A few days ago I finally had an idea on how to add breeder and owner contact information to the database. We could have used a drop-down list with all the breeder/owner names, but this is really not scalable. We could have also used a text box to let people enter contact names, then checked for existing contacts with those names, but this is error prone and complicated, especially for duplicate names. It finally occurred to me that I could use the contact's record ID. Once created, a contact's ID number never changes. This will allow someone to simply enter an ID number to link a contact to a dog. I'll have to provide a small pop-up search box to find those ID numbers, but this will be a lot more elegant and less error prone than using contact names. I still have to rely on the contact's first and last names to import updates to their profile (a small limitation of the Breeder's Assistant application we use), so this means that once a contact record has been created, the first and last names cannot be changed (except if you send an e-mail and we update the database record manually). All other information, like postal address, e-mail address, telephone numbers, etc. can all be modified. I've also found a way to allow duplicate names, which is essential for the number of contacts we expect to maintain (we already have close to 1,000 contacts in the database).

There are three big steps to implementing this, each taking several days to code: creating a profile page to view the contact's information, an update page to allow additions of new contacts and modifying existing contacts, and finally a search page to find contact IDs, breeders by location, etc. I've been working on the first phase (creating a profile page) for the past few days, and finally have something that looks pretty good. You can view Janet Wilson's, Jane Pappler's, or my own profile page for an example. You can also view Pete's Info Page to see how the owner and breeder links will be presented. I know everyone will want to create their own contact page now, and depending on how much time I have available, the update feature might be done in another week or two. After that I'll work on the search page, and then we can finally allow contact changes on the dog [Update] page. I expect everything will be finished by Xmas or so.

js.