Introduction
System Summary
Tutorial
Setting up your own data
Adding another book
Searching for data
Adding a new Author
Adding a new publisher
Editing a book
Add Author
Add Book
Add Book Copies
Add Publisher
Edit Author
Edit Book
Edit Book Copies
Edit Publisher
Open
Reports
Save
Save As
Search
Show Author
Show Book
Show Book Copies
Show Publisher
Statistics
This user guide is split into three parts. Part one is a brief summary of the system. Part two is a tutorial taking you through adding books, authors, and publishers. It also covers editing data once it has been added and searching the data.
Part three is a reference guide to all the windows, documenting what the controls are for, what type of data you should put into each control and what menu commands are available.
Throughout this document I will make use of screen grabs to help show you what is happening.
Notes for web version:
Many images have been scaled, click on the image to view a full size version.
All images are in the .png format not all web browsers fully support this format.
This reference library is stores the following data:
BookAuthors
Publishers
The system is capable of associating more than one author, or publisher to a book. As this is a reference library there is no capability to reserve, or borrow the books.
The system is provided with two example data files, but the user must create enter their own books. Data files can be backed-up as you would backup a normal file. In the event that your computer crashes or loses power you will lose any changes that were made after the last save.
The program can be run constantly or be stopped and restarted as needed.
This tutorial will take you through setting up the system with some data, displaying the inputted data, searching the data and printing it.
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| Figure 1 |
When the program is first loaded there is no data available, to add your first book select "Book" from the "Add" menu.
The window shown in figure 1 is displayed.
For the purposes of this tutorial we will add the book "The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. The title of the book and the books ISBN number (0-330-25864-8) are entered into the first two text fields. The year published is the year that this edition of the book was published.
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| Figure 2 |
Keywords are used to describe the book, and give some idea about what the book contains. Suitable keywords for this book include "humour", "space", "science fiction", and "vogons". To add a keyword type it into the new keyword control and click on add.
If you made a mistake the keyword can be removed by selecting it from the list and clicking on "Remove".
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| Figure 3 |
When adding a new book you will want to add at least one copy of it. For this example we will add two copies. To do this enter the number of copies to add into the "# of copies" field, and click on the "Set" button. After clicking on this button the window shown in figure 3 is displayed.
This is used to control the settings for the individual copies of each book. The settings here are applied to all the copies you are adding; they can be edited later.
Select the repair condition most appropriate to the book. In this case "Good" best describes this book.
The purchase date is the exact date the book was purchased. To change the day value click on it and increase or decrease it using the arrows on the right. Repeat this to change the month and year values.
When you have finished click on the "Ok" button to apply the changes and go back to the "Add book" window.
Because there are not any authors currently stored in the system you need to click on the "Add new" button. The "Add Author" window is now displayed (see the section titled "Adding a new author").
A publisher needs to be added to the system. Click on the "Add new" button (next to the publisher list), the "Add Publisher" window is displayed, see the section titled "Add new publisher".
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| Figure 4 |
The window should now look like the window shown in figure 4.
You are now ready to add the book to the system. Click on the "Ok" button. A small window will appear telling you which accession numbers have assigned to the books added, in this case accession numbers 1 to 2 have been assigned to each of the copies. To keep track of which book has what accession number you should write the number on the book.
Click on the "Ok" button, another window will appear to confirm the action, again click on "Ok".
Repeat this for another book called "1984", ISBN: 0-14-012671-6, by George Orwell, published by Penguin books in 1989. Add five copies of this book.
You can repeat this process for adding any book. If the author or publisher has already been entered into the system you should reuse their existing entries in the system. See the section titled "Adding another book".
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| Figure 7 |
As before select "Book" from the "Add" menu. Add the books title, ISBN, keywords, and number of copies as usual, as shown in figure 7.
Because Douglas Adams is already listed in the system click on "Add", this displays another window this lists all the authors currently in the system (for more details about this window see the section titled "Showing authors"). Select the author from the list and click "Ok". As before the authors name is listed in the "Add Book" window. (Repeat this for other authors).
