Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attached.

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #16
    Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

    Originally posted by Davidk View Post
    Too funny... I can just hear the dinosaurs saying the same thing as they watched the meteor. Well... I guess for them it was all over. Still... here we are.

    I have a feeling we'd all survive if MS went down. Crap... I'd have to go back to WordPerfect... yikes!

    As for the versions, I just add the numbers to the end of the filename when I save... no big deal.
    Davidk, think through this a bit more... The reality is, if MS goes down, Alpha is DOA. (dependencies in place here)

    And while I can't substantiate this with any concrete proof.... I'm quite certain that Alpha is far less likely to be in business 50 years from now than Microsoft is. The ugly reality here is: Microsoft certainly doesn't need Alpha, but Alpha is completely dependent upon Windows. 100% of Alphas "eggs" are in the MS basket. (for good reasons no doubt)
    Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
    It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
    RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

    Comment


      #17
      Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

      We adapt, we re-invent, we survive. Apple will step in... Windows on an iPad... can't wait.

      Comment


        #18
        Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

        GEE! I ask for appending the version number and SNusa is having concerns about the longevity of Alpha and angst about licensing via remote servers!

        I'm not saying you are paranoid even though we can see that the paranoids are out to get you!

        Well, after 40+ years in the business, I have transitioned to today in many many steps. Some were baby-steps, some were giant steps. All I ever wanted was one language, one operating system, and one file system. How'd that work out for me? I am now engrossed not only in A5v11/SQL/HTML5, but a specialized Ruby-on-Rails for mobile devices. This from a guy that started with PL/I, Fortran and then Assembler 360 on punched cards. My head hurts.

        I still have customers using and developing their code on antique tools where the software company is gone, the developers are retired or dead, and documentation has long been eaten by termites. And it all still works great. Still an economically viable product.

        As for loss of critical talent, if Alpha 5 wasn't purchased by some relative giant for its customer base, there'll be another tool set. There are already other tool sets. We just can't chase them all.

        I wonder if YOUR customers are more worried about Alpha going away ... or YOU going away?

        "Programmers often forget that programming is an economic endeavor, not a religion."

        Nover mind, I'll just append version numbers when I download code.

        Carl
        Dallas
        :-))
        Carl ~ Dallas, TX
        I'm so old that pool balls came with Roman Numerals

        Comment


          #19
          Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

          An interesting side not is regarding Google.....

          Without Microsoft, even Google would loose much of their purpose. And while they may even be actively marketing "MS independent" gadgets, phones and tablets etc........ Much of Google development is also reliant upon a Windows development environment. (Linux & probably Apple development platforms exist too...) Case in point: You don't see developers "developing" and building apps on Google Netbooks! (not yet anyways, right?)

          And sure, we'd all survive (although even that's questionable if the 400+ reactors around the lost cooling as a result of external windows dependencies such as power delivery, water supply, and or info network failures etc.) As for that old floppy of WordPerfect... It would do you little good if both you and your computer chips were fried by radiation. (providing you still had power, and and old copy of DOS to load it.)

          The thing (dangers actually) about the depths of MS is that they provide everything necessary from the ground up. (From OS to web servers, and virtually everything in-between!) ~ It may not be the best / fastest / easiest, but it's there and available in a "one stop shop."

          PS: I'm by no means overly fond of MS (although Windows 7 is pretty nice IMHO.) I merely use their products to get me to what I like. (Alpha 5 in this case) ~Which is the same thing that everyone is doing here on this form, assuming all members here are actually Alpha5 users!
          Last edited by SNusa; 01-31-2012, 05:57 PM.
          Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
          It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
          RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

          Comment


            #20
            Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

            But you are an Alpha Five user? Their Developer and Web Server both require remote server validation. Developer must be remotely activated within 30 days and Web Server must be activated immediately upon install. If you want to move either to some new location, you need to remotedly de-activate and re-activate at the new location.
            Please correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, as long as the Windows system name is the same, the activation key provided by Alpha, by internet, phone or fax, etc. is portable from system to system.

            Even so, that would require finding and storing licence/activation key combinations, which I have not done yet. If (hopefully when) systems using A5 become business critical, that will be part of our disaster recovery/business continuity peparation activity.

            Comment


              #21
              Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

              Originally posted by Tony Evans View Post
              Please correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, as long as the Windows system name is the same, the activation key provided by Alpha, by internet, phone or fax, etc. is portable from system to system.

              Even so, that would require finding and storing licence/activation key combinations, which I have not done yet. If (hopefully when) systems using A5 become business critical, that will be part of our disaster recovery/business continuity peparation activity.
              Exactly. I recently ran into this when I restored an image to a new drive on this system. Upon installation I decided to modify the machine name. A5 immediately responded (upon first launch) that it was not licensed and had expired. Since this was only the second machine name it was installed on (same physical machine) the second request for a license was immediately approved. (had I not changed the windows machine name, I don't think a5 would have even noticed anything was different)

              I don't know whether this process would work on the web server though. (Although the A5 web server is presumably disappearing in favor of using IIS "natively." ~At least that is something I read here on the forums regarding the Alphasoftware roadmap......... I'm going to look for the post where it was explicitly conveyed that the Alpha web server is to be discontinued after version 11....

