections fit your requirements, you have the option of entering a custom title. For example, if you were managing items for a group of children, you could define the following:

Select Other - please specify...
Enter "Child" as the Singular value
Enter "Children" as the Plural value

COLUMNS USED FOR PEOPLE

In this tab you can choose which columns you would like displayed for people, and what those columns should be called. The screenshot below shows the default settings after you have installed the application.

Please note the following:

The data is actually stored in fields using the Internal Field Name. If you change the Field Caption for a column the data in that column is not affected and is retained. You will simply see it referred to by a different caption.
The Field Type tells you what type of data is stored in that column:

Char means any alphanumeric characters. The maximum number of characters which can be entered is shown in brackets - e.g. max 30.
Number (float) means numeric data only. The values entered may contain fractions - e.g. 13.563.
Currency means this is a field specifically tailored for currency amount values. Throughout the application it will show the value prepended with the currency symbol as specified in your Windows Regional Settings - e.g. "$", "£", etc...
Boolean means that this is a field specifically tailored for true/false (or yes/no) values. The column in the grid will show the values "Yes" and "No" while in the Person dialog a checkbox will be shown.
BLOB means that this field will hold raw binary data, in this instance JPEG picture files.

The Show this Field? option allows you to show or hide the field. If you hide a field that already has data in it, the data is not removed, and will be available if you later decide to show the field.
The Field Caption allows you to give any label you like to this field. While there is no defined limit to the length of the caption, note that if you choose a caption that is too long it may appear truncated on the Person Dialog. After setting a caption, you should confirm its appearance in the Person Dialog and if it does appear truncated you should modify the caption appropriately.
The Person Dialog will automatically reformat itself based on the fields shown and hidden.
The PICTURE column is a special column allowing a picture to be stored against a person. When this column is marked as visible, a View Picture button becomes available from within the Person Dialog. Clicking this button views the current picture, and allows the picture to be changed by loading from a JPEG file. Storing of large size images against many person records may severely reduce performance in Baslogue. It is recommended that you make the image files as small as possible. Also, be aware that the Database Edition of Baslogue will handle a large number of images more efficiently than the Standalone Edition.

CATALOGUE COLUMNS

In this tab you can choose which columns you would like displayed for catalogue items, and what those columns should be called. The screenshot below shows the default settings after you have installed the application.

Please note the following:

The data is actually stored in fields using the Internal Field Name. If you change the Field Caption for a column the data in that column is not affected and is retained. You will simply see it referred to by a different caption.
The Field Type tells you what type of data is stored in that column:

Char means any alphanumeric characters. The maximum number of characters which can be entered is shown in brackets - e.g. max 30.
Number (float) means numeric data only. The values entered may contain fractions - e.g. 13.563.
Currency means this is a field specifically tailored for currency amount values. Throughout the application it will show the value prepended with the currency symbol as specified in your Windows Regional Settings - e.g. "$", "£", etc...

The Show this Field? option allows you to show or hide the field. If you hide a field that already has data in it, the data is not removed, and will be available if you later decide to show the field.
The Field Caption allows you to give any label you like to this field. While there is no defined limit to the length of the caption, note that if you choose a caption that is too long it may appear truncated on the Catalogue Item Dialog. After setting a caption, you should confirm its appearance in the Catalogue Item Dialog and if it does appear truncated you should modify the caption appropriately.
The Catalogue Item Dialog will automatically reformat itself based on the fields shown and hidden. For example, if you hide the LOCATION field, then then CATEGORY will expand to fill the available area left vacant by the LOCATION field.
The EXT_ITEM_CODE_1 and EXT_ITEM_CODE_2 fields are treated specially for layout purposes on the Catalogue Item Dialog.

If both fields are visible, and the captions are the same except for the last character ("1" and "2" in the example above) then the fields are shown together with a common caption - e.g.

If both fields are visible, and the captions are completely different (e.g. "Item Code" and "Box Number"), then each field is shown with its own label, e.g.

If only one of the fields are visible, then its size is expanded to fill the available space, e.g.
Three of the fields have built-in lookup support - these are ITEM_TYPE, CATEGORY and LOCATION. Refer to the Catalogue Item Dialog documentation for the fields "Item Type", "Category" and "Location" for how these fields work.

ISBN LOOKUP

This tab is where you can set up the ISBN Lookup feature - see the section on Setting up ISBN Lookup for details.