As the publisher Pan books are already listed in the system click on "Add", this displays another window, which lists all the publishers currently in the system (for more details about this window see the section titled "Showing publishers"). Select the publisher from the list and click "Ok". As before the publishers name is listed in the "Add Book" window. (Repeat this for any other publishers).
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| Figure 8 |
The window should look like figure 8.
You are now ready to add the book to the system. Click on the "Ok" button. A small window will appear telling you which accession numbers have assigned to the books added, in this case accession numbers 8 to 10 have been assigned to each of the copies. To keep track of which book has what accession number you should write the number on the book.
Click on the "Ok" button, another window will appear to confirm the action, again click on "Ok".
Repeat this for another book called "Life, the Universe and Everything", ISBN: 0-330-26738-8 written by Douglas Adams, and published by Pan books in 1982. Add one copy of this book.
There should now be four unique books in the library, two authors, a total of 11 book copies, and two publishers.
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| Figure 9 |
You might want to search the library for some data. All the data in the library is searchable. For this example we will search for authors who have "Doug" in their forename.
Select "Search…" from the "Search" menu. A window similar to the window shown in figure 9 is displayed.
Before you can start searching you need to decide what data it is you are searching for, in this case we are searching the author details. So select author from the list.
A window like the one displayed in figure 10 is displayed.
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| Figure 10 |
Type "Doug" into the forename field, and put a tick into the two boxes to the right of the forename filed.
The first box tells the program that you want to include this field in the search. Ticking two of these boxes results in a OR type search.
The second box tells the program that when searching data matching this field an exact match is not required. So "Bob" would match "Bob", and "Bobby".
All searches are, at the moment, case sensitive.
Click on the "Search" button to start the program searching for data.
A new window will open like the window in figure 11 showing a list of the matching authors.
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| Figure 11 |
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| Figure 12 |
Whether adding a new author without assigning them to a book, or adding a new author and assigning them to a book the procedure is the same. For this example you will add "Douglas Adams", author of "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy".
The "Add Author" window is shown in figure 12.
The author code is a unique number assigned to each author by the program, you can keep a note of it, but it is not necessary.
The authors title, is in this case not known so we can assume that "Mr" is most appropriate (Dr, Mrs, Ms are some other possibilities).
The authors forename should be entered into the forename field and their surname into the surname field.
All the data asked for by this window is required. If a field is left blank an error will be displayed when you try to add the author.
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| Figure 13 |
Whether adding a new publisher without assigning them to a book, or adding a new publisher and assigning them to a book the procedure is the same. For this example the publisher is "Pan books", who published "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy". The "Add Publisher" window is shown in figure 13.
The publisher code is used to uniquely identify the publisher. You can keep a note of it, but it is not necessary.
The only required data is the name of the publisher, the other fields can be left blank, as is the case with Pan books because we do not know all the information.
The address, post code, telephone number and email should all be for the contact at the publisher.
Click on the "Ok" button to add the publisher and close the window.
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| Figure 14 |
This section describes how to edit a book. We will edit the details for the book "Life, the Universe and everything". For the tutorial we will change the title, the ISBN, and add five more copies.
To edit a book select "Book" from the show menu. Select the book from the list of books on the right. Select "Edit Record" from the "Edit" menu (alternatively double click on the book in the list). The window is shown in figure 14.
To edit the title click in the title field and edit the text to read "The Universe, Life and everything". Edit the ISBN field to read "0-331-268-39-2". To add more copies enter "5" in the "# copies to add" field and click on the set button. The window shown in figure 15 is displayed.
As the new copies we are adding have just been purchased today, we can leave the data as it is, so click on "Ok" to go back to the "Edit Book" window.
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| Figure 15 |
We do not need to add or remove any authors or publishers so click on "Ok" to make the changes and add the new copies of the book.
A message will be displayed telling you that accession numbers 12 – 16 have been assigned to the new copies (make a note of these in the books). When you click on ok the edit window will close and you will be returned to the "Book details" window.
This is the reference section of the user guide. Currently the help menu in all windows only contains one enabled item, the "About" command, this displays the "About" dialog.
