Member Details:
The “Member’s Details” from is accessed by the “Search” or “View Details” command buttons. It displays the member’s details in depth. Using text boxes and drop down list boxes. It is of similar format to that of the “Add Member” form, but this displays a previously saved member. The name of the form is situated at the top of the form in bold text. I have used the same layout style as the previous pages. There are three buttons at the bottom on the form each performs a different function, they are labelled according to what they do, so that it is simple and logical for the user. The “Erase Member” is selected if the user wishes to erase the member from the system permanently. When the command button is pressed a confirmation message appears. The “Save” command is used to save the newly edited information onto the system, selecting this function overwrites previous information about the user and replaces all entries in the database with the new information. The “Main Menu” button does the same function as afore mentioned, returns the user to the main screen.
Confirm Member’s Details Erase:
This confirmation box appears when the user chooses to save the changes of amending a member’s details; in order to check that the use wishes to save the information permanently this message appears to confirm the action. The “Yes” button confirms the action, saves and applies the changes and the “No” button cancels the save and returns the user to Member to the Member Details screen.
Add Member:
The “Add Member” form is opened when the user wants to add a new member to the system. The screen is launched by the “Add Member” command button on the “Member’s Options” screen. As you can see it is very similar to the “Edit Member’s” screen, this is because the edit members screen and the add member’s screen require and use the same information. The screen is of the same basis as the previous screens with the boxes separating different processes. The user would copy the information from the membership form filled in by the member. The data would be entered directly into the text boxes. The title box is a pre defined list box, the user choose one of the titles form the list and then adds it to the form. The Surname and First Name boxes use mask edit, which validates the data as it is entered. The validation for them is uppercase text with a maximum string length of 15 characters.
Address line 1 is another mask edit box, using a single numeric character as compulsory entry and two optional numeric characters; it also has a maximum string of 20 uppercase characters as validation. The town and county field use mask edit also the validation for these is uppercase text using a maximum string length of 15 characters. Postcode makes use of two mask edit boxes. The first section of the postcode uses a maximum character string of 4 characters, all text uppercase and one compulsory numeric entry with one numeric character optional. The second section has validation of one numeric entry and two text characters. The data entry boxes are labelled clearly and according as set out in the specification in order to avoid confusion for the user.
The system information box beside the member information box consists of one text box, one pre-defined drop list and a mask edit box. The text box is used for the membership number, this is computer generated and inserted automatically on the pressing of the “Add Details” button. When the “Add Detail’s” button is pressed the computer searches for the next available record in the system and inserts it into the text box, this becomes known as the member number. The pre-defined drop list is used to select the membership type as indicated with the label, the user chooses either “adult (18+)” or “Youth (15-17)” this then sets the member’s type as chosen. The mask edit box is used for the date of expiry. The mask set to validate the text entered is eight numeric characters and three forward slash’s e.g. “##/##/####”. This validation rule checks that the user is entering a valid date.
Once all of the information required has been entered the user must then select the “Save” button. This saves the information on the form and adds the member to the system. The user can then search for the member at any time and the member is able to rent all videos permitted by the membership type. The user can then choose to go back to the “Member’s Options” page or to the “Main Menu”.
View All Member’s:
Here is the “View All Members” screen; this is accessed using the “View All Records” button on the “Member’s Options” screen. When the user presses the “View All Records” button it searches the system serially to retrieve all of the members, one by one in the order that the system comes to them the information found is then displayed in the grid on screen. This screen is fairly simple, containing a Flex Grid and three command buttons. The main feature of this screen is the grid in the centre of the screen, this grid is called a Flex Grid and is used to display all the results found by the computer. The grid is a very good means of showing a vast amount of information to the user because it separates it and makes it easier to look at than a long list. The user can sort the information on the grid in many different ways including member number, ascending and descending and by surname A-Z and Z-A. The user is able to select a single member that they wish to view out of the grid and then select the “View Detail” button which opens the “Member’s Details” form as explained previously in this document. The user can then either just view the information or edit the details.
The “Member’s Options” and “Main Menu” are purely navigational buttons, which take you to the named places, as explained previously.
Videos Command
Videos:
When the user selects the “Videos” command button on the “Main Menu” the main menu screen closes and the “Video Options” opens. The user has certain options within this screen as on the “Members Options”. I have continued to make use of the simple layout throughout the program and is once again demonstrated in this form with the big buttons, separation boxes and clear and concise labelling.
The initial option for the user is to search for a video within the database. In order to do this the user must either enter the video number or the video title. This information must be entered into the related box. Both video number and video title are mask edit boxes, the mask for the video number is a numeric string of a maximum of 10 characters and the video title is any character with a max of 30 characters. The user can then search the database for the required entry using random access; the search goes directly to the file entry and retrieves it for the user to view in the “Video Details” form which is a detailed view of the video information, similar to the “Member Details” form. The member has three other options, “Add Video”, “View All Videos” and “Main Menu” all of which are self explanatory buttons for the user to understand.
