Hello friends,
This release comes with the interesting and exciting features that you will love. Let’s go!
This release comes with the interesting and exciting features that you will love. Let’s go!
Automated Document Using MS Word
Thanks for Pierre’s suggestion, apart from printing the content of a record entry onto a pre-formatted Excel spreadsheet, you can now choose to use Microsoft Word to create automated document template. This added option of using Word makes the feature of automated document more complete because some documents are better created and formatted in Word.
Using Word document to create template is the same as using Excel spreadsheet, just embed cell captions enclosed with double colons in the document template file. Multiple value cells can be populated in a table of Word.
Removed Blurred Screen Effect in Windows 10
This installation program fixed an unwanted effect in Windows 10.
If you have selected to scale up the sizes of items in Windows 10 in display setting, the screens of the program get blurred. This issue does not happen on the other versions of Windows – Win XP, Win 7, WIn 8 etc. It’s just because the handling of Display Scaling has been changed in Win 10.
Actually, to remove the blurred effect, you can change manually the setting in properties of the execution file – baudbs.exe.
Right click the execution file in C:\Program Files(x86)\BAU DB Free\baudbs.exe
In “Compatibility” tab, check the box of “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings” and press “OK”.
To save your work, this installation program creates a registry entry for the execution file to disable display scaling automatically, so that you have no need to change the property manually. This will only happen for Windows 10 installation.
Accumulative Summation of Record Entries
There are two new formula keywords, AccSum and AutoSeqNo, to be used in Processing Data After Saving Record. These 2 formula keywords are useful for working across a series of record entries in a specific order.
There are use cases, like working with bank account transactions, you will like to calculate the accumulated account balance after each of the transaction record. The accumulated account balance of a transaction is the sum of the account balance of the last transaction with the amount of that transaction.
Now suppose we organize each transaction as a record entry in a worksheet. If the transaction records are entered following the real-life order, it’s alright simply to apply formulas to calculate the account balance for the current transaction record only.
However, in actual operations, it’s always not so perfect and the record entries may not be entered in the actual order of the happening of the transactions, and therefore we have better calculate the accumulative sums for a group of records as a whole in the actual order.
In this example, the formula uses AccSum to calculate and propagate the accumulated balance for those transactions with transaction date after the current transaction.
AccSum AccBal, TranAmt from f where AccNo='f.AccNo' and TranDate>=datevalue('f.TranDate') order by TranDate
If you like, you can enumerate the transaction records in the order of transaction date. This formula uses AutoSeqNo to enumerate the transaction records of the same month:
Update f Set SeqNo=AutoSeqNo where AccNo='f.AccNo' and format(TranDate,"yymm")=format('f.TranDate',"yymm") order by Trandate
These two formula keywords shows you how BAU DB can be used to process data in a handy way.
Option to Open Another Workbook and Close the Current One
When you have already opened a workbook, and press the “O” button in Main Menu, it will open another workbook while leaving the current workbook intact. Thanks for Nagendra’s comment, and yes sometimes people may like to close the current workbook and open another to work.
Instead of letting you close the current workbook manually, it’s worthwhile doing something to automate this process. Okay, here you go and you can now choose to open another workbook from the Main Menu with or without closing the current workbook.
When you mouse over the “O” button, it splits up into two buttons. The right hand side’s “oc” button, short form for open and close, is the newly added button to open another workbook and close the current one, and the left hand side’s is the same button to open another workbook while keeping the current one.
The fun of the button is that, once you are familiar with the behavior of this button, you can choose to go directly to either the left or right side of the “O” button, so that you can go directly to the button you want.
The same is working for creating new workbook with the “+” button and “+c” button. Wish you will love these 2 buttons 🙂
Smaller Installation Program
The installation program is now downsized from 5.8M to 3.1M, which give you faster access to the amazing features of BAU DB. Thanks for Nagendra again! You reminded me that some system files of Windows can be neglected in the installation file and thus make it slimmer.