All controls will display a brief description if the mouse pointer is left stationary over the control for a short time.
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| Figure 16 |
This window is displayed whenever you are adding a new author to the library.
The author code is a unique number assigned to all authors in the library. This number is automatically generated.
The title is the author’s title, such as "Mr", "Mrs", "Ms", or "Dr", although any value is acceptable.
The forename is the forename of the author, and the surname is the authors surname. All the fields have to contain some data for the author to a added.
The program does not perform any checks on the data entered into this window, other than checking that some data has been entered.
The file menu contains a close command, this is the same as clicking on the cancel button.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"Title field not changed."
You have not entered a title for this author.
"Forename field not changed."
You have not entered the author’s forename.
"Surname field not changed."
You have not entered the authors surname.
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| Figure 17 |
This is the window displayed when you try to add a new book into the system.
The title field is for the title of the book.
The ISBN is the books ISBN number, this is used to uniquely identify the book. It can be edited if it is entered incorrectly.
The year published is the year that this edition of the book was published in.
Keywords are used to describe what the book is about, for example a book titled "C++, a beginners Guide", could have keywords such as "programming" and "computer". To add a keyword type the keyword into the "New keyword" field and click on the "Add" button. The text you entered appears in the box above. If you entered a keyword incorrectly it can be removed by clicking on it in the box and then clicking on the "Remove" button.
When adding a new book to the system it is possible to have no copies of it, but if you want to add copies when adding the book enter the number in the "# of copies" field and click on the set button. This causes the "Add Book Copies" window to appear.
You need to associate an author to a book, if the author is already listed in the system click on the "Add" button this displays the "Show Author" window. If the author is not listed in the system click on the "Add new" button this displays the "Add Author" window. You can add more authors by repeating this process. If an author has been associated to the book by mistake then you can select the author’s name from the list and click on "Remove".
You need to associate a publisher to a book, if the publisher is already listed in the system click on the "Add" button this displays the "Show Publisher" window. If the publisher is not listed in the system click on the "Add new" button this displays the "Add Publisher" window. You can add more publishers by repeating this process. If a publisher has been associated to the book by mistake then you can select the publisher name from the list and click on "Remove".
To add the book click on the "Ok" button. If you asked to add one, or more, copies of this book then their accession numbers will be displayed. It is recommended that you write the accession number in each book so that you can keep track of that individual copy.
The file menu contains a close command, this is the same as clicking on the cancel button.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"The date purchased is before the date the book was published."
You are adding a book that you bought before the book was published.
"Issue date is out of range."
You have selected a published date that is either too large or too small.
"Invalid year."
The year is not valid.
"Data is not unique"
Either a publisher or author you are trying to associate with this book is already associated with it.
"The author is already listed."
You tried to associate an author to the book, but the author is already associated with it.
"The publisher is already listed."
You tried to associate a publisher to the book, but the publisher is already associated with it.
"No keyword selected."
You tried to remove a keyword, but did not select the keyword you wanted to remove.
"Either you have not entered anything or it is already listed."
You clicked on the add keyword button but the "Keyword to add" field was empty. Or the keyword in the "Keyword to add" field is already listed as a keyword for this book (keywords must be unique).
"No author selected."
You clicked on the "Show" or "Remove" button but have not selected an author.
"No publisher selected."
You clicked on the "Show" or "Remove" button but no publisher has been selected.
"No title set"
You need to give the book a title before it can be added to the library.
"No ISBN# set"
You need to enter the books ISBN# before adding it to the library.
"No author(s) selected"
You have not associated any authors with the book.
"No publisher(s) selected"
You have not associated any publishers with the book.
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| Figure 18 |
This window is displayed when you click on the "Set" button in either the "Add Book" window or the "Edit Book" window. It is shown in figure 18.
The data entered is used to control the settings for all the books that are about to be added. For example, if you are adding five new copies of a book, and you set the data as illustrated. Then all the five new copies will have their attributes set to show that they are all in a good state of repair and were all published on the 16th, May 1994. This does not change the settings for any copies that have been previously added.
There are six different states of repair, they are, Very poor, Poor, Ok, Good, Very good, and Excellent.