Video Details:
The “Video Details” from is accessed by the “Search” command button on the “Video Options” screen or from within the “View All Videos” window using “Video Detail”. The video details screen is used to view, edit or erase the search results found from the search on the “Video Options” screen. The information is displayed clearly with in text boxes and scroll bars. The information displayed in this window is useful for the user because it can tell the user additional information from what the “View All Videos”. The form features three buttons which are “Save”, “Erase Video” and “Main Menu”. “Save” is used when the user wishes to correct an error or update information such as the number of copies, because the form is used to editing it features validation rules. The validation rules are created by using mask edit boxes. Video number has a mask of six character numeric value; this stops the user from entering any text or any other invalid character. The title mask edit box has an uppercase text character validation rule with a maximum of 30 characters valid. The Genre and Certificate are pre-defined drop down choice boxes, the user chooses one from the list of possible entries and select the correct one. Date bought has a mask of a date validation, the mask checks for a validate format of “##/##/####” anything else will not be allowed to be entered into the mask edit box. The number of copies mask edit box uses a two character numeric validation rule which only lets a maximum of two numbers to be entered into the box. The “Erase Video” is used when the user wishes to permanently get rid of the video entry. The user must click the command button and then confirm action, after this the video will be erase form the system permanently.
Confirmation of Erase:
If the member chooses to erase a video from the system they will be presented with this confirmation after clicking the “Erase Video” command button. “Yes” will confirm erase and remove the video from the system and “No” will return to the previous screen.
Add Video:
The “Add Video” screen is similar to the “Video Details” this is because they both use the same information in their windows. The “Add Video” is used to enter video information on new video’s that are being added to the system. The data entry boxes are labelled and easy to use, the user purely has to read the labels and type the related information into the box. As explained in the “Video Details”, Video number, Title, Date bought and Number of copies all have the same validation in order to ensure the information is of the correct format.
When the user has finished entering the data into the form, they must click “Add Video” this command will then save all the details entered onto the system, the video can then be viewed and rented because it has a valid video number and details.
“Video Details” is a link back to the window, as is “Main Menu”, so when the user presses one of the navigational buttons it opens the associated window.
View All Videos:
The “View All Videos” window is opened using the command button located on the “Video Options” screen called “View All Videos”, when this button is pressed the system serially searches through all video files and gathers them all in order to display them in the grid above. This window is very similar to that of the “View All Members” accept it displays all of the videos as a pose to the members.
As explained in the “View All Members” section previously, the grid displays all of the videos in the system using a serial search. The videos in the grid can be sorted in different kinds of way in order to make viewing easier for the user of the system. The “View Detail” button can only be used when a single video is selected. When a video is selected the “View Detail” button opens the “Video Details” screen where it is possible to edit the features of the video such as title, certificate and number of copies. “Video Options” closes the “View All Videos” window and opens the “Video Options” window. The “Main Menu” command button closes the view all grid and opens the main start menu, where the three choices of “Members”, “Videos” or “Rentals” are available.
Rentals Command
Rent Video:
“Rent Video” is opened by pressing “Rentals” on the main menu. The user activates this form when a member wants to rent out a video from Hollywood video. The user will work through the form until they come to calculate. “Calculate” performs a mathematical function to work out the cost of the video and also asks the user if the member is old enough to view the video. This is determined by the price of the video and the number of nights. Once the calculate button has been pressed the results are added into the Price and Date due back text boxes. The Member number and Video number boxes are mask edit boxes which validate the input of the text, the validation rules for both boxes are numeric values only and a maximum of 6 characters are valid. If the user tries to enter any text or anything over the designated amount of characters the boxes will not permit this.
Age Check:
This form comes up when the user presses the “calculate” button, it asks the user to confirm that the member is old enough to view the video legally. If the user chooses “Yes” the video is calculated and rented, if the user chooses “No” then the rental is cancelled and the “Rent Video” window is closed, the main menu is then opened.
Return Video:
The return video form is opened when the user presses the “Return Video” button on the rentals main menu. This form will be used when a member returns a video. The user will be prompted to enter the member number and video number of the video that is being returned. Both member number and video number have the same validation rule, this is numeric characters only, this prevents the user from entering invalid characters. The user must then press the “return” button, when the return button is pressed it automatically checks with the transaction file to see if the video is overdue. If the video is overdue the program calculates the fine and opens the overdue form.
Overdue Video:
The overdue video screen is opened when the member returns a late video. It is called by the “Return” command on the “return video” window. This screen displays the fine payable by the member, the date the video should have been returned and the actual date of returned. The charge text box has got currency validation. The Date due and date returned use date validation. Once the member has paid the fine, the user can then press the “Fine Paid” button which returns the user to the previous menu.