Visual Basic Class Project

Spring, 2000

Anne VanTine

This application enables a user to narrow down a list of activities available on Cape Cod to see the ones of interest, and select items from that list to create an individual vacation plan. Any number of individual plans can be saved and retrieved and modified.

Image of the Main Form

Image of Message & Dialog Boxes

Image of Database Relationships

Sample Report

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Functionality of the Main Form

The main form is roughly divided into three sections to narrow the range of events, to view and select events, and to view and manipulate an individualized plan.

• At the top, the user selects dates, event types, and towns of interest. User may select a range of contiguous dates or an individual date. (Selection of event types and towns is not fully implemented yet – the selection will include all event types and towns.)
• Dates are selected with the MonthView1 control
• Event types and towns are selected from list boxes. Candidates are shown on the left and selected items on the right. Command buttons with arrows let the user move items back and forth.
• Clicking the Show Events button displays all the events that meet the selected criteria in a list box in the middle section of the form.
• The middle section of the form displays the events that meet the selected criteria. Clicking on an event displays its scheduled dates and times in a second list box. Clicking Add Event to Vacation Plan button adds a selected event with date and time to the personal vacation plan displayed at the bottom of the form.
• List boxes are used to display events and dates/times.
• Arrays hold the ids of the events and dates/times instances. The index of an event in the event list box and in the event array are the same, so when an event is selected from the list box, its id can easily be retrieved from the array. Similarly for the dates/times.
• Add Event to Vacation Plan button displays the selected item in the plan.
• The bottom section displays the individually selected plan in a grid. User can sort the grid, delete individual items, clear the grid, delete a plan from the database, and generate a report.
• MSFlexgrid1 control is used to display the plan.
• The Sort button sorts the grid by Instance Id (need to enhance the sorts)
• The Delete Selection button deletes the selected row from the grid without changing the database.
• The Clear Displayed Plan button deletes all selections from the grid without changing the database.
• The Delete Plan Permanently button deletes the plan with the currently selected name from the database.
• The View Report button creates a report which contains the items currently displayed in the grid. Because I couldn’t input a parameter for the plan name at run time, I do a workaround. The displayed plan is temporarily saved to table used just for reports, and the pre-defined query for the report always uses that table.

Menu Functions

The application has menu selections to select start a New plan, Open an existing plan, Save a plan, Save as with a new name, and exit. If the user tries to open a new or existing plan or exit when the current plan has not been saved, the application.

• New – User selects a new plan name. The new plan name is displayed in the form’s caption and on the form. If the current plan is unsaved, user is asked if he wants to save it. If yes, if it needs a name, that is handled, and the old plan is saved.
• Open – User is shown a list of plan names from the database to select from. The selected plan name is displayed and the selected plan is loaded to display in the grid. If the current plan is unsaved, user is asked if he wants to save it. If yes, if it needs a name, that is handled, and the old plan is saved.
• Save – If the current plan already has a name, it is saved and nothing changes on the display. However, if it was a new plan that didn’t have a name yet, user is asked for a name. A check is done to see if that name already exists in the database. If not, but plan is saved and the newly selected name is displayed. If the plan name does already exist, a dialog takes place to see whether the user wants to replace existing plan of that name or select a different name.
• Save As – Enables the user to save the current plan with a new name. Includes the functionality of Save.
• Exit – Before exiting, if there is a current plan with unsaved changes, the user is asked if he wants to save it. If yes, if it needs a name, that is handled, and the plan is saved.

Further Information

This project evolved my Guide to Cape Cod that I did for an HTML course previously. That web site is at http://www.vantine.net.

The data in my database is real (except for Seal Cruise times), but it's only a small subset of available events from the National Seashore, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, and Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

There's more information about the sponsors of these events and links to their web site at http://www.tiac.net/users/vantine/guide/textpages/tours.html (or go to the Cape Cod site at vantine.net and select "Tours").

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