To change the purchase date click on the part of the date you want to change and either type in the value or use the arrows to increase or decrease the value. For example to change the month to January click on the month and press "1" (typing the months name is not allowed).
Click on the "Ok" button to make the changes and close the window.
This window should not display any error messages.
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| Figure 19 |
This window is displayed when you select "Publisher" from the "Add" menu, or "Add New" from the "Add Book" or "Edit Book" windows.
The publisher code is used to uniquely identify this author. It is automatically generated by the system and cannot be changed.
The publisher name is the name o
f the publisher. The contact name is the name of a person at the publishers that you can contact if you need some information. The address, post code, telephone and email are all for contacting the contact.
The only data that you are required to enter is the name of the publisher, all the other fields can be left blank.
Click on the "Ok" button to add the publisher to the library and close the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"No Publisher name set"
The publisher name field is empty.
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| Figure 20 |
This window, as shown in figure 20, is used to edit the author’s settings. It can be displayed by either double clicking on the author’s name, or by selecting the author and clicking "Edit Record" from the edit menu on from the "Author Details" window.
The author code is used to uniquely identify the author and cannot be edited.
The title is the author’s title, such as "Mr", "Mrs", "Ms", or "Dr", although any value is acceptable.
The forename is the forename of the author, and the surname is the authors surname. All the fields have to contain some data for the author to a added.
The program does not perform any checks on the data entered into this window, other than checking that some data has been entered.
The file menu contains a close command, this is the same as clicking on the cancel button.
Click on "Ok" to make the changes, clicking "Cancel" closes the window losing any changes that were made.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"Title field not changed."
You have not entered a title for this author.
"Forename field not changed."
You have not entered the author’s forename.
"Surname field not changed."
You have not entered the authors surname.
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| Figure 21 |
This window is used to change the details of a book. It can be displayed by opening the "Show book" window and either double clicking on the name of the book, or selecting the book and using "Edit Record" from the "Edit" menu.
The title field is for the title of the book.
The ISBN is the books ISBN number, this is used to uniquely identify the book.
The year published is the year that this edition of the book was published in. When editing this be sure that it is not later than the date that any copies of this book were purchased. The program will display an error in this event, but you should be careful.
Keywords are used to describe what the book is about, for example a book titled "C++, a beginners Guide", could have keywords such as "programming" and "computer". To add a keyword type the keyword into the "New keyword" field and click on the "Add" button. The text you entered appears in the box above. If you entered a keyword incorrectly it can be removed by clicking on it in the box and then clicking on the "Delete" button. If you try to add a blank keyword, or a keyword that is already listed an error will be displayed.
The total number of copies of this book currently held in the library is displayed in the "Total Copies" field, to add to this number enter the total books to add into the "# copies to add field" and click on the set button. This causes the "Add Book Copies" window to appear.
To associate more authors with this book click on the "Add Button" this displays the "Show Author" window, select the author and click on the "Ok" button. If an author has been associated to the book by mistake then you can select the authors name from the list and click on "Remove".
To associate more publishers with this book click on the "Add Button" this displays the "Show Publisher" window, select the publisher and click on the "Ok" button. If an publisher has been associated to the book by mistake then you can select the publisher name from the list and click on "Remove".
To make the changes to the book permanent click on the "Ok" button. If you are adding more copies of the book a window will be displayed informing you of the new accession numbers. Clicking on the "Cancel" button discards all the changes and closes the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"No author selected."
You clicked on the show author button but did not select an author to show from the author list.
"No publisher selected."
You clicked on the show publisher button but did not select a publisher to show from the publisher list.
"This author is already listed"
You tried to associate an author with the book that was already associated with it.
"This publisher is already listed"
You tried to associate a publisher with the book that was already associated with it.
"A book must be written by at least one author."
You tried to remove the last author that is listed as having written this book. If you want to replace the author with another, add the other author first, and then remove the existing one.
"A book must be published by at least one publisher."
You tried to remove the last publisher that is listed as having published this book. If you want to replace the publisher with another, add the other publisher first, and then remove the existing one.
