You will notice that when you use any of these Windows functions, the ADD/EDIT and LIST/BROWSE Windows work together. That means that whatever record is active in one Window, the same record is active in the other Window. You can have several Windows Functions active at the same time and all the windows on the screen contain the same active record info. If you go to the List Window and select the Student you want by just clicking and highlighting that record, all of that Students data appears in the ADD/EDIT Window(s).
One other nice perk that came with this functionality is that anyone who is using the dual monitor capability of most new Desktop and Laptop Computers can slide these windows over to your additional monitor and expand it to full screen, etc. Dual monitor technology is provided when your video card allows you to connect an additional monitor to your system and extend your desktop to the additional monitor. I have been running dual monitors on my main Desktop System for a number of years and it sure expands the amount of info I can have on my ‘Desktop’. For those unfamiliar with this concept, most laptops and any desktop computer with a ‘heavy’ video card having ‘dual monitor’ capability, can connect another monitor, usually to the right of your existing monitor, and set your ‘Display’/’Settings’ in the Control Panel to extend the desktop to the new monitor. When I sit at my computer, all my School Bus Management System icons for working on the BUS2 system, are on the ‘main’ or left monitor. My Quicken and other icons that are used less often are on the other or ‘right’ screen. When I move my cursor from the main screen to the right, it slides right into the left screen, like they were one.
The functions listed on the screen allow student information to be Added, Edited & Deleted here. When Adding or Editing data, it is not necessary to tab or cycle through the entire record if all you are doing is changing the phone number or address. When you have made all your changes, simply hold down the CTRL key a press "W", and the whole record is saved with all your changes.
A key feature of the Delete function, is if you accidentally delete a record, you can retrieve it again by pressing the "D" key again before moving away from the record. Even if you have deleted a record and move off the record and the record no longer appears in the list, you can still bring the record back. At Northwoods Computer Software, we feel all your data is YOUR DATA. You will have an additional stand-alone program to allow access to any data. This is used primarily for support work and just such a situation.
In addition to the normal Student Information Management screen, a Windows “flavored” GUI (Graphic User Interface) set of ADD/EDIT and LIST/BROWSE functions have been added. These are primarily for the user to get acquainted with the ‘feel’ of Windows menus and applications. While all these functions are operational, they do not contain the sophisticated data handling that the original functions contain. One of the advantages of the new Windows GUI applications is the versatility and dexterity of the Windows controls. You are able to bring up any number of these functions at the same time and pick and choose the windows functions you want to use. In the future, the BROWSE Windows will be extremely versatile and even allow you to display only the fields you want in the columns so you can edit whole record sets of information by columns. That could mean that if you were changing a BUS number, or several, for all routes and stops in your entire system, you could do that by displaying the columns of information in your data base that pertained to the BUS number, look down the columns for the various rows where the old BUS number is used and just change it. Better than that, we will add whatever functionality is provided to allow you to go to the BUS number column, activate an edit or change function, enter the old BUS number and then the new one and it will be done in a fraction of a second. FYI: there is a function that handles this operation automatically. We just intend giving you the user a number of ways to get the job done, so you can decide what you like…….