As usual, you save the day!  Thanks Jeri.  That makes all the difference
in the world.  

 

David

 

David Aylsworth 
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 
Registrar for Collections 
telephone:  713-639-7824 
fax:  713-639-7780 

________________________________

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Moxley, Jeri
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Search dates in forrm designer

 

Hi David,

 

Make sure that you have 'Show Button' set to 'True' for the date field
and then it's a matter of educating, monitoring, and scolding. In a
designer form, users can type into the date field without opening the
assistant, but with Show Button = True they will have the ability to
open the assistant that they're used to and enter the search dates.

 

Jeri

 

	-----Original Message-----
	From: The Museum System (TMS) Users
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Aylsworth, David
	Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:49 AM
	To: [log in to unmask]
	Subject: Search dates in forrm designer

	Have any of you who have been designing your own forms had
problems with putting the "Date" field onto the form?  I'm concerned
that it doesn't seem possible to add the "Begin Date" and "End Date", so
if people update the date field, they do so without updating the dates
that I have been telling people to use for searching.

	Or am I missing an obvious way to search by date of object?
We've got a fair number of objects in the collection that the official
date is "not dated", but users still want them to come up if they are
doing a search for works from a particular time period.  Putting "circa"
dates into the main date field seems to block them from coming up in a
search by date range, as do phrases like "nineteenth century", etc.
That's why I really LOVE the "begin date" and "end date" fields...

	Our previous database did not have them, and our conversion to
TMS seemed erratic with what records got begin and end dates updated.
We've been making an effort to get them in there now, and have gotten
some success with getting people to search by them when they want a
reliable list of objects in a given range.  I'm concerned that if I let
them enter a date without the automatic updating of begin and end date,
that we'll have unreliable data again.  I almost don't want that field
available on the form if it doesn't allow for entering begin and end
dates.

	Have any of you wrestled with this problem already?  I have a
feeling that I'm overlooking something very obvious again...

	Thanks as always!

	David

	David Aylsworth

	Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

	Registrar for Collections

	telephone:  713-639-7824

	fax:  713-639-7780