Can I use a listbox to query database

users
#1

I am new to databases in general and LibreOffice Base in particular.
I am using LO Version: 4.1.2.3 installed into Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
I want to create a database with information for about 100 presentations. It would contain the name of the presenter, the title, and three “keywords” or topics.
There are two tables consisting of a main table (that contains the PresenterID, PresenterName, Date, Title, Topic1, Topic2, and Topic3) and the table of topics for the listboxes.
I have figured out how to create a single form to fill in the data for the two tables that uses 3 listboxes to present the choices for the topics.

I want to make the database easily searchable for people with little computer experience.
Is there a way to present a screen to such users with dropdown lists of the topics (same entries as in the Topics table) that will produce a list of the relevant presentations?
I don’t what them to have to deal with creating a query or a report.

Am I asking for too much?

Thanks
Bob

#2

Bob,
Can I make the suggestion that you use 3 tables - one for the presenters,
one for the presentations, and one for the topics. You may need another
one but we will get to that in a minute. I am suggesting a separate table
for presenters as one presenter may make a number of presentations over
time and so you will not have to repeat data in the tables - one of the
rules of data normalisation. Each presentation will also link to a number
of topics. It is possible to setup the tables so that each presentation
can link to any number of topics. The structure outlined above will waste
database space if there are fewer than 3 topics assigned and will have a
problem if you wish to assign more than 3 topics.

The presenters table would contain:
presenterID - primary key
firstname
lastname
any other field you wish to add regarding the presenter

The presentations table would contain:
presentationID - primary key
date of presentation
title of presentation
presenterID - foreign key into the presenters table
other fields relating to the presentation

This sets up a one - many relationship between presenters and presentations
ie one presenter can be linked to many presentations

With the topics table, a suitable structure may be:
topicID - primary key
topic_name
other fields relating to the topic

The relationship between presentations and topics is not a simple
one-to-many relationship. As you have described, a single presentation may
be associated with many topics, and a single topic may be associated with
many presentations. This is a many-to-many relationship and is best
expressed via an intermediate table - presentation_topic

The presentation_topic table would have the following structure
presentationID
topicID

The two fields together form the primary key for this table.

The relationship structure for the database is then as follows:
The presenter table links to the presentation table via the presenterID
field and the presentation table links to the topics table via the
presentationID+topicID fields in the intermediate table.

This structure will allow you to query the database and ask the following
questions
Who presented on a particular presentation
How many presentations has a particular presenter made, when were these
made, and what were the topics
What presentations were made in a particular date range
What topics were allocated to a particular presentation
What presentations have been made concerning a particular topic, or number
of topics.

Once that data structure is in place, add some test data to see that the
structure is working and you are able to retrieve the required data. Once
this is successful, it is time to prepare some forms and reports so that
users of the database can easily use the system. This would include
drop-down lists in the forms.

Mike

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
The simple answer is "Yes" for most of it but for the last question
there it's "No" (because you are not asking too much).

The detailed answer from Michael kinda assumes you are somewhat
familiar with spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are flat and many
fields/cells contain identical data. For example if one of your most
prolific presenters is called Firdausi then you would have a lot of
repetitions of her name. Any mis-spellings or typos would result in
one or more lines missing when you searched for the presentations she
could do.

A database can be "relational" rather than "flat". You would have 2
or more tables. Each row would have a unique identifier, called an ID
which is normally generated automatically. One of your tables, or a
separate one would link the tables together. Lets say you had 1 table
called "Names" and 1 called "Topics" (ie keeping names short and
simple to help humans do redesigning in the future). Lets assume you
have additional tables such as "Address" and "Venue" but lets kinda
just ignore those. Now the topics table might have headings such as;

ID = an automatically generated and reasonably small
whole number (you are unlikely to need 12 digits in here!)
Title = text-field, probably under 256 characters
Description = text-field, avoid setting limits here in order to avoid
problems in the future. If users disobey the "3 keywords" rule you
kinda need the system to be fail-safe.
Person = Name.ID = small whole number but this value is set by
the list-box rather than being generated automatically