At that time of discussion with Nagendra, I had chosen the conservative approach to leave the system files in the installation program as usual, to play safe for the risk if some users really lose any of those system files that BAU DB needs.
Although the worry is not without ground at all, the chance of missing those system files is rare. This fact is further supported by the Windows File Protection feature, with which I have done a testing on it recently. The fat is that whenever a system file is deleted, it is refilled immediately.
Now, the installation program, bausetup.exe, is downsized to 3.1M with the Windows system files removed. All these system files are still available in the installation program with selection of destination location, bausetup-s.exe, just in case when some users really need it.
The above 2 updates illustrate the importance of listening to user’s opinions, which is also the area that I have to pay more attention and improve on my side 🙂
A Fix in Worksheet Setting
In worksheet setting, when a value in “Column Caption” in Browse Pane’s Cell Properties is changed, it will lead to the 2 values, “Table” and “Field”, of a label cell in Input Pane’s Cell Properties filled with values, whereas for a normal label cell, there shall be no value defined for “Table” and “Field”.
This triggering by an action in Browse Pane’s Cell Properties which changes the data in Input Pane’s Cell Properties is due to some wrong indexes of formulas which is stored in the file bauSetup.dbp and these formulas are fixed now.
If you have changed anything in the file – bauSetup.dbp, like added local translation of the screen texts and program messages, you should make a backup of it before running the installation program, and apply your change back to the new file when installation is completed.
A Fix about Page Break in Excel Report
The page break location in Excel reporting of MultiPreprint format is not correct. This is fixed now.
A Fix in Concatenate Column Cell Values
“Concat” is a calculation formula type, which concatenates all the values of the cells in a column of multiple value cells and separates the values with comma. This fix removed the commas that appear in the beginning and end of the string.
And Finally …
Thanks again for the appreciations of BAU DB from all of you, and most importantly all the comments and suggestions that have made BAU DB better and better. Though, this is my job to make BAU DB becomes a great tool, the opinions and thoughts from you – the actual users are irreplaceable. That’s why I call you all friends now. And this is also my duty to open up and listen better to your thoughts 🙂
How do I Update
As usual, download from here and install it on top of your current installation. This installation has updated the setting file – bauSetup.dbp. If your have changed anything in that file, make a backup of it and apply your own changes to the new file after installation.
Hi Eric,
It’s a good thing to read you. Good work. It’s really nice your update. You work hard to deliver a good software and for all the users(I’m sure) I have a very good thankfullness for you. Your software is better and better. I don’t know if you can help me but I have this message when I try to print with a word template. “formula issue: access denied”. I have office 2010 and I have removed the “fileblocked parameters”. My templates are in 97-2003(*.doc) format and in 2010 format(*.docx). But nothindg to do impossible to open the one of the files with Bau DB. I dont’t know what else to do?
Best regards
Pierre
Hi Pierre,
Yeah, I’m working hard on BAU DB as usual.
To clarify your issue, so you selected the word template and then nothing happened and only found the message, right?
Is your Word template files placed in local computer?
Could you send a print screen of the error message to me? If alright, you can send to my gmail account : aukaywah@gmail.com
Thanks
Eric
Hi Pierre,
It’s great to know that you have found the issue and can now using the Word templates happily!
🙂
Cheers
Hello Eric,
I wonder one thing about the free edition of BAU DB. I have 2 computers.
One desktop and one portable. I make a litte database with Bau DB with my desktop and
try to use it on my portable with the same free edition (the last one provided on your site).
But Iget the following message: “This program is single user version. It cannot share files with
other users”. I know that but I believed that we could provide a solution to another user with the free
version. So if I build a solution for someone and I want to give it to him, he will not be able to use it?
What is the process to use the solution with another computer or someone else for each one of them?
I just want to understand what I need to do?
Regards
Pierre
Hi Pierre,
Thanks for pointing out that issue. Although that feature is already on my list, you make a step faster to announce here 🙂
That feature will be a button to clear the locking records, so that database created for other people or other computers can be run by the free edition of BAU DB.
