I shall be covering the db design shortly, but for now I just wanted to create a few pages in V6 to get a feel for the new features. I would advise against creating to many pages to start with, start small and build up, add pages only when you need them. This will ensure a faster and less painful approach should you need to radically redesign.
I'm starting with a single table, the address table. This will hold address information used in the app as a customer may have many addresses. I wanted to keep it down t a single table at this stage, I can always add more later of course.
The first thing that I noticed when using the wizard to create the pages was the number of pages created off that single table. There must be at least 9 different pages of varying types. If you more or less automatically created you should change the wizard options before you start. that way you get to decide what gets created. Once the pages is created changing the settings won't help you when you regenerate as this page already exists, those new settings apply to new pages.
I deleted the app and restarted again and this time changed the settings before creating the pages. I opened up the AddPageRecordPage to see what the result was. Hmm the fields have been laid out to some kind of formula but I don't know what? You do get some settings that dictate 1, 2, 3 column layout or auto. I could not work out how the fields were laid out, I would expect them to be as per db order by default, the field list in the toolbox is correct but the layout seems random. I can fix this by editing the fields ordering manually. I can also remove fields I don't want to see which I always have to do as ISD creates just about all fields by default. In reality you have to spend time rearranging and getting it how you want. Once thats done the page looks good. I now need to do the same for the edit page... It would be great if you could with a single click copy the fields across from the add to the edit page. Also good would be able to duplicate a page, say the add page and then change it via a setting to edit page, it would save alot of typing and configuration. I must submit that as a suggestion. The guys at ISD do listen and take on board feedback so don't be shy, they won't know if you don't tell them! I can't wait to start adding in the related tab panels and start to nest some of the details pages, all very powerful stuff.
Thats it for now, more soon.
Tim