I'm developing an application and I've decided that I don't want the users to have access to the Status Area - I'm afraid they can get into too much "trouble." I have a few questions related to this:

1) How do I deactivate the Status Area in my layouts?

2) Alternatively: Is there a way to give limited access to the Status Area - so users can't get into say, Layout Mode or Preview Mode?

2) I'm working on a generic search routine which will allow users to search any of the 10 or so tables they can access. The problem is, they really can't understand search results without the Status Area. I provide navigation for them to see records one by one - but they don't know if it's 2 records or 50 without the feedback of the Status Area. (I do have a "Restore" button that will bring back all the records when the search is over.) My super simple search routine looks like this:

Enter Find Mode [Pause]

Insert Text []

Perform Find

4) Any other thoughts on how best to handle this?

Thanks in Advance,

Mark

Hi,

1. In version before 7, you can lock the status area using the script step "Toggle status area[hide, lock]".

2. In version before 7, it could be done in the privileges section by not allowing the user to access menu commands.

3. Keep a calculation fields, "NoOfRecords" and the calculation field should return status(currentfoundcount) or get(currentfoundset). To show the users which record they are browsing out of the total records, you can keep @@ on your layout which would show which record number.

--Sanjai

1) Show/Hide Status Area script step

2) If you have not disbled menu commands they can use the View menu to navigate. For the most part I would think you would want scripts to dictate which Layout Mode to view the results in.

3) creat an unstored calculated text field for each table =

Right("00000" & Get(RecordNumber);5) & ¶ &

Right("00000" & Get ( FoundCount );5) & ¶ &

Right("00000" & Get ( TotalRecordCount );5)

* note if you expect more than 10,000 records you will want to add another zero and increase the number of places to use from the right(ie. ("000000" & Get(RecordNumber);6)

Thank you Sanjai and sbg2.

I've tried sbg2's suggestion - and it works, except that the FoundCount seems to match the TotalRecordCount - EVEN after doing a Find - and in the Status Area does have the correct number of records found. Any idea why?

Thanks so much,

Mark

Make the calculation unstored or it will not update.

As usual -Queue-, - you hit the nail on the head!

Much Thanks,

Mark

So thanks to -Queue- (who pointed out that the field must be "not stored" - which you had mentioned, but I missed,) I now see the correct numbers IF I click in that field, BUT if I don't the click field - it just shows up as something odd like this "2e+10". Ideally the user will never click in that field, in fact, it should be uneditable.

There must be a way to correct this - no?

Thanks,

Mark

Select the field (or right-click on it) in Layout Mode and go to Format -> Number. Change it to 'Leave data formatted as entered'.

-Queue-, before I had a chance to read your response - I went to the "Calculate as" part of the field definition - and changed "Number" to "Text" - that seems to have fixed it. Would your method be preferable?

Thanks,

Mark

Oh duh, it should be text anyway. It is not really a number; it merely uses numeric data. So your change was correct.