I know how to fix the problems, but it's going to kill a day or more just cuz I got the update for something else I needed... and I just wonder why this has to happen... whiney baby video: http://screencast.com/t/o8rJoEiGkP
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 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:
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:
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.
- 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
Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fields
Collapse
X
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Hi Carol,
One question, were these alterations mentioned in the release notes? Which I'm sure you read first!!!!Regards
Keith Hubert
Alpha Guild Member
London.
KHDB Management Systems
Skype = keith.hubert
For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
I do read the release notes first (altho some of it is over my head). I just went back and did a Find on the Release Notes page (which goes back to Octboer) and did not find anything talking about how formats from an older Display Format builder would no longer work. I did see where they were having to take care of stuff about commas and formats and reserved words, so maybe in all of that, they had to do something to improve the Display Format. I get it... but I just get tired when a bunch of my stuff that was ok is now not ok.. makes me want to avoid upgrades... cuz the more grids I build, the more I always have to go back through and fix to work with latest upgrade. I know they are working to have the best product.... and this is why these things happen... just felt whiney about it this morning...
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Something Alpha we should all be well trained on by now, yet many of us ignore it out of laziness, is to backup the files before doing the upgrade.Gregg
https://paiza.io is a great site to test and share sql code
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
I always back up before installing, and I always keep copies of previous install exe files (naming them with dates). I have just rolled back to the Jan 10 update that has been working pretty well for me. Had to grab a couple of my grids from my backup because something about the new update broke my Enable Expressions on them, and that problem remained after rolling back to the Jan 10 version. When I put my backup grids back in, my Enable Expressions became ok again.
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Keith, backward comparability is a must, in the same products development. What has happened to Carol is totally unacceptable, and if known about by Alpha, a display of arrogance to developer needs. If backward compatibility cannot be assured, then "the product" needs "another name" so it's clear it's not the same product and cannot be relied on to provide continuity.Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Hi Peter,
I totally agree, backward comparability is a must, in the same products development. I recall there was a problem with a new version of Alpha, when [ ] had either to be or not used instead of what was already there. If such a change as Carol has found has been done, then it is only right that a notice should be put out.
Carol's plight would unfortunately be just the same, a developer would have to hunt down all those changes, before any end user or paying customer got upset by error messages that would surely pop up.Regards
Keith Hubert
Alpha Guild Member
London.
KHDB Management Systems
Skype = keith.hubert
For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
This particular problem had to do with losing formatting on all numbers (which doesn't make people using an accounting program happy). I had used the Display Format builder as it was several months ago to format numbers and percents. The percent format now threw an error and grids with percents on them would not open. I guess the Display Format builder has been providing a different format for several months, but I had been copying grids I have as templates so format continued in those, and the formats continued to work. Something changed in the last few builds (not sure which since I had been sticking with the Jan 10 build until now). But.... I did decide to install the latest one again (Mar 12) and spent all day yesterday changing all those formats in my many, many grids. I decided that was probably best for the future. Then late yesterday I read another post here that the HTML editor is broken in this build.... and sure enough... it is.... no Close or Save buttons. Alpha says they are working on it. I have now opened every grid in the latest build to fix formats, and am concerned to roll back after doing that.... don't want to use my backup cuz I don't want to lose all the re-formatting I just did. So..... now am stuck with this build with broken HTML editor (which is used quite a bit in my app). Am not able to deploy and give my customers some of the latest I've been promising them..... aaaaargh
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Making a program 100% backwards compatible is a laudable goal and one we try to maintain at all times. But sometimes it isn't possible. It is was, you could still run Windows 3.0 programs on Windows 7 without modification. As programs evolve, solutions that made perfect sense when designed may later may show some limitations. In this instance, a number of international users pointed out that our method to support regional numeric formats was flawed. We were relying on the developer adding a display format using str() to set the display, but in some instances, that required some functionality to be turned off, such as write conflict checking.
Working with a number of developers we recognized the original display format methodology for numbers worked, but was fundamentally flawed. After many hours of analysis and a couple users testing many various solutions, we found a proper solution, which was to automatically support the regional formats without the need for display formats. However, we knew that could break some existing display formats that used str() to convert numbers. We were faced with a decision to correct the functionality and potentially break some user code, or leave the old method in place which effectively prevented many international users from using the full functionality of the program. Part of the determining factor was another decision made quite some time ago for a completely different reason to change the syntax to convert numbers to character by using convert_type(). This V11 method worked fine with the changes for regional formatting.
However, when the last piece of the update was put in place, we learned that some users running grids built some time ago still used str() and this failed with the new code. A fix is already in place in the next build to allow str() to be used against numeric or character values, and now the new process IS 100% compatible with the older syntax.
The problems with the html editor have also been found and fixed within a few hours of being notified of the problem. We try to respond to every issue as it is presented to us, but instant results are not always possible. Some things may take a few hours or even a few days to find and correct.
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Thank you, Jerry, for the clarification. Being developers ourselves, I think we probably know exactly what you have to go through to make these decisions. It just made me whiney to have to suddenly slow down and fix all my grids that had been working... when I was fighting time to release something else. I do get concerned that after I develop so many more grids, I'll have to go back through all of them again for some reason that is out of my hands... or that I may not notice that something like that has changed before my customers notice. Glad to hear that the html editor has been fixed. I am impressed with how fast Alpha jumps on those things. Is there a release for that now?
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
Hi Carol,
Here is the note from the UpdateStr() Function - This function, which is used to format numbers, is now more robust in that it can take either a numeric or string input. For example:
?str(23.2,10,2,"$")
= " $23.20"
'Previously, this would have returned "23.2" (without the $) because the input was not numeric
?str("23.2",10,2,"$")
= " $23.20"
As a result of this change, when creating a Display Format expression in the Grid or Dialog, it is now optional (and no longer mandatory) to include the convert_type() function in the generated function. If you use the Genie to generate the Display Format expression, the Genie will continue to use convert_type() in the generated expression.Regards
Keith Hubert
Alpha Guild Member
London.
KHDB Management Systems
Skype = keith.hubert
For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
There is a global search. But no global replace yet.Win 10 64 Development, Win 7 64 WAS 11-1, 2, Win 10 64 AA-1,2, MySql, dbForge Studio The Best MySQL GUI Tool IMHO. http://www.devart.com/dbforge/mysql/studio/
Comment
-
Re: Whiney Baby after Mar 10 update - lost format of all numbers and older percent fi
A fix is already in place in the next build to allow str() to be used against numeric or character values, and now the new process IS 100% compatible with the older syntax.It is was, you could still run Windows 3.0 programs on Windows 7 without modification.Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)
Comment
Comment