status bar in VB

sound_wave

im in the process of starting a new VB project for college. we as a group are doing a stock inventory system and i was wondering would it be possible to implement a graphic, much like a progress bar, to show the level of stock in the inventory as a visual aid to the user as well as a percentage.

do ye think this is a good idea or would i just be better off using just the percentage in text form? any ideas how i could do this? i was thinking at particular points i would load a new graphic ontop of the old graphic representing the new level of stock .

any help much appreciated .

thanks

dazberry

Originally posted by sound_wave
im in the process of starting a new VB project for college. we as a group are doing a stock inventory system and i was wondering would it be possible to implement a graphic, much like a progress bar, to show the level of stock in the inventory as a visual aid to the user as well as a percentage.

do ye think this is a good idea or would i just be better off using just the percentage in text form? any ideas how i could do this? i was thinking at particular points i would load a new graphic ontop of the old graphic representing the new level of stock .

Disclaimer: IMO

No. I would be of the opinion that there are different types of stock, and although you might want 10000 of one item in stock, you might only want 5 of another item, so percentages and progress bars are relative in that case, and not always that helpful.

Firstly, I'd give each item (or item type depending) a warning, low, normal and high stock level. Assuming this appears in a grid, the warning stock would appear in say red text, the low maybe in orange, the normal as normal (not green), and I'd probably cap the high stock level in that screen (depending on the item) to maybe an upper value and a plus (i.e. 12135 would appear as 10000+ ). But I'd let these be user definable as per item or group, and I would also allow a filter on the list to allow selection of warning, low, normal stock types.

D.

sound_wave

thanks DaZ some interesting ideas that ill suggest to the group in the morning at college. the warning labels are a good idea wouldnt have thought of that.

any other ideas?


....now to finish that damn HR essay.....

dazberry

Ah geez sound_wave, I'm gonna have to charge you now .

Well as i said if this is first presented in a grid/list, it's always good if the list is:

a) Sortable by a number of columns
b) Filterable by a number of criteria
c) Searchable by say name in the displayed list, so for example, a user would hit the spacebar, type a few characters and the grid selection would move to the nearest matching item.

I've used those 3 criteria (with the colouring**) mentioned in my previous post on a number of occasions before and its always worked a treat

**
On one system a mortgage tracking system there were a lot of different states, so I let an "admin" set the colours - and yes, they picked the worst colours possible, but it was that they could differentiate between the different types that kept them happy.