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Extracting data from a view (new user help)

I’m learning Ninox, finding my way around and getting used to it. But I need a little help please…

in Table A, I  have various fields and have created views to interrogate accordingly. In one view, called “Roster”  (it is a sub-set of Table A) I have columns of data that I need to extract  - Date, Name, Quantity fields. I need to be able to access these values to write in dynamic text - the number of records varies.

What is the best way to get at these values for subsequent use in text?

6 replies

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    • Fred
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    What do you mean by "sub-set of Table A"? Is Roster a sub table of Table A?

      • Keeping the grey cells active…..
      • Graham
      • yesterday
      • Reported - view

       Sorry for the confusion - it's not a sub-table (don't understand those yet), it's a "select" statement group of specific records 

      • Fred
      • yesterday
      • Reported - view
       said:
      it's not a sub-table (don't understand those yet)

       Sub tables, child tables, related tables is the backbone of a relational database. Without it you just have glorified spreadsheets.

      A child table special sub table. It is a table where the records in the child would not exist without a record existing in the parent table.

      For example, if you have a team sports database. You would create a table that track the team name. Then create a child table called Roster where you keep track of the players on each team. You would also create a Results table that tracks the results of the play and that is linked to the Roster table.

      This works fine for one season, but what happens to the next season. How do you keep track of the rosters for each team and the results for each player by season? One way is to add a season field to Roster and Result. Or you can create a table called Seasons and then create a link between Roster and Results.

      You can see my learning process in this post.

      It is weird that the first thing you learn about how to get data from other tables is the select statement. But then you learn very quickly to not depend on it as it is very slow. So that is why learning about creating related tables is so important. You use the relationship to get to records that you need to access.

      • Fred
      • yesterday
      • Reported - view

      If you find yourself needing to create fields with the same root name but with a number at the end, e.g. phone1 and phone 2 or employee1 or employee2, then you should consider creating a sub table that stores the data.

      If you were creating a contact DB, you could create the following structure:

      People

          Addresses

          Telecom (mobile, landline, voip, WhatsApp, etc)

          email

      Now we track 1 or 100 addresses, telecom devices, or email for each user.

      It may seem strange to have a table track email, but in database sense email is data that is not really a defining data of a person so it doesn't have to be in the same table as People. 

      This also applies to addresses and telecom.

      The People table would track their name, DOB, hair color, etc.

    • Keeping the grey cells active…..
    • Graham
    • yesterday
    • Reported - view

    - I've solved it!!!!

    Just seen some code that uses "item"....I explored the syntax and got what I needed.

    - didn't know it existed!

    • Keeping the grey cells active…..
    • Graham
    • yesterday
    • Reported - view

    Many thanks Fred. I appreciate the back-to-basics approach - it certainly helped my understanding.

    I'm trying to manage a volunteer roster system for a charity and I must admit it is a one-dimensional approach that I'm taking. However, that alone allows me to explore Ninox on the Mac.

    One aspect that really bugs me is the lack of ability to attach a PDF in a "mail to" Email. (as a single user, I cannot justify spending charity funds on getting access to sendMail!). Sticking with copy&paste, but it is annoying!

    As I stated..."getting there" but not without the support and time of users like yourself.

    Thanks.

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