"The date purchased is before the date the book was published."
You are adding a book that you bought before the book was published.
"Invalid number of copies to add."
The value entered in the "# copies to add" field is not valid. Spelling out numbers (typing five, instead of 5) is not supported.
"No keyword selected."
You tried to remove a keyword, but did not select the keyword you wanted to remove.
"Either you have not entered anything or it is already listed."
You clicked on the add keyword button but the "Keyword to add" field was empty. Or the keyword in the "Keyword to add" field is already listed as a keyword for this book (keywords must be unique).
"No title has been set."
The title field is empty.
"The ISBN# is empty."
The ISBN field is empty.
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| Figure 22 |
This window is used to edit the details for each unique copy. It can be displayed by showing the "Book Copies details" window, and either double clicking on the copy to edit, or, by selecting the copy, and selecting "Edit record" in the edit menu.
Only two of the fields can be edited with this window, the purchase date, and the state of repair. The other fields must be edited using the edit book window.
The accession number is a unique number assigned to each book in the library and cannot be changed.
The purchase data is the date that the book was purchased. To change any part of the date click on the part of the date to change and use the arrows to increase or decrease the value.
The state of repair is the current condition that the book is in. Clicking on the arrow and selecting the new value from the list can change it.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"The data purchased is before the book was published"
The purchase date is before the book was published. If the published date is incorrect you can change it using the "Edit book" window.
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| Figure 23 |
This window is used to edit the publisher details. It can be displayed by showing the "Publisher details" window, and either double clicking on the publisher to edit, or, by selecting the publisher, and selecting "Edit record" in the edit menu.
The publisher code is a unique number assigned to all authors and cannot be edited.
The publisher name is the name of the publisher. The contact name is the name of a person at the publishers that you can contact if you need some information. The address, post code, telephone and email are all for contacting the contact.
The only data that you are required to enter is the name of the publisher, all the other fields can be left blank.
Click on the "Ok" button to make the changes and close the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"No Publisher name set"
The publisher name field is empty.
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| Figure 24 |
This is a standard Windows95 Open dialog and functions as you would expect.
Select the file you want to open, and click on the open button. If the file is a proper reference library data file the program will load the file and the open dialog will close. Click on the cancel button to close the dialog without changing the data currently held.
All files created by this program should have the extension ".lib" or ".library".
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"This is not a ReferenceLibrary data file"
The file you have tried to open is not a file created by this program, and cannot be opened.
"… This file cannot be found. Make sure that the correct path and filename are given"
The file you tried to open does not exist.
There is only one item currently available from the reports menu.
"Books written by author" prints all the authors in the system, showing all the books they have written. This does not display a window it immediately starts printing.
Saves the data to the currently open file. No window is displayed, and the file is immediately saved.
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| Figure 25 |
This is the standard Windows95 save dialog and functions as you would expect.
Either select the
file you want to overwrite, or, type the new filename into the "File name" field.
Click on the "Save" button to save the data. Click on "Cancel" to close the dialog without saving the data.
The program only supports one type of file and it is the only type listed in the save as type field.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"… This filename is not valid."
This filename in the "File name" field contains characters that cannot be used as part of a filename.
"… This file cannot be found. Make sure that the correct path and filename are given"
The file name and path you typed into the file name field does not exist.
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| Figure 26 |
The search window is used to search the library. It can be displayed by selecting "Search…" from the search menu.
To search for something you select the type of data to search for by selecting it from the drop down menu, which is towards the top of the window.
Figure 26, shows the search window when the author is selected. What fields are displayed depends on the selection in the search field. Any type of data is accepted in the fields.
The series of tick boxes to the right of the fields control what to search for, and how to match the data.
The first column of tick boxes are used to show what fields you want to search; if you enter some data into a field but do not tick the box then the data will not be searched for.
Leaving the field empty, but ticking the box will match all the data.
The second column of boxes are only shown if the search is searching a string. Ticking the box causes the search for this field to be a sub string search. This means that parts of words will be matched as well as whole words.
Currently all searches are case sensitive.
