January 2021 issue summary. . . [order code JAN21]

Q&A to Sesame to Excel to Cloud
An engineering company in the aerospace and automotive industries was fixing to move on after 25 years in Q&A. The move wasn’t to Sesame, but Sesame would play a key role in it. They were migrating their data to a cloud-based system designed for their industry. And that system wanted Excel files.

Adding Subrecords with FormAsDialog
Working directly in lineitems subforms can be tricky and error-prone. To make life easier, a  FormAsDialog popup can be used instead. We use a modified version of the Sesame Seasons invoice application that comes with Sesame to demonstrate. The technique can be adapted to any form/subform database. (Sample application included in this month's download file.)

Sesame Goes to Jail
A county sheriff ’s office used their Sesame database to track incarcerations in the jail facility. The data included inmates’ names, arrest dates, projected release dates, jail cell numbers and so on. This was all public information, kept up to date daily in the database and on the county’s web site. The trick was keeping the web site and database synchronized.

Tracking Holiday Weekend Traffic
A company operating a ferry service wanted a report showing an annual history of the total number of vehicles using the ferry on holidays. The objective was to be able to compare holiday ridership from year to year to spot trends and anticipate ferry volumes. A specialized Sesame function and some cool date-math algorithms got it all worked out.

_______________You ask. We answer.

• Gray Read-Only Fields — Not Necessarily — A database administrator had issues with   Sesame read-only fields. The only options were "grayed out" or "not grayed-out." She was looking for a third option and Sesame could accommodate.

• Read-Only Fields Not Copying — Sesame's Copy to Buffer and Paste From Buffer options don't work for read-only fields. Here's the workaround. (Sample application included in this month's download file.)

• Good Lookin' Form Separators — When you need to demark logical sections on a form, a custom static text box along with a solid line does the trick quite nicely.

• One Database, Multiple Company Management — A remarkable database design that keeps track of multiple companies all within a single Sesame  database.

• Find All Years In a Database — A handy little program that pops up a sorted picklist of all unique years in a database. Great for date-sensitive operations such as reports where you want a user to be able to simply click on the desired year.

• The Strange Case of the Crazy Keyboard ― If your Sesame database starts going nuts, here's the first thing to check for.

• Startup Option for Single-Form Apps ― Make Sesame, on start-up,  automatically open to the database in Retrieve mode.

(Insider password required)

You can copy programming code from Inside Sesame Acrobat PDFs and paste it into your Sesame Program Editor.

Select the code with your mouse, then Right click on the selected text and choose Copy to copy it to the clipboard. (If the program continues to another page, do that page separately.)

In Sesame's Program Editor, select Edit | Paste (or press Ctrl-V) to paste the copied code into the appropriate LE/Event slot.

Inside Sesame programming examples may inadvertently contain styled quotes. If these are present, you'll get a lexical error when you Test the program. You'll need to replace these styled quotes with the plain straight quotes the Program Editor requires.

Sesame doesn't like slanted (styled) quotes: “SomeValue″
Sesame likes plain straight quote marks: "SomeValue"

To convert any styled quotes to plain quotes in the Program Editor:

1. Copy one styled opening quote to the clipboard.
2. Open the Program Editor’s Search | Replace box.
3. Paste (Ctrl-V) the styled opening quote into the Find field.
4. Type a plain quote (") in the Replace field.
5. Click Replace All.

Follow the same steps to replace any styled closing quotes with plain quotes then retest the program.