Re:[pilot-db-list] Bugs, features, and random musings (long)

[Chalain Marc<mar...@vo...>]

Thank you for your remarks, i will try to satisfy you.
 
 1) In the view editor, it would be nice to have the first line or two of the database displayed to give visual feedback to the spacing changes as they are being made.

 sorry, my english is too bad to undertand exactly what you want

> 2) The new "modify" button is nice, but it would be useful to be able to lock certain fields on top of that. Example: the name of an object in my database will never change, but a checkbox for whether I've observed it or not will. It would therefore be nice to set the "name" field to uneditable.

 I have the same problem but this features ask to change the profile of the records, and DB will pass from 0.3.x to 0.4.x.

> 3) I'd like to be able to cut and paste multiple records in one operation.

 Perhaps a future plugin.
 
> 4) I was shocked to find that the size of the pdb file was almost the same as the csv file (129,000 bytes vs 130,000 bytes) after a csv2pdb operation. This implies that the booleans are stored as "true" and "false", rather than "0" and "1". That's a tremendous waste of space. Even as integer 0 and 1, over 50% can be saved. Is this really true? (I haven't browsed the code, since I'm not much of a programmer.)

 It's come from a problem of hardware, the =B5p works with multiple of 8 bits, then for a boolean we waste 7 bits. The only solution is to group all booleans in packets of 8, but we loss the order of the fields.

> 5) I have a number of checkboxes to indicate whether an object is a member of a certain catalog or not (6 of them, to be precise). Having some sort of "bit field" would let me drop these in one entry, rather than six. I'd still like to be able to sort on individual bits - "sort by presence in Messier's list (boolean), then by Right Ascension (string)"

 not easy to implement (only the GUI, the driver is easy), why not in a future version.

> 6) For a field with a "date" type, there should be a way to indicate "no date". One of my fields is "date observed" - since I haven't yet observed 618 of the 728 objects on my list, I have to give this a "string" type for now, otherwise the day I created the database is entered.

 I have the same problem, but the "no date" wonder a lot of code implementation, then a lot of memory, my answer is why not but i don't know when.

> 7) It would be useful to be able to clear an entire field with a single command. E.g. set observed flags for all objects to unobserved.

 Which type of command, it still wonder a lot of memory for a little feature.

> 8) When editing views, it would be nice to copy a view to a new one, so that minor variations can be made to the new one. E.g. display all the same stuff as the default view, but the last column should be size instead of magnitude.

 Yes, good idea.

> 9) Bug in 0.3.2b2 - the "modify" button protects checkboxes when viewing an individual record, but they are editable when in the general list view. This should be made consistent.

 i saw that it will be correct in the 0.3.2b3 or 4.

> 10) I would like to be able to set a field to a "float" type, with a specifiable number of digits to the right of the decimal point. I've mentioned this to Tom Dyas in the past - I'll take the liberty of suggesting it again.

 I know, but in the future, a nearer future.

> BTW, for those who want to squeeze a 10th line onto the main list view,
> but don't want to recompile DB as suggested in an earlier message, you can
> use the shareware app RsrcEdit (look it up at PalmGear) to modify db
> directly on the Palm. Fire up RsrcEdit, open DB, then open tFRM 1002, then
> Gadget 1000. I set the "top" value to 17, and the height value to 124. No
> recompiling required. I don't know if the values are "correct" per se, but
> I get my 10 lines :-)

Thank Mike but it's depend of the type of field do you use, the height of each line is not the same.

Salut,
Marc.
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