Click on the "Search" button to perform the search and display the results. What window is displayed showing the search results depends upon what data you were searching for. If you were searching the author details, then the author details window is displayed. If you were searching the book details, then the book details window is displayed etc…
Many windows have their own search buttons which will perform the search in the same way as if the search was run using this window.
Click on the "Close" button to close the form without searching for any data.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"Invalid author code"
You are trying to search for an author code, but the value entered is not a number. Spelling out numbers (typing five, instead of 5) is not supported.
"Invalid publisher code"
You are trying to search for a publisher code, but the value entered is not a number. Spelling out numbers (typing five, instead of 5) is not supported.
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| Figure 27 |
This form is used to display the details relating to the selected author.
To display the details of an author select their name from the list on the right.
You can edit the author by double clicking on their name in the list, or by selecting "Edit record" in the edit menu.
The file menu contains two commands. Print prints the details of all the authors currently listed. Close closes the form
The edit menu contains two commands. "Delete record" will delete the currently selected author if they are not associated with any books in the library. "Edit record" displayed the "Edit Author" window.
Select "By name" from the sort menu to sort the list by the authors name. By default the list is sorted by the author code (in ascending order).
Clicking on the "Ok" button closes the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
This author is still associated with a book in the library. To delete this author you must remove the association between the author and the book."
The author you are trying to delete is associated with a book currently held in the library. If you want to delete the author, you must first remove the book, or remove the associate between the author and the book, and then delete the author.
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| Figure 28 |
This window displays for the selected book.
To display details for a specific book click on the books title in the list.
The search button displays all the books that were published in the same year as the book that is currently being displayed.
The two show buttons show the currently selected author or publisher.
The file menu has two commands. Print prints the details of all the books currently in the list. The close command closes the window.
The Edit menu contains the commands "Delete record" and "Edit record". If you delete a book, and there is still copies of it in the library, you will be asked if you want to delete the copies as well. Selecting "Edit Record" displays the "Edit Book" window, alternatively you can double click on the name of the book to edit it.
Select "By name" from the sort menu to sort the list by name of the book.
Clicking on the "Ok" button closes the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"No author selected"
You clicked on the show author button but have not selected the author to show.
"No publisher selected"
You clicked on the show publisher button but have not selected the publisher to show.
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| Figure 29 |
This form shows all the copies of all books in the library. To display a book copies details click on its name in the list.
The top search button searches for and displays all the books that were purchased on the same date as the currently selected book.
The other search button searches for, and displays all the books with the same state of repair.
The file menu has two commands. Print prints the details of all the books currently in the list. The close command closes the window.
The Edit menu contains the commands "Delete record" and "Edit record". To delete a book select it and select delete record and the book is deleted. There are no restrictions on what books you can delete. If you want to delete all the copies of the book; open the book details window, and delete the book from there. Selecting "Edit Record" displays the "Edit Book Copies" window, alternatively you can double click on the name of the book to edit it.
Select "By name" from the sort menu to sort the list by name of the book.
Click on the "Ok" button to close the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"No item selected"
You tried to search for some data, but no book is selected.
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| Figure 30 |
This window displays the details of the publisher selected from the list.
The file menu has two commands. Print prints the details of all the books currently in the list. The close command closes the window.
The Edit menu contains the commands "Delete record" and "Edit record". To delete a publisher select it and select delete record. If the publisher is not associated with any books in the library then they are deleted, if they are associated with a book then the book must be deleted, or the association removed before the publisher can be deleted.
Selecting "Edit Record" displays the "Edit Publisher" window, alternatively you can double click on the name of the publisher to edit it.
Select "By name" from the sort menu to sort the list by name of the publisher.
Click on the "Ok" button to close the window.
The different errors than can be displayed when using this window are:
"This publisher is still associated with a book in the library. To delete this publisher you must first remove the association between the publisher and the book."
You tried to remove a publisher, but there is a book in the library, which they published. To be able to delete the publisher you must either remove the association or remove the book.
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| Figure 31 |
This window is used to display the total number of books, book copies, authors and publishers currently held in the library.
It does not cause any error messages to be displayed.