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Alpha 5 and data changed by external programs

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    Alpha 5 and data changed by external programs

    I am (finally) moving from Alpha 4 after 10 years or so of use primarily because it is effectively dead in Windows 7. Most of my dbf applications are written in Delphi (a PASCAL language) and will need to remain so. My usage of Alpha 4 was centered on ad hoc browsing, quite a few saved browse formats and many just used one time. I am very much keyboard oriented and made frequent use of the macro record and playback functions for altering field data in a group of records.

    I've just gone through the introductory videos and I see many wonderful tools for creating precision forms for data entry and reporting. Action scripting will be wonderful since XBasic looks like a foreign language to me.

    What I am looking for are hints about potential pitfalls and tools for dealing with databases where some (much) of the data gets added or changed externally to Alpha 5. For example, in Alpha 4, I knew to refresh all indexes each time I started A4 so that changed data would be resolved. My external programs were all smart enough to deal with data fields by name so re-arranging a record or adding fields did not cause a problem,

    #2
    Re: Alpha 5 and data changed by external programs

    Howard, much depends on context. For a single machine you'll feel right at home. Yes the indexes need to be rebuilt when the external program manipulates the data, not just when Alpha Five starts up. I would discourage you from making structural changes to your tables with the external program. Use the tools supplied by Alpha instead.

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      #3
      Re: Alpha 5 and data changed by external programs

      Hi Tom - I totally agree about keeping structural changes within the A5 environment (not sure how a form would react to a field going missing and similar situations - I assume A5 has some detection mechanisms for this). I will also probably be able to create some pretty screens for routine hand-editing of records, but I have a lot of time and code invested in Delphi programs to try to convert a lot of the logic to XBasic. It does appear that there is shell support for running external programs, so I may be able to bracket the running of those programs with index refreshes and keep everything nice and neat.

      Without a LOT more experience in A5, I'm a bit worried about ad hoc browsing -- what I currently visualize as starting with a browse form that is similar to what I want to do, adding, deleting or re-arranging a few fields on the form, using it and either disposing of it or naming with some sort of a "tmp_" prefix to keep them separate from "real" forms.

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