Features:

• highly flexible for different application
• data set that QuickRecords have to work with are not hard-coded in the source code but are specified in the QuickRecord system tables
• heirarchal type Category system
• option to choose columns to be displayed and in what order

At this point QuickRecords is in Beta status and only one setup is available (the one I'm using while developing this application). If you have a particular application for QuickRecord in mind and the current setup doesn't fit your need you could probably drop me an email describing your intended use for it and I'll try to create one for you but I'm limited with the the column types QuickRecords currently have right now. A tutorial to create the setup(initial database structure and content) will follow soon and even farther down the road is a seperate wizard-like application to initially setup QuickRecords(which is planned to be part of the programs instillation).

For now you could probably look at the contents of qr_perspective, qr_tables, qr_columns and qr_perspectivecolumns and see if you could figure it out yourself. To those who have figured out how the setup QuickRecords by populating the tables mentioned, I hope you share your setup with us. thanks. :)

Screenshots:

Download

TODO:

• improve on the interface detail ( like when editing many-to-many related items)
• option to have SQLite as the database. this will make previewing QuickRecords easier because there would be no need to setup a MySQL server.
• option to support other sql database such as postgresql, MSSQL and ODBC
• right now QuickRecords is a bit boring for most people but hopefully adding Picture type column will change that
• add other types of supported column as well such as date, time, password, etc...
• clean up and organize the interface and make it more intuitive
• add 'eye candy' details such as options to assign individual icons to categories, perspective (notebook pages) and even columns.
• windows installer (I'm leaning towards NSIS)
• test the code in different platforms (right now I'm developing this in a windows machine.)
• organize sourcecode documentation
• make a user manual
• make a wizard to initially setup QuickRecords.
• incorporate export to excel feature

How To Install:

Since this is still a Beta version, installation is not a point-and-click process and some knowledge about mysql (and compiling?) is needed.

• Get the initial settings (mysql dump) and load it to your test database. If you are trying it out, its probably best if you first use the dump that is populated with sample data.
• Download the zipped file, unzip it in a test directory and then simply run it.(or download the source files and compile it - you will need libmysql and libmysql++ libraries)

To those who got the source you will need to have libmysql and libmysql++ libraries. If you have succesfully compiled and run the program from another OS please report to me your success. Thank you.

Tips on how to use:

I'm planning to write a manual for QuickRecords but I have to iron out my code first. I made this program as user-friendly as possible so hopefully anyone can use it right away. Here are a few tips for using QuickRecord

• Click on the menu Connection>Connect and a dialog asking for the mysql database connection detail will pop up and supply it with the neccessary information regarding your database then click the connect button.
• click on View>Display Columns to choose the columns you want to display and in what order
• right click on the grid column labels for editing related items (and sorting of columns later on)
• right click on the category tree items to add/delete/rename category nodes
• activate a category tree-node (by double click, pressing enter or spacebar) and records under that category (including child categories) will be show on the grid display

Limitation:

Since this project connect directly to the database and does not notifiy real time changes to the data it might not be advisable for mutli-user application.

I would like to thank the following opensource projects, communities and individuals that have made this project possible.

• wxWidgets
• wxDev-Cpp
• MySQL
• MySQL++ (C++ API for mysql)
• wxforum.org
• Apache
• PHP
• phpMyAdmin
• Dinesh (for the info regarding mysql c++ lib - www.dvrsol.com/programming.html)
• Gijs Van Tulder (for the tutorial regarding storing heirarchal data into database - www.sitepoint.com/article/hierarchical-data-database)
• BlueSphere icons
• 

For questions you can contact me at owald@yahoo.com

History

QuickRecords is a project I've been spending my time on while trying to learn GUI programming. My first attempt with windows programming was with Visual Basic. VB was such a fun programming language to learn. The learning curve is not that steep, and with extensions like ADO, making database application was easy. I didn't get far with VB though and I quickly moved to C# but I really got as far as reading online tutorials and following them step-by-step. That was ok for me since I was able to get my feet wet with windows and object oriented programming. What I really want was a multi-platform widget framework so I started looking at Qt but before I get far I stumbled upon wxWidgets. Added to that, I also stumbled upon wxDev-Cpp which made learning wxWidget fun and easy.

QuickRecords is actually a sub project to a POS(Point of Sale) system I was planning to create. It was initially planned to be a backend admin software to orginize items that will show up in the POS interface but I think QuickRecords is usefull by itself to be a project of its own. This was designed from the start to be as flexible as possible to accomodate most of user's situation and application.

The reason for such interest with POS system was because I previously worked for an IT company that provide whole software package (POS interface, web-based backoffice administration, sales report module, marketing reports, etc.. ) to run a fastfood chain. I was a database admin/developer that time but I was involved with most of the operation. The only operation I was not involved with was the development of the windows POS interface because I didn't know windows programming that time. Learning windows programming, specifically wxWidget, plus enhancing my PHP skills (particularly object oriented PHP programming with PHP5) and database skills (specially with the upcomming mysql v.5) I could hopefully write a multi-platform POS system of my own.

Developers:

First of all, Data Perspective is the phrase I use to describe viewing data at different points-of-view. If there is an existing terminology that is more proper for this concept please inform me but I will still continue to use the term.

I encourage developers to look into my code and comment on it. I will take it constructively and please don't be too harsh :) since this is the first big project I made while trying to learn C++, wxWidgets and object oriented programming at the same time. I'm sure you will find a lot of things to comment about my code. There are things I'm aware of right now and here are some of them:

• I'm not sure if I'm cleaning up all the stuff in the heap before the program quits. Hopefully I'll be more aware of thing that I need to clean up and the thing that wxWidget will clean up automatically in the future. If you see stuff in the code that I should clean up please tell me so.
• Convention. I think I'm mixing up convention such as naming variables and other syntax convention. Hopefully I could orginze it again. I'll also try to view source code of other open source project to get an idea of good convention and coding style.
• I'm not using the full power of MySQL++ library
• I might be using too much vectors/STL
• my wxWidget code is not yet written to be multi-platform from the start.

if you found anything else please tell me so I can improve on my programming.

Things that may be of interest to other developers:

• I 'cut-and-paste' the code from wxGridChoice editor from the original wxWidget sourcecode and modified it to add client data for each item. Check it out though I have to improve it more. (in my opinion adding client data to wxGridChoidEditor should be made standard)
• I was able to put a sash window inside notebook pages but I'm still having problems with layout updating.

Tutorial on how to populate QuickRecords system tables to configure it depending on your application

TODO:
To developers that have figured out how to populate QuickRecord tables, I hope you will share your setup with us so other can benefit from the settings you have made. thanks.

Tutorial on how I compiled MySQL++

This is a tutorial on how to compile MySQL++ since most of the reply I found in wxforum involves only Visual Studio. There as no mention of using wxDev-Cpp (or simply Dev-Cpp) and most pointed out downloading the free compiler from Microsoft website and build the MySQL++ library from there. This was a test that I made and was supprised that it worked.
TODO:

Tutorial on how to create a libmySQL.a library file from libmysql.dll

I'm not sure if this will be usefull to experienced C/C++ programmer (this might be common knowledge for them) but from my own experience I had a hard time creating wxWidget application that connect to the latest mysql version because it keeps complaining that that the mysql library I was using (from MySQL.Devpack) is an old version. I look around the web for solution and found very little answer then I stumbled upon a website that taught me how.
TODO:

Tutorial on how to create a libmySQL.a library file from libmysql.dll

Tutorial on how to compile a libmySQL.a from source using Dev-Cpp
TODO: (still figuring this out. right now I'm trying to learn about make files :) )