Dear All

I am writing to seek your advice, please.

I would like to document all the textbases that I have ever created (there are currently 42 of them!), and all the menus, sets, forms, skeletons etc. So that if anything ever happens to me, someone else will be able to pick up where I left off...

At the same time, I would like to "clean up" some of the textbase elements (even textbases) that I am no longer using, however, I am nervous about renaming or deleting anything (e.g. a set), just in case I have used it somewhere else (e.g. on a menu box), and since forgotten about it.

I know that my field, form, menu etc names have been very "ad hoc" over the years, and I would like to tidy these up too. Also most things have nothing in the description field.

I was just wondering if any of you have ever done this before?
How did you go about it?
Do you have any tips, tricks or shortcuts?
What is the best way of naming reports, skeletons etc so that you don't lose track of what they are used for, who they are used by, and whether, indeed, they are currently "in use".


I look forward to hearing from anyone who has experience to share...


Many thanks in advance

Sally,

We have a DB/TextWorks textbase we created for helping clients audit the status of their various textbases. We usually amend it for each project but we'd be happy to send you a zip file of it to see if it helps start you off. Please reply to us privately if you would like a copy.

With regard to textbase elements, it definitely helps to have a naming convention set up. We tend to start each form name with its use as in Entry; DisplayBrief; PrintFull etc. but any method that groups forms logically would work. We also suggest that forms that you are considering for deletion be renamed so that they start with z i.e. zPrintLabelTest. This way they drop to the bottom of the list but can be easily renamed back if it is found that they are actually needed!

Hi Sally:

Yes, I've done exactly the sort of thing that you are describing. I have some 40-50 textbases myself and I've recently gone though them and deleted/archived ones that I'm no longer using, cleaned up unused fields, forms and textbase elements and documented the textbases. Some recommendations:

* Kathy's tip about renaming the forms prior to deleting them is a good one. That way if you have a form that you think isn't being used, but actually is, the search results will show up as the basic search form in webpublisher, because webpub can't find the actual form. Once you find problems like that you can then just rename the form back to what it was.

* As for naming conventions, I've tried to get away from multiple words names for textbase fields (i.e. using 'docNo' rather than 'document number' for a field name). DB/Textworks will allow them, but sometimes I find that the spaces don't work so well when you are querying the database.

Those are a couple of suggestions off the top of my head. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Dave

Dear Dave

Thanks for your response and useful advice. I have contacted Kathy directly and will let you know what other tips and tricks I gather, by posting here again.

Best wishes

Sally