Other controls are similarly easy to use. One of the more powerful of these is a simple form control, called a Note control, shown in Figure B. A note allows you to select options for multiple drop down lists (called "pop-up notes"), as well as an optional name text field.

FIGURE B

A note control can have a number of drop down text fields

There are also simple numeric entry controls, and a nice tally control, which lets you perform counts by tapping a button on the control. The example shown in Figure C lets you tally defective parts (as part of a quality control process) but I can easily see uses for inventory and other purposes.

FIGURE C

Imaging walking around a warehouse, trying to do an inventory. Every time you encounter a given item, click the up-arrow and the tally increases.

Using the data entry controls
Some of the real power of these controls is the ability to string a bunch of them together, which allows you to track a whole process, or gather data from many different places. You can also string together any type of control, including the simple text and numeric entry controls. Moving from one control to the next is simple; as you complete your entry, you simply press the plastic down button on your Palm device. You can also return to previous controls by pressing the plastic up button.

The grouped data entry controls can be further divided into separate "locations," which you can jump to from a drop down list. This helps you create sets of controls for various operations.

Creating those nifty controls
Your controls and locations are stored in what are called processes, a word that appears to derive from the quality control emphasis of this product. You can create and edit your processes using the Windows 95/98/NT PocketLog application (it looks like Macintosh users are out of luck). This program is the central station for designing your controls and storing your data.

The processes are shown in a tree view format, with each location a node with any number of controls. You can add new locations and controls to the tree using menu commands. It also have been nice to have toolbar buttons or right click menus to add these as well and I'm hoping Tescina makes that happen in a future release.

Each location has a set of options that lets you name and describe the location. You can also create new locations and add or re-order the controls within a location from this view. Figure D shows the Windows program being used to create a sample application that's a collection of controls.

FIGURE D


This sample sequence has five controls. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Each control also has a set of extensive options, which allow extremely flexible configuration of the range and other parameters for each control. Although the results of some of these settings is obvious, it would be nice to see an example of what the control looked like while I was defining it.

One nifty feature is the ability to create double-input controls. You can add a second control (called a vernier) that can allow entry of larger or smaller units than the main control. You can see all the options available for the Circular gauge in Figure E.