I still have to complete the documentation of creating Excel report. After that there will be a release update again including that feature.
Cheers
Eric
Hi Pierre,
In the mean time, you can also follow these few steps to let your portable computer work with the database created in desktop computer.
1) Let’s say you have created a database called Book1 in desktop,
2) Create a database also called Book1 in portable computer,
3) Copy Book1.dbp from desktop to portable. This is the file that carries all worksheet settings and formulas,
4) In portable computer, open Book1, and go to Worksheet Setting,
5) Select each of the worksheets and click “Update DB Tables”.
You can now use the database in your portable computer with BAU DB Single User Edition. In this way, you are using a new database in your portable computer, not sharing the same database with your desktop computer. The same applies when you create a database for other people.
Cheers
Eric
Eric,
Perfect, it works. Great.
Thanks
Hi Eric,
Could you give me an example with taxes on invoice. Here in Quebec city we have to charge taxes on invoives. We have to manage these taxes and remit the total amount for a month or for three months. Some kind of report for the government. I believe the taxes must be in the database to produce a report and pay the government.
Regards
Pierre
Hi Pierre,
You can create a worksheet for report on invoices. In the worksheet, there are “From date” and “To date” for selecting the period of the invoices that you want to pulled into the report.
You can calculate the taxes in that worksheet, either by calculating tax on invoice basis, or summing up the total amount of invoices and calculate the tax.
The fun of using worksheet to create report is that you can further process the data in the report worksheet.
Is that alright for you?
Cheers
Eric
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your explanations. Yes it’s alright for me.
Regards
Eric,
Is it possible to make some kind of alignment (center, right, left) in a BAU DB worksheet cell?
Regards
Hi Pierre,
Currently, if you have changed the field type of a cell to numeric value – currency, integer, long, single, double, the cell will be aligned to the right.
That said, it will be awesome to have formatting function on BAU DB worksheet. Apart from cell alignment, font style, size and cell color etc. can be changed easily just like using Excel spreadsheet.
What do you think? Do you like it?
Cheers
Hi Eric,
Yes I like it. It’s a good thing we can choose font,size and cell color. It is a convenient way to point out some data. As usual good work.
Regards
Pierre
Hi Pierre,
Just want to let you know the documentation about moving report data onto Excel spreadsheet is ready. Enjoy!
Cheers
Hi Eric,
Yes, I enjoy what your documentation is. Great. I wanna know how to update one table from another one just when I need to?
Pierre
Regards
Hi Pierre,
Not quite understand your question, can you elaborate a little bit?
Cheers
Hi Eric,
All I want to do is copying some data in a table to another table.
Example: Suppose this query: update table1, table2
set table1,field1 = table2.field2
where table1.field3 = 10
This query is for updating some data. But I don’t know where and how to insert this query in the worksheet. It’s a query like yours to update stocks in your sample database.
Thanks
Pierre
Regards
Hi Pierre,
Thanks for your good question again. That is the missing piece of feature that is not yet put into documentation.
You can create a button in a worksheet to trigger some formulas defined in the Processing Data of Worksheet Setting. Here you go:
Set the cell property for a Countering Button:
A Counterig Button is created:
Add formulas for the Countering Button. These formulas will not be executed when saving record.
Hi Eric
I did exactly what you wrote and the table is updated when I save the record and not just when I press the button. Something I did wrong.
Regards
Pierre
Hi Eric,
Is it possible to execute a formula only when I press a button.
It is what I try to do but it does not work at all. I press the countering button and nothing.
All I want to do is updating a table only when I press a button not when I press the save button.
I know how with the save button.
Regards
Pierre
Hi Pierre,
Yes , you are correct. I’m working on it and will let you know when it’s ready.
Thanks for your comment.
Hello Pierre,
Good news is that Countering Button is ready now. Usage of the button remains the same as described in the above comment. You can go to download page for the update.
Cheers
Hi Eric,
Fantastic.
Thank you again.
Regards
Pierre