RE: Drat you, John P.

[John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com>]

It's a bitch when you progress from it being good enough to have the
information available in ANY form, to having it available in the BEST form
for your readers.

I got tired of reworking content to show different views, so I put the
information in an Access database, and to create different views, I use an
sql query. By changing a couple of variables, I can determine what columns I
want, what order they to appear, and what filters should be applied against
the information. Saved me lots of time, and not only that, I can update the
database once and with the same information, update multiple tables much
easier.

Because I got tired of keeping track of the sql statements, I just add one
extra line at the bottom of each table, span it across the columns so it's
as wide as possible, then paste the statement in the row. When I need to
rerun the query, copy it to clipboard and paste it into the MS SQL Server
query analyzer. The extra benefit is that since most of my users speak that
language, they see the criteria used to select the data and makes them more
comfortable. 

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
NY: 212-414-6656
Dayton: 732-438-3372
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream
of things that never were, and ask why not?"
-----Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968 presidential campaign



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stevenson, Rebecca [mailto:Rebecca -dot- Stevenson -at- workscape -dot- com]
> 
> I'm suddenly in the position of doing a database reference 
> for a configuration tool we're building for internal use. 
> Here I am, doc'ing merrily away when it occurs to me that 
> while of course I will explain which database tables are 
> being changed by which pages of the config tool, I should 
> probably do it the other way around, too....
> 
> Like I didn't have enough to do. Thanks a bunch. <g> 

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