The Names table might have headings/fields such as;

ID = auto-generated small(ish) whole number again
Name1st = text-field under 256 characters
NameLast = text-field under 256 characters
Address = Address.ID

Now the relationship between those 2 tables is that the ID field in
the "Names" table is a "1-to-1 relationship" with the "Person" field
in the "Topics" table. However between the Names and the Address
tables you would probably have a "many to one relationship" because
you might have 2 or 3 different people all at the same address.
Actually my brain is a bit fried and it might also be a 1-to-1 because
it looks like we might have neatly dodged that extra complication.
Anyway, the point is that you can have different tables, with
different relationships between them.

The normal users see none of that. It's only the database designers
who get that level of detail (unless you are using MS Access in which
case it's tricky to avoid normal users stumbling into designers turf
and accidentally make a horrible mess and even break things without
having a clue what they did and thus being completely useless at
helping give enough information to help fix the problem). With Base
normal users could just be seeing familiar Writer documents. These
are really "Forms" or "Reports". Normal users can change the
formatting and wording and shift things around. The documents might
have drop-downs to help them move between different topics or
presenters, or venues or addresses. You set what normal users have
access to. Really clever ones might figure out how to access more
fields, in which case 'promote' those rare individuals to help design
new documents for other things

Data-entry people would need to go into Base and probably use
something that looks a lot like a Calc spreadsheet (but with
drop-downs). They might tumble into designer turf but are likely to
be smart enough to know to go get help or to be able to get back into
their own area and rescue themselves with a click or 2.

Designers seldom need to see the data itself but just work with the
headings, tables layouts, relationships and maybe help set-up forms
and reports for normal users in Writer.

So, with Base (unlike MS Access) each level of people involved can get
on with just the area they are good at. They don't need to get
involved in the complexities of anyone else's role, for the most part.
Also you can see that while flat spreadsheets can get very large very
quickly and has a high potential for breakages and problems the
typical database stays much smaller and is thus usually a lot faster
and smoother.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
Ooops! I meant to stop at the end of the 1st paragraph there!

It seems Mike and i disagree on a few points.
1. I try to get names of things as different as possible for the sake
of clarity. At 3am after 12 cups of coffee the eye can sometimes
skate over the difference between "presentations" and "presentor"
especially if you have to adjust the size of columns each time to see
the last few letters.
2. The use of the word "topics". I was thinking of each presentation
being only about 1 topic. Then i stumbled into the problem of not
having a name for what the "3 keywords" are for. Michael uses the
word more correctly imo.
3. I tend to group similar thing togather, so use fields such as
Name1st (well, i use Nm1st) and NameLst. However if the table is
called "Name" then headings such as 1st and Last would be seen in
Forms, Reports and Queries as "Name.1st", "Name.Lst" anyway
4. I got muddled about the different relationships and i'm fairly
sure i was wrong there
5. In the examples i gave i just kept the "ID" heading short but
Mike's way is better even if i think those headings are toooo long and
too similar. It's better to have a little clue as to which tables
these similar things belong to. In my defence i'd say that it doesn't
really matter but again the 12 cups of coffee issue comes into play.
Clarity helps.

Actually none of these or similar disagreements really matters, except
point 4. It just shows there are slightly different ways of doing
things or ways of saying things but both of us had much the same
approach. Mike went for using an additional table to pull the
relationships together whereas i took a short-cut and used an existing
table. Mike's way is better.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

Hi Bob,

I want to make the database easily searchable for people with little computer experience.
Is there a way to present a screen to such users with dropdown lists of the topics (same entries as in the Topics table) that will produce a list of the relevant presentations?
I don’t what them to have to deal with creating a query or a report.

Am I asking for too much?

Yes, at least in the sense that if I have understood your quandry you
essentially want a read-only form that will allow you to query the data
via drop-down lists and automatically filter the remaining data accordingly.

That kind of automatic functionality would generally require macro
programming.

However, you might want to take a look at the FormFilter mode and see
whether you can tweak that to get what you want.

Alex