              Here is the link re: End Of Road For A5 Web Server

              Originally posted by gregincolumbus View Post
              This comes from the Roadmap area of What is New in Version 11:

              "These items are speculations and indications of effort, and not promises of future product delivery."
              We expect to stop selling the Xbasic Application Server in the V12 time frame, once the IIS-based Web Server has been fully tested in production.
              Actually, because of this post, I've decided to wait a bit longer to fully dive into the advanced features of a5 web applications.
              (Not sure if it's the right thing to do, but in the interim I can focus my attention on client / sql core development, and migrate to "the cloud" when the smart phone / tablet support arrives.)
              Last edited by SNusa; 01-31-2012, 08:03 PM.
              Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
              It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
              RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

              Comment


                #22
                Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                The same Rodmap Page includes this statement:
                �We are attempting to document all programming changes that will be needed for both V11 releases in time for the Initial Release, so that you don't have to change your Web applications twice.
                Does anyone know if, and if so, where, this is documentation is published?

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                  Originally posted by Tony Evans View Post
                  The same Rodmap Page includes this statement:

                  Does anyone know if, and if so, where, this is documentation is published?
                  Not sure if this applies, because i found that some of the stuff still works, even though Alpha is indicating changes should be made:
                  http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/Server...ng+changes+v11

                  And here's the post indicating things still work in current iterations of v11 Alpha Web Server that maybe shouldn't:
                  http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...l=1#post596110
                  Robert T. ~ "I enjoy manipulating data... just not my data."
                  It's all about the "framework." (I suppose an "a5-induced" hard drive crash is now in order?)
                  RELOADED: My current posting activity here merely represents a "Momentary Lapse Of Reason."

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                    Originally posted by Peter.Greulich View Post
                    It's no big deal to add the version to your download. But I agree that it's not a bad idea to keep patches of any version you think that you may need to go back to. Nothing in this world is permanent - least of all the Internet. I'm especially concerned about those videos. The only reason I haven't downloaded them all (both v10 & v11) is due to space considerations. In this day of financial instability and massive national debt, where even huge conglomerates go down overnight, where the DOW gyrates wildly by hundreds of points any given day, a small company like Alpha could disappear in a flash! That's not a criticism of Alpha, it's just a reality of economic and business life today.


                    Peter,

                    I agree on the idea we never want Alpha to disappear so you could add a dual question:

                    1. Is the source of AlphaSoftware deposit by a lawer firm by a escrow contract in case of a flash
                    2. What preperations did you take (the alpha developer in common) for your customers if the flash hits your business

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                      Actually, you cannot download any of the Alpha videos or the ones at alphadevnet.com for that matter. They don't allow download, only view. Same with the Wiki and this forum.

                      For my AlphaToGo Framework product I used to have it locked down so you were forced to register in order to use it. That's because it is licensed to a single server. But I removed that lock because of what is being discussed here (months ago) - I have little control over whether I am going to be around to help users register/activate/deactivate their Framework. I still want users to register, but it does not stop them from using the product if they don't.

                      Now, building a working Registration Server Alpha Five was well worth the time. It was a good exercise and I still use that same system to manage those who have registered in terms of offering support, monitoring downloads, etc.
                      Steve Wood
                      See my profile on IADN

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                        Originally posted by Steve Wood View Post
                        Actually, you cannot download any of the Alpha videos or the ones at alphadevnet.com for that matter. They don't allow download, only view. Same with the Wiki and this forum.
                        Sure you can. I just downloaded an A5 video - not sure about AlphaToGO, never tried.

                        video DL.gif
                        Peter
                        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                        [email protected]
                        https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                          I stand corrected. You right click on the video link and select Save Target As...
                          Steve Wood
                          See my profile on IADN

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: Software Updates - Any chance of adding the version to the file name? See attach

                            Originally posted by Steve Wood View Post
                            Actually, you cannot download any of the Alpha videos or the ones at alphadevnet.com for that matter. They don't allow download, only view. Same with the Wiki and this forum.
                            Originally posted by Peter.Greulich View Post
                            Sure you can. I just downloaded an A5 video - not sure about AlphaToGO, never tried.
                            Peter is correct and this is something that all web developers need to keep in mind: If it can be viewed, it has already been downloaded.

                            You can try to make it less convenient to save a copy of the resource where the user desires, but defeating these measures is trivial, and can almost always be done with just a click or two through your browser menus. If that doesn't work, you can look in the browser's cache folder, or you can just use a single Xbasic function call.
                            Code:
                            [URL="http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/A5_DownLoadFile+Function"]a5_DownloadFile("<URL of 'protected' resource>")[/URL]

                            Lenny Forziati
                            Vice President, Internet Products and Technical Services
                            Alpha Software Corporation

                            Comment

                            Working...
                            X