POWER BROWSE

Utility to View and Modify Data

STRUCTURE OF A BROWSER

Browser Header

Column Heading

Status Bar

Main Table

Cell

Command Buttons

Slider

HOW TO USE A BROWSERMove Around and Editing a Browser

Click [Browse Any Table/Query]

Exit –Press <Esc> key , or Click [X] or [Exit]

The main body of a browser—Table or query

Rows(records)

Columns(fields)

Sliders to move records up and down

Record indicator

Use [order/seek] to find the record faster

You can edit the content of the cell or Insert mode, by pressing the <Insert> key.

You can delete any character by <Delete> key

• Use arrow keys to move up, down, left or right. <PageUp>/<PageDown> will move one page at a time. <Ctrl><Home> will bring you to the left most column, <Ctrl><End> will bring you to the right most column.

• To switch from Whole Cell mode to Single Position mode, left click, or press the <Home>/<End> key.

• If you are in Single Position mode, you can move left/right within the cell, one character at a time, by the <Left>/<Right> arrow key. You can also move to the beginning or end of the cell by <Home> and <End> keys.

Right Click at the Browser Header

Right click at the Browser Header, you will see a pop-up menu, you can countrol some basic characteristics of the browser.

• Display Status Bar: you can turn the status bar at the top of the browser on or off.

• Display Standard Button: you can turn the standard command buttons at the bottom of the browser on or off.

• Suppress Column Pop-Up Tip - If you move your mouse pointer to the column heading, you will see a pop-up note about the field name and type of this column. If you feel this is annoying, you can suppress this note by clicking here.

• Stretch browse sideway to fill the screen: if the table is smaller than the size of the window (screen), you can check this option so the right-most column be lengthen to fill the size of the screen.

• Lock Browse Preference Changes - You can change the way your browser works and looks. However, if you don't want to change it accidentally, you may want to lock the preference changes here.

• View/Change Column Visibility Setting - You can turn on/off visibility of all columns available in this browse, as well as setting the sequence. This allows you to control the order of the columns and set each column either visible or in-visible.

• Hide Administrative Fields - There are a set of fields (Create_Stamp, Mod_Stamp, etc) that keep track of when and where each record is created or modified. If you don't want to see those fields, you can hide them here.

• Allow protection-triggered fields to be edited: If the table/queries includes special fields (Is_Posted, Is_Void, Is_Complete, Is_ProtRec), the record will be protected if any of these fields is Yes. You therefore cannot modify such records.

• Split screen into two browses - You can split the browser into 2 parts so you can view 2 tables/queries simultaneous

• Display Access Table Description - You can view the description on the Access Table here.

• Change font-size of the browse: you can change to font-size of the browse.

• Delete Browse Preference: The setup of the browse is stored in preference tables (PF_), you can delete them so you can rebuild from scratch.

• Help for this browse: to see any help message for this browse.

• Show record vertically: you can display records horizontally (one row per record) or vertically (one screen per record).

Right Click at the Column Heading

Right Click at the Column Heading—Control the behavior of the column

• To change the width of a column, move mouse pointer to right edge of the column heading, hold the left mouse click, drag it to the right to widen the column or to the left to shorten the column.

• To adjust the column width: right click on the column heading, click the option "Adjust Column Width", the column width will be adjusted automatically to the minimum width of the field content or column heading. Clicking the [Adjust] command button will adjust all columns that are visible on screen automatically.

• To hide a column: right click on the column heading, click the option "Hide This Column".

• To unhide a column is a bit tricky. Position the mouse pointer to border between column headings, if there are hidden columns between the columns, the arrow will point to left, otherwise, the arrow will point to both direction. If the arrow points to left only, you can drag the column towards the left, the hidden column will now appear.

• To protect a column: right click on the column heading, click the option "Protect This Column", you will not be able to edit this column, the unprotect it, right click on the column heading, uncheck by clicking the option "Protect This Column". If a column is protected, the column heading is displayed in reverse video.

