Address Book

[decrypt]

I'm trying to make an address book. I've tried alot of things and still no luck. Anybody got any ideas?

[sizer]

and the problem is..?

[iebidan]

well, I think he's asking for any ideas on creating an address book :)

How about using XML for the address book?? something like

 

<addressbook>

<contact>

<name>A NAME HERE</name>

<address>AN ADDRESS HERE</address>

</contact>

</addressbook>

 

What you think about it????

[decrypt]

well i was wondering if you can make a sort of thing like in windows explorer when you do view-detials. Can a regular listbox be split up into 5 different sections?

 

E.g.

Listbox:

__________________________________________________

|collum1 | collum 2 | collum 3 | collum 4 | collum 5|

| Data 1 | data 2 | data 3 | data 4 | data 5 |__________________________________________________

Edited January 2, 2004 by decrypt

[DiverDan]

Try looking into a ListView or a DataGrid control. They'll probably better suit your needs. You can also easily serialize the items in these controls for saving to disk.

[decrypt]

Ok i got it now. How would you save it?

[PlausiblyDamp]

You may want to look at the Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer class. There are a couple of pretty good samples on how to use it in MSDN.

[decrypt]

Ok I looked that up and I got this, but I do not know what to change in it. :confused:

 

    Private Sub btnSave_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSave.Click
       Dim myObject As MySerializableClass = New MySerializableClass
       ' Insert code to set properties and fields of the object.
       Dim mySerializer As XmlSerializer = New XmlSerializer(GetType(MySerializableClass))
       ' To write to a file, create a StreamWriter object.
       Dim myWriter As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("contacts.xml")
       mySerializer.Serialize(myWriter, myObject)

   End Sub

I get the squigily line under the following: MySerializableClass, XmlSerializer, and StreamWriter. It says that they are not defined.

[Bucky]

MySerializableClass needs to be the class that has a collection of

all your contacts. As for the other squiggly lines, you need to

import the namespaces System.IO and System.Xml.Serialization

[decrypt]

Thanks alot, but I don't know which MySerializableClass needs to be changed the first and the second. And I still don't understand which one.

Dim myObject As MySerializableClass = New MySerializableClass

 

would it be the datagrid or the xml file?

Edit: Well?

Edited January 2, 2004 by decrypt

[Bucky]

It's a class that is a collection of your address book contacts. So,

for example, you first create a class that stores all the address

information, like so:

 

Public Class Contact
 ' Private members of the class
 Private m_FirstName As String
 Private m_LastName As String
 
 ' Public properties that are saved in the XML file
 Public Property FirstName() As String
   Get
     Return m_FirstName
   End Get
   Set(Value As String)
     m_FirstName = Value
   End Set
 End Property

 Public Property LastName() As String
   Get
     Return m_LastName
   End Get
   Set(Value As String)
     m_LastName = Value
   End Set
 End Property
End Class

 

Then make a collection, add some contacts, and serialize it:

Dim contacts As New ArrayList()

Dim person As New Contact()
person.FirstName = "Bucky"
person.LastName = "Fuller"

contacts.Add(person)

 

Now the contacts variable is the substitution for

MySerializableClass. You don't need to initialize it again, because

it's already done in the above code. Just serialize it.

[decrypt]

I did that using an xml file though....

[Bucky]

I don't understand, you did what?

[decrypt]

Ok i'll start from the begining. First I made an xml file that included this:

 

<addressbook>

<contact>

<name>A NAME HERE</name>

<address>AN ADDRESS HERE</address>

</contact>

</addressbook>

 

Then I did this so that a DataGrid would display it.

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

       Dim dsUsers As New DataSet
       dsUsers.ReadXml("..\contacts.xml")
       With Contactsgrid
           .CaptionText = "Your Contacts"
           .DataSource = dsUsers.Tables(0)
       End With
   End Sub

now i'm trying to serialize it using this code:

Private Sub btnSave_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSave.Click
       Dim myObject As MySerializableClass = New MySerializableClass
       ' Insert code to set properties and fields of the object.
       Dim mySerializer As XmlSerializer = New XmlSerializer(GetType(MySerializableClass))
       ' To write to a file, create a StreamWriter object.
       Dim myWriter As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("contacts.xml")
       mySerializer.Serialize(myWriter, myObject)

   End Sub

Edit: Well?

Edited January 3, 2004 by decrypt

[Bucky]

Oh, heh. You don't need to serialize it this way. The DataSet can

serialize the data itself by using the WriteXml method. That's all

you need to do, just call dsUsers.WriteXml() with a file path.

[decrypt]

That was easy, thanks it worked.

[dotnetgirl]

what if ..

 

Hello decrypt,

 

What if the values are coming from multiple forms? I mean if user fills in fields on multiple forms, can we use only one class to serialize on all forms giving some of the entries only?

 

Pl. Reply

 

Regards.

[decrypt]

the dsUsers.WriteXml("path") should serialize all of the fields in the xml file. The xml file should be created by yourself.

 

Be sure to not declare dsUsers in a sub, so that you can save it and load it in different subs.

This is what i did:

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

       dsUsers.ReadXml("contacts.xml")
       With Contactsgrid
           .CaptionText = "Your Contacts"
           .DataSource = dsUsers.Tables(0)
       End With
   End Sub

For Loading and....

 

 Private Sub Button1_Click (whatever goes in here which i cant remember)
DsUsers.WriteXml("contacts.xml")
End Sub

To save and...

 Dim dsUsers As New DataSet

Does this answer your question?