[thelist] DB Design question

[patrick]

Bob Haroche wrote:

>I'm building an animal shelter web application which will will allow
>an administrator to add animals to a database, including breed info. I
>have a table called AnimalBreeds as so:
>
>BreedID    BreedName
>1               Golden Retriever
>2               Yorkshire Terrier
>3               Malumute
>
>
>Next I've created a form which provides the interface to allow the
>administrator to make any number of the possible breeds to be active
>or inactive. Active means the breed is available for use when a new
>animal is added. Inactive means that breed is not a choice. So, for
>instance, if the shelter never receives Malumutes, that can be removed
>from the active list of breeds to select from. The form consists of
>two select boxes and buttons which allow which the user to move the
>breed options btwn active/inactive status, as so:
>
>Active Breeds (select box)             Inactive Breeds (select box)
>Golden Retriever                  >       Malamute
>Yorkshire Terrier                   <
>
>
>Question: Assuming there will be a master of list of hundreds of
>ptotential breeds (all inactive at the start) from which the admin
>will make a few score active for regular use, what's a good way of
>designing the (Access) database holding this information.
>
>1. Adding an active/inactive column to the existing AnimalBreeds
>table?
>2. Creating an InactiveAnimalBreeds table and moving the records back
>and forth between the two?
>3. Something else?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>-------------
>Regards,
>Bob Haroche
>O n P o i n t  S o l u t i o n s
>www.OnPointSolutions.com
>
>  
>
Why so complicated?
    If you're concerned that the breed list select will get ungainly,
make it a drop-down. Most browsers will allow the user to use the
keyboard to type the first letters of the breed name to get to that part
of the drop-down quickly.
    And what happens if 'whoops, here comes a malamute....gotta make a
whole bunch of clicks to add it so I can select it'. How many vet techs
will remember/have time to do this?

-- 

patrick sanders
http://www.stoutstreet.com
web sites that fit