A Walkthrough - Inserting Beethoven's 9 Symphonies

In 20 seconds and typing only one entry (the date)

(This is a demonstration of the 'ease of using' the On-Line Performing Arts database system developed by WebGraphicsStudios.com.)

To the Handel and Haydn Society Search Page

To the Handel and Haydn Society Main Page

This is a fictitious "Super Concert" where the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus performed all 9 of Beethoven's symphonies in one setting. This walkthrough is designed to demonstrate how easy, rapid and error free using the Hand and Haydn On-Line Performance database can be. As the database gets used there are repeat compositions and performers. The On-Line Database takes full advantage of this by populating necessary Dropdown List Boxes. Using these List Boxes will result in significantly more rapid and error free data entry. (Always use the Dropdown List Boxes whenever possible.) The Main Entry Form is designed with a "flow" from one form object to another to further enhance this process. (Needless to say, this walkthrough will take longer than 20 seconds because of the explanations that will be necessary. Nevertheless the designed of this program has performed this exercise numerous time in under 10 seconds in order to test the effectiveness of the program and the forms.)

The conditions: The concert will have to have a date and time. In fact the Main Entry Form will not save anything and even prevent you for entering certain data if a date and time are not stated. The concert will be on any valid date you select, with any existing or prior Music Director and Location. The symphonies will go in order with the 9th Symphony having the 4 soloist selected from the list of prior soloist.

Beethoven Symphony No. 1 in C major Op.21

Entering Dates and Times

You have to enter a valid date and time for any concerts entered into the Handel and Haydn On-Line Performance Database. The program will prevent you from saving you work to the database without a valid date and time. In fact, the Main Entry Form will prevent you from entering data until it sees a valid date and time has been entered.

In the "Performance Date mm/dd/yyyy " Text Box enter any valid date with the mm/dd/yyyy format.
- This will be the only entry you will have to type
Tab twice to the "Select a Time" Dropdown List box and press the "7" key on the keyboard.
- The Dropdown List box will display 7:00 PM
- The Dropdown List box contains all time between 10:00 AM and 10:30 PM in half hour increments.
- You can use either the mouse and scroll down to the desired time or use the keyboard shortcut.
Press the 7 key on the keyboard again. This time the Dropdown List box shows 7:30 PM. This is the time we'll use.

Selecting Composers and Compositions

The Compositions and Composers sections of the Main Entry Form work together. If you try to select a composition from the "Enter Composition Name" Dropdown List box you will see it is empty. This is on purpose, you must select a composer first. If it were not this way then the Enter Composition Name Dropdown List box would have to contain every composition by every composer ever performed by the Handel and Haydn Society. This would make the Dropdown List box so full as to be unmanageable.

On the "Select a Composer from List" Dropdown List box scroll down and then select Beethoven, Ludwig van.
Go to the "Enter Composition Name" Dropdown List box and click the down arrow.
- The Dropdown List box will now contain the all the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven that have been performed by the Handel and Haydn Society.
- This is what the "Post Back" did.

Scroll down and select Symphony No. 1

Again there will be a slight delay as the Web page "Posts Back" to retrieve information on Beethoven's Symphony No. 1
When the "Post Back" is finished you will notice...
- The "Key" textbox displays "C major"
- The "Opus" textbox displays "Op. 21"
- The "Select Composition Type" Dropdown List box shows "Symphony".
- The Composition's Other Name, Key, Opus, Composition Type and Selection or Excerpt From are all Read-Only
- This is to insure Data Integrity.

Data Integrity:

In order for any database to work effectively there needs to be a high degree of Data Integrity. That is why many of the Text Boxes and Dropdown List boxes become Read-Only after an entry is selected. There should not be more than one way of entering an Opus for example. Entering Op. 21 and Opus 21 will result in two Symphony No. 1s with different Opuses. The same with Key signatures and composer's names. The database will see Ludwig Beethoven and Ludwig van Beethoven as two separate composers. These Text Boxes and Dropdown List boxes become Read-Write enables only when entering new data. The "Revision" Text Box is write enables now because you are entering a new performance. A composition can have various performance revisions, hence the Revision Textbox is left write enable.

(The advance walkthroughs that include using the "Drill Down's" will show you how to enter, modify and delete Composers and Compositions.)

