Hi,

In one of my ERP applications, i allow users to have their own shortcut(s) to their favorite forms on their desktop-like of the app for quick launch. Sort of like the normal desktop of windows, except, inside the app.  
It is per user, so, each user's favorites for their forms are remembered and are different from other users, regardless of which station they log in to.

-Any form of the ERP can be added to the desktop (of the Application)
-They can move them around and arrange them
-They can remove/delete them from their background/desktop
-They can launch them by double clicking on them
-The desktop icons will have the form's name/caption
-It detects if they try to add the form more than once.

Here is a short 2 min video of how it works.

http://www.ezcellpos.com/vfpdesktopicon/vfpdesktopicon.html

If anyone would like to see the concept of how i did it and what's involved, i will make a video.. it will be about 20min I would assume as there are many components to it.

Honestly, when I launched this feature in the ERP to my clients, they LOVED it.

Let me know if anyone is intrested.  I would love to share the idea and how I accomplished it.


 

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

Another nice feature, Ali.

I've also got an "Add to Favorites" in my applications. But I only add the item to a menu rather than placing it on the desktop. Also, in my apps the user can add a specific customer, product, or whatever as a favorite, rather than a form. It seems to work well.

Mike


 

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy
 

Mike, i love that idea you just mentioned..

I never thought of it in that way.. i think i might add that feature as well, as a Favorite "menu" from a table that has their "bookmarks"

i like that.. in addition to the desktop-like icons..

Thanks for sharing Mike.

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

Something our customer didn't order yet. We're in the process of discussing a "MyApp" per user configuration/options feature, where favorites would nicely add in.

Indeed my applications also use the screen and keep it rather empty, besides forms started from menu or toolbar.

It's a nice idea to make use of it in a desktop like fashion.

I wonder why it would take 20 minutes to explain. The add-to-favorite button should be adding a draggable container to _screen with it's click calling the same code as the coresponding menu item. Of course you can do more, saving the desktop and icon positions per user, etc.

Keep up the good work, Ali.

Bye, Olaf.

That's exactly why Olaf :)

I wanted to show the container class
How i bind the events of its members (image and a label)
The UserFav table
The saving of the positions
The methods that displays them on the background.
The method that "removes" it from the background.
Adding the Fav icon to the base form class and how it work to call the methods by passing the title of the form and its 'calling methods'

I was going to be detailed in my video..

But, you are absolutely correct in your thinking.  that's exactly how i did it.

Olaf, my background screen is a form :) that uses the entire screen.

i have better control of a form than just a vfp screen.  i made it look like a screen.
 

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

Well, you surely know _screen is a form, too.

That in itself wouldn't matter much, but of course doing your own screen enables you to edit it at design time instead of only adding to it via code at runtime (eg your TeknoSoft Logo in the middle), and it's easier to add anchoring and other stuff to your own top level form than to _screen, perhaps.

I think I use the _screen rather out of a (bad?) habit and for statusbar, sysmenu, reportpreviews etc. working in scree by default without much ado, perhaps.

Bye, Olaf.

I've done favorites as a user-customizable toolbar.

I'm always surprised to see how various users actually use the feature. Data entry clerks zero in on "their" forms, management has their own area of the app, and sales sets up the perfect demo.

Good point Olaf, that's why precisely i use a form instead.  so much easier in development mode (for me at least).

And Dan, you are absolutely right in your observations about users.

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

Actually, mine is slightly different.

I mentioned that my users can add a specific customer, product, or whatever as a favorite. I didn't mention that each customer or whatever opens in its own form.

So, the user doesn't open a customer form and then navigate to customer ABC. Rather, they simply open "customer ABC". If they then want customer DEF, they open that customer (in its own form). (Obviously, it's the same form object, but the user doesn't care about that.)

Going further, my Favorites menu has separate sections for Customers, Products, etc. As a user adds a favorite, the system automatically assigns it to the correct category. If a user never adds a customer to favorites, that category won't appear.

I've also got a Recently Viewed menu that works in exactly the same way. This is on the basis that if a user is working with a particular customer today, the chances are they might want to work with the same customer tomorrow.

It's little details like these that users appreciate (rather than the important stuff the app does).

Mike

 

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy
 

I like Mike's solution much better. IMO, having dozens of icons on the desktop is counter-productive because you have to:

- Minimize or close all open forms
- Look through (typically) dozens of icons to find the one you want.
- Open the new form

Need to open another one? Go through it all over again

I think the best feature added to Windows is the task bar, which basically is a favorites. It's always visible and easy to find things on it.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP, www.craigberntson.com/blog
 

Craig,

I totally agree with you.  After pondering and thinking about Mike's solution.  I totally agree with you 100%.

I am in the process of implementing it in my ERP system.

 

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

I do use desktop shortcuts, so the idea is not necessarily counter-productive or cluttered. Only if you overdo.

I also like the fact Win7 does enable you to keep your set of pinned apps in the taskbar, which kind of replaces desktop shortcuts for me, indeed.

You can always offer multiple ways to do the same thing, so users can choose the ways they prefer.

I'd also go for the recent menu and the categorized menu, especially if the items not only point to favourite forms, but favourite or current entities of interest. The desktop like icons have an advantage to not need any explaination. And you can add a context/popup in mouseover listing recent data used in the forms the icon opens. Why not combine ideas?

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf, great thinking.

I am going to keep the desktop like icons and add the Favorite menu like Mike's idea.

You're right.. Why not have both?

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan

Just want to point out the Win7TLib project in VFPX, which provides a nice wrapper around the Windows 7 taskbar, making it really easy for your app to hook into it.

Tamar

I don't want to butt into this thread, but thanks to everyone for these great ideas. In most of my apps I automatically return the user to the last record they viewed on a form when they re-open the form. I do like Mike's idea of recently viewed as well as favorites. Looks like I have some work to do.

Auguy
Sylvania/Toledo Ohio

Auguy,

Thanks for your input.  the whole idea of this vfp forum is to share ideas, concepts, ask for help, provide help, and collaborate when possible.

:)

Am I Wrong?


 

Ali Koumaiha
TeknoSoft Inc.
Michigan