Hi All,

Complete Kexi n00b here looking for tips and advice

I have wanted for some time to switch away from that other OS completely and there has only really been one thing stopping me and that is that I have an invoice DB setup in Filemaker. I came across Kexi just recently and have now got it loaded and it certainly looks like the closest I will get to Filemaker or Approach and I certainly think it will fit my basic requirements as follows;

A database of clients and jobs that I can use for printing invoices. This will have the following features; Auto generated invoice number starting from a predefined value, invoice creation date and payment due date, an invoice status field with drop down selection for paid/unpaid, a side column for sub total, a total box. It should also feature a nicely laid out form that is suitable for printing the current record.

This is where I am up to so far with creating the fields etc



I have a few initial questions;

1) Is it possible to create a combo box for Invoice status [Paid/Unpaid] without creating an additional table?
2) Once I have created my form is it possible to print the current record without have to create a query etc?
3) How to break new lines within a text box or label?
4) How to right justify a text box?

Thanks in advance,

Graham

AFAIK, there is no way to print the current record other than to do a screen capture.
To break new lines in a form, use the text editor box rather than the text box.
To break new lines in reports, use the field box instead of the text box, then set the word wrap opton (in the property editor) to yes.
To right justify a text box, set the horizontal alignment in the property editor to right. I don't believe you can change the horizontal alignment in a text editor box.

Some Kexi shortcomings that I've encountered:
-Inability to duplicate a record. If I want to add a record that is essentially identical to a previous one except for one field, I would have to re-enter the the whole record from scratch instead of copying the previous record and changing that one field entry.
-No calculated fields. Unable to sum columns of data or do simple "if x then y else z" calculations.
-Inability to sort on multiple fields. Say I want to find all items made by XXX company that were shipped in January from Tokyo. How would I do that?
-Inability to delete a found set. How do I delete all 5000 records from that Tokyo query other than by doing it one by one?
-Inability to zoom in design mode. A lot of my reports include tiny print and graphics.
-Inability to edit a record in a query. If I find a spelling error in a group of records and want to correct that error, I can't do it by querying all records with that error then changing it in the query. I would have to do a search for an individual record, make the change, then search for the next record, etc.
-No transparent text backgrounds. I often stack text boxes in reports. The opaque text backgrounds on the top layer text often blot out underlying text.

If anyone finds workarounds for the above, please let me know.

tmae

gbentley wrote:Hi All,

1) Is it possible to create a combo box for Invoice status [Paid/Unpaid] without creating an additional table?
2) Once I have created my form is it possible to print the current record without have to create a query etc?
3) How to break new lines within a text box or label?
4) How to right justify a text box?

Hello Graham

1) It is not yet possible in KEXI 3, maybe you can use a "Paid" boolean Yes/No column for that. It will not print the words "paid"/"unpaid" though in the report or query but just a check box.

2) Without a query unfortunately not; wIth a parameter query you can make the form/report based on the query asking for a record by some identifier, e.g. autonumber. It is not most modern approach though.

http://www.kexi-project.org/pics/1.1.1/ ... query.html

3) How to break new lines within: you can use form's text editor witdget or a label witdget. Text editor allows you to press Enter for new lines. Labels are read only but can display mulit-line text as well. In addition if you prefer to have new lines expressed using the HTML you can set RichText property of a form Text editor to Yes. It is No by default. When you do that, text entered using such text editor is saved in HTML format. Text editors with RichText=Yes and labels can display such format out of the box. Note that Text Boxes always support single line of plain text.

4) How to right justify a text box: just set the Horizontal alignment property of the box to Right. Works labels and even image boxes.
Tmae is right that Text Editor has no such property. When we supply a toolbar for this widget though, users will be able to align each paragraph just like you can do that in word processors.

Hope this helps.

tmae wrote:-Inability to duplicate a record. If I want to add a record that is essentially identical to a previous one except for one field, I would have to re-enter the the whole record from scratch instead of copying the previous record and changing that one field entry.

Confirmed, that would be nice feature, feel free to file it: https://community.kde.org/Kexi/File_a_bug_or_wish
Sibling feature could be copying entire record so it can be then pasted flawlessy with all values and formatting, probably with proper support for autonumber too.

tmae wrote:-No calculated fields. Unable to sum columns of data or do simple "if x then y else z" calculations.

True, this could be the duty of scripting which is quite large module to develop.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=410062

tmae wrote:-Inability to sort on multiple fields. Say I want to find all items made by XXX company that were shipped in January from Tokyo. How would I do that?

True, I've been working on some related topics and related bug is https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404895.

tmae wrote:-Inability to delete a found set. How do I delete all 5000 records from that Tokyo query other than by doing it one by one?

Yes, there is Table->Clear table contents but not for query results. Feel free to file it: https://community.kde.org/Kexi/File_a_bug_or_wish

tmae wrote:-Inability to zoom in design mode. A lot of my reports include tiny print and graphics.

True, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=330217

tmae wrote:-Inability to edit a record in a query. If I find a spelling error in a group of records and want to correct that error, I can't do it by querying all records with that error then changing it in the query. I would have to do a search for an individual record, make the change, then search for the next record, etc.

True, feel free to file it: https://community.kde.org/Kexi/File_a_bug_or_wish
Workaround: go to table and use the Find feature to quickly locate the incorrect values and edit them.

tmae wrote:-No transparent text backgrounds. I often stack text boxes in reports. The opaque text backgrounds on the top layer text often blot out underlying text.

I think reports support the Background opacity property in labels, texts and fields since KEXI 2.8.6 at least.
Forms do not have it: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309276

Thanks for so many good remarks.

Thanks all for time spent in replying

-Inability to duplicate a record

This is almost always the exact thing I do every time I create a new invoice i.e. use the customers previous invoice and just alter the description. The date fields and invoice number are automatically filled in and the reference is auto incremented. Not being able to do this would create quite some cut / paste work.

-No calculated fields

My total field is created by the sum of the cost of the individual items in the description field.

Maybe I am expecting too much

Regarding "Duplicate a record" I'd like to mention settings defaults in table design can help to achieve slightly similar result: some fields can be pre-filled.
This is a global behaviour - per-table - though, not per user.

You're not expecting too much