Selecting The Music Director (or Conductor)

The Handel and Haydn On-line Performance Database uses three distance classifications for person entries; the Composer, the Music Director and Performers. Because queries on the On-Line Archival Search page can be for Music Directors, there is a separate section for Music Directors in the Main Entry Form. There are Director entries are for each Performance, not entire Concerts. If a Concert is made up of several performances and one was conducted by a guest conductor, then having to list the Director separate for each performance will allow for this. If, as in most cases, there is a single Director for the entire concert, then the Main Entry Form has a unique way to handle this situation. (This is what we will be doing as we enter Symphonies 2 to 9 using "Save and Keep")

Go the "Select a Director from List" Dropdown List box that is below the Composers and Composition section in the Main Entry Form.
Scroll down and select any Director.
- Again you will notice the slight "Post Back" delay as the web page retrieves information about the selected Director
- You will again notice that the "Director's First Name", "...Middle Name" and "...Last Name are Read-Only in order to maintain Data Integrity.

Selecting The Concert Hall

Scroll down to the "Concert Hall and Location" part of the Main Entry Form.

In the "...or Select Existing Hall" Dropdown List box Scroll down and Select "Symphony Hall"
- Again there is a slight "Post Back" delay as the Web page retrieves data about Symphony Hall.
- When the data is retrieved you will notice that the Dropdown Lists boxes for "Street", "City", "State" and "Country" are filled in.
- As usual, these controls are now Read-Only

Saving Beethoven's 1st. and getting ready for the 2nd.

We are almost done with Beethoven's Symphony No. 1. Scroll back to the top of the Main Entry but do not click on any other controls at this time. On the Upper Right of the Main Entry Form you will see two rows of buttons.

The "New Form" button creates a new for, clearing all data including the Data Grid. The "Clear Form" button clears the form but maintains the Data Grid. The "Save and Clear" button saves your work to Data Grid but clears the form. The "Save and Keep" button saves your work to the Data grid but keeps all the data in the form intact. The "Commit" button saves the data in the Data Grid to the Database.

Click on the "Save and Keep" button.

This will copy all your data from the form to the "Data Grid". At the same time all you data in the Form is maintained. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see a Data Grid row for Beethoven's Symphony No. 1.

You will notice that you have a partial view of all the data you entered into the Form. It would be impractical to have the Data Grid display everything that was in the Form. An "invisible" Data Set contains all that data and more. It is important to note that this data IS NOT in the Database as yet. The Data Set (and Data Grid) are acting as temporary storage until you "commit" the performance to the Database. Also note that the entry in the Data Grid is italic. This is a visible indicator that this is a new performance.

Now for Beethoven's 2nd.

If you clicked on the "Save and Keep" button then...

Go to the "Enter Composition Name" Dropdown List box and click the down arrow and select Symphony No. 2.
The form will post back and update the form with the data for Beethoven's Symphony No. 2.
All the Form's other data will be unaffected. (Concert Hall, Music Director)
Scroll to the top of the form and click "Save and Keep".
Inspect the content of the Data Grid at the bottom of the form. There will now be performances of Beethoven's first and second symphonies in the same Concert Hall and with the same Music Director.

Repeat the above steps for Symphonies 3 to 8.

We are almost done!! If you want to inspect any single performance, click on the "Edit" link to the left of that row. Click the "Edit" button for Symphony No. 3 then inspect the Form. You will see that the "Composition's Other Name" Text Box contains "Erorica" Since the original entry for Beethoven's 3rd. Symphony contained this additional information, by select it your form automatically brought up the same data. That's the Data Integrity thing we were talking about earlier.

Finishing up with Beethoven's 9th

For Beethoven's 9th. Symphony you follow the same procedure as above, select Symphony no. 9 from the "Enter Composition Name" Dropdown List box. This time scroll down the "Main Entry Form" to the "Performers" section. We need to add an soprano, alto, tenor and a bass as performers. For this exercise will select performers, roles and (for search results positioning of performers) the position of each.

From the "Select From List" Dropdown List box in the Performers section select a female name.
From the "Select Performer's Role" Dropdown List box select soprano
From the "Select Performer's Position" Dropdown List box select the number 1
Click the "Add Performer" button.
- This will place the soprano in the small Data Grid in the middle of the "Performer" section.
Continue with this process until you have entered an alto, tenor and base.
Click the "Save and Clear" button now.

You are now Finished!!

The main Data Grid should look something like this...

All that is left do to, But Do Not Do This For This Exercise, is to commit the data to the database.