Items table Revisited

[Rob H]

I thought it best to start new from the thread "Items Table help" that I
originally posted.

Original Post:
I have a photography business that I am setting up a database for tracking
sales by customer, item, demographics etc. I'd like some advise on the items
table, I have over a hundred photographs that I currently offer for sale and
each photograph is offered in various sizes as well as being a print only,
matted or matted and framed. This is going to make the items table quite
extensive.
This is an example of what I have right now:

Item Size Type
Moulton Barn 12x24 Print
Moulton Barn 12x24 Matted
Moulton Barn 12x24 Framed
Moulton barn 16x31 Print
Moulton Barn 16x31 Matted
Moulton Barn 16x31 Framed
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Print
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Matted
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Framed

and so on;

So, each "Item" can have 6-12 "options" (ie: size, print or size, framed
etc) x 100 photographs the list will be quite long.

What's happening is; when I sort by Item>Ascending, the photos are listed
alphabetically but the size and type become scrambled as such;

Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Framed
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Print
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Matted
Moulton Barn 12x24 Print
Moulton Barn 16x31 Matted

I want the list to maintain the order of Item alphabetically, then Item
size and finally Item Type in the order of Print, Matted or Framed. The
obvious is to re-create the Items table and enter the items in the order I
need but once done and I later add a new image I'm back to square one.

Piet's Helpful Answer:
Oh, you're an Excel guy. Excel <> Access. Write a query, and run it
when you want your data sorted in a particular way.

Follow-up Question:
This worked perfectly for the original data in the Items list, however, when
I enter new items and do a Refresh both the Item and Type update correctly
but the Size is not working. If I choose Ascending in the layout view the
old records show correctly but the new records show in reverse(descending).
If I reverse the sorting order for size then just the opposite happens...

Rob

 

[Piet Linden]

I thought it best to start new from the thread "Items Table help" that I
originally posted.  

Original Post:
I have a photography business that I am setting up a database for tracking
sales by customer, item, demographics etc. I'd like some advise on the items
table, I have over a hundred photographs that I currently offer for sale and
each photograph is offered in various sizes as well as being a print only,
matted or matted and framed. This is going to make the items table quite
extensive.
This is an example of what I have right now:

Item Size Type
Moulton Barn 12x24 Print
Moulton Barn 12x24 Matted
Moulton Barn 12x24 Framed
Moulton barn 16x31 Print
Moulton Barn 16x31 Matted
Moulton Barn 16x31 Framed
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Print
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Matted
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Framed

and so on;

So, each "Item" can have 6-12 "options" (ie: size, print or size, framed
etc) x 100 photographs the list will be quite long.

What's happening is; when I sort by Item>Ascending, the photos are listed
alphabetically but the size and type become scrambled as such;

Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Framed
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Print
Dewy Dragonfly 11x14 Matted
Moulton Barn 12x24 Print
Moulton Barn 16x31 Matted

I want the list to maintain the order of Item alphabetically, then Item
size and finally Item Type in the order of Print, Matted or Framed. The
obvious is to re-create the Items table and enter the items in the order I
need but once done and I later add a new image I'm back to square one.

Piet's Helpful Answer:
Oh, you're an Excel guy. Excel <> Access. Write a query, and run it
when you want your data sorted in a particular way.

Follow-up Question:
This worked perfectly for the original data in the Items list, however, when
I enter new items and do a Refresh both the Item and Type update correctly
but the Size is not working. If I choose Ascending in the layout view the
old records show correctly but the new records show in reverse(descending).
If I reverse the sorting order for size then just the opposite happens...

Rob

Oh, so you *are* an Excel guy. There are several fundamental
differences between Access and Excel, and you're still thinking in
Excel terms. In a properly built Access application, your users NEVER
see the plain tables. Everything happens through forms - for lots of
reasons, but the one that's apparently got you hung up is the notion
of sort order. In Access, tables are *unordered* buckets of data.
Order in the table doesn't have any meaning. If you want to sort a
bunch of records, base a query on that table/query and sort any way
you want.

You can set a sort order on your *form* that's based on this table and
the form will keep it that way if you define it.

 

[Rob H]

I may have mis-spoke, I was referring to the Items list query that I had made
prior to adding new items, not the actual Items list. Piet, I get your point
and understand it now, thanks for being patient!

 

[Fred]

After 15 posts this might still be a bit confused, not sure if you still
have an open question. But here's a thought on the sorting.

If all of your descriptions are as precisely formatted and entered as your
example, you could just use 4 fields, and derive your description from them

Field: Item (text)
Field: Dimension1 (numeric)
Field: Dimension2 (numeric)
Field: Type (text)

And sort by those.


And then derive your description from those whenever you need it:

=[Item] & " "& [Dimension1]&" x "& [Dimension2]&" "&[Type]