VbzCart/tables/cat supp

About

• purpose: catalog suppliers (i.e. manufacturers, wholesalers)
• history:
  • 2011-09-28 added ID_Topic field
• fields:
  • ID_Topic: subtopics within this topic will take the place of Departments... or at least that is the current thinking

Future

• Fields which may be added later (or maybe they should be in a separate table):
  • MinCostPerOrd - currency -- supplier's minimum order, dollar amount
  • MinQtyPerDesign - int(4) -- supplier's default minimum order per design (can be overridden for specific Titles)
• Additional contact data should probably be wiki-based. We'll have a namespace for vbz catalog data, probably "vbzcat:", and supplier information will be stored in pages named something like "vbzcat:lb.page", "vbzcat:lb.address", "vbzcat:lb.phone", and so on.
• There are additional fields in the Access version of this table, but they will be added only when it becomes clear that they are necessary and that there isn't someplace better for them to go.
• view "suppliers" was a temporary alias of cat_supp but I've renamed it (2008-12-06); anything still using it should use cat_supp instead

Notes

I'm pretty sure there was an "isWarehouse" flag field at some point. The thinking was that warehouses and suppliers had a lot in common, so why not use the same table. However, what they have in common is basically address information. I don't remember specifically what I had in mind when I deleted the field, but it does seem clear that this area needs some rethinking. Nothing important seems to depend on Warehouse data.

SQL

<mysql>CREATE TABLE `cat_supp` (

  `ID` INT  NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `Name`     VARCHAR(64) COMMENT 'name of supplier as displayed',
  `ID_Topic` INT DEFAULT NULL COMMENT "cat_topic.ID of root topic for this supplier",
  `CatKey`   VARCHAR(4) COMMENT 'unique code, used for building catalog numbers',
  `isActive` BOOL COMMENT 'if FALSE, hide from casual listings',
  `Notes`    TEXT COMMENT "Human-entered notes about this supplier, for quick reference",
  PRIMARY KEY(`ID`)
)
ENGINE = MYISAM;</mysql>