tab driven forms (1 Viewer)

[sliwo]

Hi All

I want to create a form, which has maybe 4 or 5 tabs along the top. The idea of the form is to record client details. Tab 1 might be "Personal Details", Tab 2 might be "Medical History", Tab 3 might be "Life Style", Tab 4 might be "Family Health" etc etc...

My question is, should the fields in each of the tabs all be part of one big table or should the fields in each tab be part of a seperate table? eg Tab 1 is linked to table 1, Tab 2 is linked to table 2, Tab 3 is linked to table 3 etc...

can anyone advise on the pros and cons of each maybe or any general advice? The idea is that all fields in all tabs must be completed. for example you cant complete tab 2 or 3 without completing tab 1.

Any advise would be great.
Thanks

 

[KeithG]

It depends, we don't really have enought info. But with the info we have I would guess you should have more than one table. Read up on database normalization.

 

[Banana]

And to make it clear, your design of tables should in no way depend on the design of the forms. How you store the data and how you present data should be an entirely separate process, and it is your job as a developer to link those two layer together.

Normalization provides us with the means of effectively storing data by minimizing duplicates and eliminate anomalies created by incomplete updates/inserts/deletions while well designed forms help minimizes operator errors and make it easy to use, even if the underlying data model is nowhere implied as what is seen on the form.

HTH.