MySQL: Building User Interfaces (Landmark)

Organization of This Book

Part I, Quick and Dirty, deals with the main tools used throughout the book. MySQL is covered in Chapter 1, MySQL for Access and SQL Server Developers and DBAs. MySQL is the database that will be used in all examples throughout this book; it will be the backend database for the example applications. GTK+ is covered in Chapter 2, GTK+ for VB Developers, Chapter 3, More GTK+ Widgets, and Chapter 4, Advanced GTK+ Layout Widgets. GTK+ is the toolkit that will be used to create the user interfaces (UI s) in the example projects. Glade is covered in Chapter 5, Glade for VB Developers. Glade is the integrated development environment (IDE) that will be used to point-and-click the UI into place visually so that the creation of the UI becomes much simpler.

Part II, Real World Implementations, presents the following three demo projects taken from my personal experience working in the industry:

• Project 1: Order Entry, A Simple Transactional Application is covered in Chapter 6, Order Entry Abstract and Design, and Chapter 7, Construction of the SESI Order Entry Application.

• Project 2: Worldwide Commissions Application is a simple data processing system, and it is covered in Chapter 8, Commission Calculations Abstract and Design, Chapter 9, Constructing the Commissions Application, and Chapter 10, Commission Calculations Deployment.

• Project 3: Management Reporting, Key Business Indicators is a simple reporting/graphing system. It is covered in Chapter 11, Management Reporting Abstract and Design, Chapter 12, Management Reporting Construction, and Chapter 13, Compiling the Key Business Indicators Application.

Chapter 14, Dynamic User Interface Control with XML, gives a couple of quick demonstrations on how to use glade.h to build user interfaces at runtime versus compile time.

The appendixes contain files relevant to the projects but that are not directly covered in the main chapters; in general, this means the interface.c file and the ?.glade file as generated by Glade. Appendix A, Glade-Generated Files from the SESI Order Application, has some supporting code listings from Project 1 ( Chapters 6 and 7). Appendix B, Glade-Generated Files from the Worldwide Commissions Application, has those same files for Project 2 ( Chapters 8, 9, 10). Appendix C, Glade-Generated Files from the Key Business Indicators Application, has the support files for Project 3 (Chapters 11, 12, and 13).