It should be almost crystal clear unless you have a small monitor and it downsampled the video quality. I'm on a 24" monitor and the screencast was ~80% of the width of my screen.

I started with a new empty project, added a dataset, table adapter/table, grid, then ran it.

Sorry for the delay. I did not see that this message was not posted until I went back to this window. Does Daniweb autologout user after a set time? Or am I just blocked from PM as new/few poster?

Anyway: I am on a 15.4 toshiba laptop with all the monitor settings on the defaults.
Resolution is max (1280x800). I enlarged the video to full screen & it is definitely clear enough to see at that size & yes, I see where it starts. I should be (update, so far can- have been working on it since I got it going!) able to follow this. I really can't believe that MS just skipped all of this. No wonder it would not work.

So I assume that I just repeat this procedure for each table to show on its own form, right?

Then I need to pull each alias from the alias table & figure out how to test it comes out as a match to the one matching school on the school page.

Where do I put this code? Do I make a new form that pulls an alias from its table, does the test/match algorithm & then outputs the correct school name to a different (new? table). I assume to do that I need to create & attach an empty table ready to recieve the output, right?

Then somehow I am supposed to test how many alias's were correctly matched. (The full table lists several thousand schools, each with up to 40 alias/alternate spellings etc).
Where do I put this code? in the program.cs code or a form that displays the results?

Having never used C# before, am I in over my head, or am I just stressed out cuz I am trying to learn a new environment overnight? (probably not recommended, as I used to take about 3 weeks to learn a new language).

Thanks so much for all you help!

Eh I don't even know where to start answering you, that was a lot of questions. For tables that have relationships to one another you can add them in the same dataset. Right click and add another table adapter inside your existing DataSet and you can add additional tables.

If they're unrelated you can create another dataset. Its mostly an organizational preference although the DataSet can enforce relationship constraints if you tell it to.

Lets go back. I have followed your video 20 times & every time I get stuck at the half way point: DataGridview Tasks/choose data source/project data sources/then down 2 levels to the table itself.
But it never transfers the table to the form. I am ready to scream.

Please help. What am I doing wrong?

What do you mean by it never transfers the table? The dataset, bindingsource, and table adapter aren't created on your form?

Datasource yes/binding source yes
table adapter no.
I think I just one table set, but I still can't figure out how to display the data.

Do I need 3 forms, one for each table?

& then call data the tables in the codefile.cs to compare & sort various alias to one real name?

You need the table adapter to display the data. The DataSet is what holds the data, the bindingsource lets the grid scroll around the records one-by-one (basically, it is a little more complicated) .. and the table adapter is the work horse. The TableAdapter is the link that fetches the data and populates the DataSet, thus lets the bindingsource move around. Without the table adapter your dataset is empty, thus no data.

Data Model:
Data Presentation <---> Table Adapter <----> DataBase

In theory you could have the same DataSet, and a CSVTableAdapter, ExcelTableAdapter, SQLTableAdapter, etc. and let the user store/retrieve the data in any format you have an adapter for.

Thanks so much for all your help. I will be offline for the next 30 hours, & then back at it. I have not solved my problem yet, but not for lack of your help. I think I understand the issue, I just am having issues getting the parts connected.

One table did bind, so I assume that means that I could play with that data, assuming I can figure out how to access & display it.

My .cs file is practically empty, unlike yours that has tons of stuff. I tried using an empty project, and adding the parts, so each screen matched your, but then I got a "missing main()" error. I put that in & it builded, but thats as far as I got. When I tried using console project I did not even get that far--no idea why not.

I even tried coping files from the test project you sent back, but that won't work either, since the datasource is wrong. But I was wondering, if I just change the database connection to the full sized database, it should work, right? Or will all the bindings cancel out if I do that?

Perhaps after some sleep your video will sink in better & I'll notice whatever detail I am missing. Thanks again & if I am lucky you'll be back online when I am. Take care.

It sounds like your visual studio install is screwed up. Did you create a new windows form application? It should declare a static Main() in Program.cs. What version are you running?