Desktop Wishlist Improvements

[jkwrpc]

Bob W. took the time to reduce our comments about improving the desktop development tools to a wishlist summary. That thread took a turn towards that had less and less to do with a wishlist of improvement of the desktop. Feeling this is an important list and should not get lost in other discussions I took the liberty of pulling out Bob's original summary and a couple of other comments that followed. I know I missed some things. I feel we really need to keep this list in front of Alpha Software.

***I would respectfully ask to keep any following posts in the thread to things you feel would improvement Alpha Five in the area of desktop development. Please start a new thread for other kinds of comments. ***

Bob's original summary:

Much of the discussion centred on the desire to make xdialogue a lot easier and quicker to use in terms of formatting, fonts and colours.
Most people seem to want to move away from the �bound objects� paradigm that Alpha uses with its forms etc and move towards Xdialogue with the aim of making systems more cross platform (web and desktop) compatible.

Fix the browse once and for all and improve scrolling on large forms

Plus Would it be too much to ask that the browse in a main form could have more than one line/per record?

Desktop calendar component � preferably with drag and drop functionality

Fix or abandon Installmaker (several comments)

Simple clean method for updating client systems

Compiler � has long been talked about

Better support for Windows 8 and guidance for configuring older version to run on Windows 8

Improvements to built-in email capability including easier ways to display previous emails and printing of logs plus better support for batch emailing.

Ability to auto-add time fields to a dbf using the add-fields function

64 bit support

Updated styles � dialogues look very dated

Ability to use CSS style skins

Allow desktop Web components be created in Desktop control panel so you don't have application objects scattered in different places.

Improve the control panel so comments can be added etc

Cross platform compatability using an Xbasic emulator, Real Studio gaining momentum with this capability

Ios capability with local storage � Filemaker GO offers this already and it looks and works very well

Attached below (hopefully) is a more complete distillation of the relevant postings
Extracts of comments in thread.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------

Added to the thread after Bob's summary:

I would like to see unbound forms added. Right now myself and others create a dummy or empty table so we can create a blank form to hold objects such as buttons, etc. It would be nice to not have a create a table to have an empty form object.

The A5 default database would be a form of SQL.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Desktop Wishlist Improvements

Fix the browse once and for all and improve scrolling on large forms
Yes
Plus Would it be too much to ask that the browse in a main form could have more than one line/per record?
Please

Desktop calendar component – preferably with drag and drop functionality
Long overdue and very useful

Fix or abandon Installmaker (several comments)
Fix. I use it a lot and do not seem to have problems with it. I have really treid to break it but if the rules are followed it seems to work. Custard pies welcome.

Simple clean method for updating client systems
Difficult. This is essentially a design issue. Building and deploying are separate issues. This a whole subject on it's own.

Compiler – has long been talked about
Oh please! I was using compiled basic years ago.

Better support for Windows 8 and guidance for configuring older version to run on Windows 8
Not fussed. This would be for small systems where PC World would be selling the latest systems. Not likely to be too many comercial operatiuons. We are just going Win 7 - 2500 user base.

Improvements to built-in email capability including easier ways to display previous emails and printing of logs plus better support for batch emailing.
Difficult. The Netmailer does a lot of this but I agree - it could be easier to use the e-mail, but then I looked into it deeply and don't have a problem. (Not like the problems I have with Xbasic!)

Ability to auto-add time fields to a dbf using the add-fields function
Not come accross this constraint.

64 bit support
?

Updated styles – dialogues look very dated
Plus eyelashes and beauty spots. Yes I agree but this is an Alpha marketing (LOL!) decision.

Ability to use CSS style skins
Ec=xcellent idea.

Allow desktop Web components be created in Desktop control panel so you don't have application objects scattered in different places.
Really useful. A bit like some competitors offerings where you can easily create an "application" rather than a desk top or web. No difference really apart from the access medium.

Improve the control panel so comments can be added etc
?

Cross platform compatability using an Xbasic emulator, Real Studio gaining momentum with this capability
? not sure I understand this one.

Ios capability with local storage – Filemaker GO offers this already and it looks and works very well
Not used it.

Attached below (hopefully) is a more complete distillation of the relevant postings
Extracts of comments in thread.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------

Added to the thread after Bob's summary:

I would like to see unbound forms added. Right now myself and others create a dummy or empty table so we can create a blank form to hold objects such as buttons, etc. It would be nice to not have a create a table to have an empty form object.
This approach has served me well, but a library of reusable objects is going to be difficult. The basics are already there when creating buttons etc, but the management of multiple reusable entities will - IMHO cause more trouble than enough.
The A5 default database would be a form of SQL.
Aaaah! the key question! I'm happy to use either Db type, but if this is a goer, it needs to be industry compliant, fast, Tsql approach might be best, and compatible with other versions. Not too difficult but tiime consuming unless Alpha buy it in.

Thanks John, a good and illuminative post.

[Tim Kiebert]

Re: Desktop Wishlist Improvements

Fix or abandon Installmaker (several comments)

From the release notes for v12 beta

Install Maker - The Install Maker, used for desktop applications to create install packages for runtime-applications, has been dropped. To distribute desktop applications that require the Alpha Five v12 runtime, you can distribute the Alpha Five Runtime Installer to install the Alpha Five Runtime files. You can use a 3rd party installer to install your application files

And to honour John's request in the OP any comments re this I suggest be in a new thread.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Desktop Wishlist Improvements

Great!
Something else to while away the hours learning something new.
Where's my fishing rod?

[mronck]

Re: Desktop Wishlist Improvements

I would like to add to this list:

* Introduce quality control and release scheduling policy, or, if it is there already (the question in itself is a bad sign): enhance it further.

This might discard with the current "update, detect bug, roll back, repair, roll forward" way of doing things.
I personally assign more weight tot that as to racing towards again new features.

[getaguru]

Re: Desktop Wishlist Improvements

I write it here again:
Fix the browse is really paramount form me (and not only for me as I can see)
Thanks for this thread.