• To force upper case entry: right click on the column heading, click the option "Force Upper Case Entry". All data entry on this column will be in upper case automatically.

• Suppress a field in Vertical Display: if you don't want this field to be displayed in vertical mode. Right click on the column heading, click the option "Suppress This Field in Vertical Display".

• Freeze the column at left of screen: right click on the column heading, click the option "Freeze this column at Left of Screen", this column will remain on screen even you scroll your browser to the left.

• Program <Enter> Key for This Column: during data entry, after entering data into a field, you shall hit <Enter> key. After hitting <Enter> key, the cursor shall normally move to the right column. However, you can override this by defining which column to go, or if it is desirable to move to the next record. For example, in Sales Item Entry, after entering an SKU, you may want to move to the SKU field of the next line.

• Define Lookup Browse, Drill Down Button, Script for this column - Advance options.

• Display Column Info: basic information about this column will be displayed.

• Change Column Heading: the caption of this column heading can be changed. Default caption is the field name without the underscores.

• Edit Column Definition Table: if this browse is defined in BR_MAST and BR_ITEM, you can have access to BR_ITEM for this browse to control column definition.

• Sort the Value of This Column: the record displayed will be sorted in ascending order of the values of this column. This a very convenient if you want to re-arrange orders of your records.

• Undo Sort of This Column: the sort order will be back to the default order of this browse.

• Filter By Current Value in This Column: PowerSell will filter the recordset and display records where the filed value equal to the value of the current record. For example, when you are browsing the Inventory Master Table, you are on a record where Vend_No = "ABC", by clicking the column "Vend_No" and choose this option, PowerSell will return all records where Vend_No = "ABC".

• Filter By Multiple Value in This Column: this option will give you more power in filtering your data. You can specify filtering criteria, include or exclude certain values, use full/partial or embedded search. This is very useful to search information from a very large set of data, such as Customer or Inventory tables.

• Note that filtering is cumulative, for example, after filtering on the Vend_No, if you further filter it on Dept_Code, you will get a record set for a certain Vend_No AND a certain Dept_code. If you want to filter only on Dept_Code, you shall Remove Filter for the Column Vend_No.

• Remove Filter for this Column: remove the filter criteria for this column and give you the larger recordset.

• Remove Filter for all Columns: all filter criteria will be removed and give you the entire recordset. You can also remove filter for all columns by exiting the browse and re-entering.

Filter Menu

• Sum Value of This Column: if this column is numeric, will display you to total values of this column.

• Search for Values in This Column: help you search data based on values of this column.

• Set Value for This Column - You can set the value for all the records in this column.

• Re-sequence This Column: If this browse includes special fields "Line_No" or "Seq_Number", resequencing will allow the Line_No or "Seq_Number" to increase the increment, this will allow you to insert rows in the browser.

• Rearrange Column Orders - Left click on a column heading, that column will be highlighted, then hold the left mouse button, drag left or right to the desired position, release the mouse button. You can move several contagious columns by highlighting multiple columns before dragging.

More Info• Lookup - Some fields are "lookup-able" if there is an up-down triangles

(lookup button) on the right edge of the field. To control the lookup behavior of any field, you shall define it in BR_FIELD or MS_FIELD. The lookup browse is just another browse that can be defined in BR_MAST.

• Quick Filtering and Sorting Keys:

• <Ctrl>F - Highlight the column, e.g., State_Code, then hit <Ctrl>F. A dialog box will popup and ask you for State_Code (default is the value of your current record). E.g., enter "CA", you will then see all customers where State_Code = "CA" only

• <Ctrl>S - Highlight the column, e.g, Last_Name, then hit <Ctrl>S. A dialog box will popup and ask you for Last_Name (default is the value of your current record). E.g., enter "SMITH", you will then see your record re-arranged in order of Last_Name, and your current record will be the first occurrence of Last_Name = SMITH.

Horizontal and Vertical Modes • Switch Between Horizontal and Vertical Mode - Clicking the [View] command

button will toggle the browse view between horizontal and vertical mode. • Order of Fields - The order of fields displayed is the same horizontally or vertically.

