5. Standard Database Design
This is a fairly standard database design, not particularly flashy or colourful but packing a lot of information and functionality into a single screen and is intended for in-house use. This is part of a mail-order application with the displayed screen being used to take telephone enquiries and orders. The screen is tabbed with, for example, Customer and Order data being on other tabs, the tab shown being the Enquiry tab. The user enters data into the 'Book Search Text' field and then clicks on 'Find' (or presses the <Enter> key). The system then detects the type of data entered and acts accordingly. If a number has been entered then only the 'Item No.' is searched. If text has been entered then the relevant text fields (Title, Author, Description, Footnotes and Keywords in this case) will be searched. Matching books appear in a separate window (not shown) which is synchronised with the main window. Note also the simple stock control section at the bottom which tells the user how many of that particular book are in stock