I had said originally that the From Name and Email address would be an exception to that, and instead be per-database. My thought was that arguably you could want email receipts etc. for each DB/organization to come from a different name. But first of all, I think if the same person is doing it on the same computer, they are likely to want emails to come from the same person. Plus, there are technical reasons for keeping all of those settings in the same place (which would be a bit tricky to explain). And, it will be less confusing for users if all settings on one window are stored at the same level.

Having thought about this, it should be stored per-database, but NOT in the database. That’s because, for instance, if you backup from one computer, and restore to another computer, your desired backup directory may be different on that other computer. And you don’t want that restore to reset the last backup date on the other computer either.

So, there will be another new INI file, one per database, in the new data folder, to store these sort of settings, that are per-database, but shouldn’t be stored in the database or restored when you restore a backup.

Perhaps a new merge code for the database extension, like < >, could be used as part of the image filename or pathname, for the logo and signature. That would work fine for the merged receipts (where the merge codes have been filled in with their correct values), but would not work when editing the template receipt itself – you wouldn’t see the logo or signature displayed. Again, will have to think about it.

Another possibility is to have a way to store the logo and signature bitmaps right in each database. (The actual complete bitmap file, not just the filename.) Then, when you switch to that database, those files would be extracted and saved in one standard place (common for all databases). Then the mail merge templates could all refer to them in that standard place, and everything would work. (Also, having that option to store them in the database, probably with a File Open dialog to select them, would save users having to move them to the right folder themselves, and would also mean they didn’t even have to use my standardized names.)

On the other hand, the mail-merge receipts hard-code the directory name C:\Program Files\Donation in with the bitmap filenames for the logo and signature.

I think I can code the built-in receipts to be modified at runtime each time they are used, fairly easily.

With the mail-merge receipts, I think what I will do is after the program opens the HTML template file, I will have it do a search and replace for “C:\Program Files\Donation\logo.bmp” and “C:\Program Files\Donation\signatur.bmp”, replacing the directory part with the appropriate place on the user’s computer, and save it back if that needed to be replaced.

You seem to have reached a good requirements compromise by using the three different settings locations depending on a particular feature’s function.
How do you currently associate the signatur.bmp and logo.bmp files in the standard receipt format if you need different signatures and logos for each database?

John.

Having the location of the database be in the INI file in that data directory does mean that users can move it if they want, though I will probably not document how to do that, and will discourage it if asked, because it causes support headaches. (Currently you can do that by editing the ODBC data source DONATION_FB, and a few users do that.)

OK.. but I still don’t see it above.. I see that the location of the database will be in overall settings don’t see where the actual database will be. Sorry to be dense.

Your response cleared it up, however.

David

Question.. where will the actual data be stored? (members, addresses, donations, etc.)?