However, if you don't want to displays fields in vertical mode, while in horizontal mode, right click on column heading, then select "Suppress This Field in Vertical Display".

• Move to Next Field - hit the <Enter>, <DownArrow> or <Tab> keys.• Move to Previous Field - hit the <UpArrow> or <Shift><Tab> keys.• Move to Any Field - position the mouse arrow to any field, then left click.• Move to First/Last Fields - <Ctrl><Home>, <Ctrl><End>• Adjust Field Width - Move mouse pointer the right edge of a field, a -> will appear,

left click and then drag it left or right to shorten or lengthen the field. Or, right click at the edge of the field, select options "Align to Box Above", "Align to Box Below", or "Set to Default Width".

• Force a Field to be the bottom of a column of fields - Position mouse pointer to the field heading, right click, select the option "Force this field to bottom of column".

• Move position of a whole column of fields - Position mouse pointer to the space between field heading and field, a <-> will appear, left click, a vertical thick line will appear, then drag left or right, the whole column of field will move.

• Change Field Box Color, Change Background Color - right click at any empty space in browse, select the appropriate option, you can select from a large variety of color.

Command Buttons

Most of the command buttons are common to all browsers. It provides you with more powerful and customizable ways to access your data.

[View]Click [view] button to switch between Horizontal

and Vertical Modes

Horizontal Mode Vertical Mode

[SQL]

This screen displays the SQL query underlying the current browse. A syntax diagram for the SELECT statement follows. You should not use the WHERE or INDEX BY clauses unless you are implementing the statement temporarily, as these are created automatically each time the query is invoked.[TRANSFORM... ]SELECT [predicate] { * | table.* | [table.]field1 [AS alias1] [, [table.]field2 [AS alias2] [, ...]]}FROM table expression [, ...] [IN external database][WHERE... ][GROUP BY... ][HAVING... ][ORDER BY... ][WITH OWNERACCESS OPTION]

[Order/Seek][Order] This option allows you to change the order in which the browse displays records. If there are any user-defined sort orders specified in the MS_ORDER table, they appear first on this screen.There are two radio buttons that have special meaning: 1) Data Entry Order - Display browse in the order in which it was created. 2) Starting Order - Display browse in the order it was in at the start of browsing.The second radio button will undo any direct sort changes you have made to the browse.

[Seek] This option allows you to seek a record quickly. Before seeking, you shall select the appropriate sort order. For example, you for IV_MAST, you shall first select the order as Item_Desc, then seek by entering the first few letter of the description, PowerSell will then bring you to the first occurrence of these records.

• [Filter] This option allows you to set filtering criteria of a recordset.

• [Refresh] This option will refresh the screen display. Sometimes, PowerSell may have updated the data for the recordset being displayed in the browser, but the browser does not yet display the updated information, [Refresh] will make sure that the updated data will be displayed.

• [Advanced] Some advanced options for the browser.

• [Insert] This option allows you to insert a record above the currently highlighted record. You have 3 choices:

- Create a record with blank data - Duplicate data from the record above - Duplicate data from the current record

• [Delete] Delete a record. You can delete a record in 2 ways: - Delete the record in PowerSell, record is marked for

deletion, i.e., Del_No < 0. However, it still exists in the database. Thus you can recover (undelete) the record

if needed. - Purge the record in the Database. The record will

physically be deleted. No recovery is possible.• [Adjust] This option will automatically readjust all column

widths on screen, to maximize the efficiency of screen display.

• [Undo] This option will undo your entry to the cell. You can also do so by right-click at the cell. Any data you enter to this cell will be un-done; the old data will be recovered.

• [EditMemo] For memo fields, if it is defined (in BR_ITEM) that this is in Rich Text Format, it is possible to shall out the a third party software (such as Word or WordPad), so that data entry is more efficient.

• [Redo] Not yet implemented.• [Exit] Exit the current browse.