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glitch or newbie nonsense

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    glitch or newbie nonsense

    So far I'm very happy with A5. Filemaker/Access turncoat...

    Anyway I'm working through the "Alpha Made Easy" book for version 5. On page(s) 72-73 It walks me through creating an embedded browse then a sort using the "Form Properties". I set the order (using the order builder) and the book says "The changes will not be seen until we switch to form view" (fair enough). Except even in form view the order did not change. It's still sorting by Client ID. I closed the form and reopened it (the jiggle the handle attempt) and still not sorting. So I went through the exercise again. Then closed A5 (more jiggling). Then checked for updates (nope up to date). Since I'm not yet working on a project (hopefully by monday) it's not critical... but I'm worried... is it typical to find little gliches like this in A5? Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

    ~joe

    #2
    RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

    Joseph,

    I doubt it is an alpha glitch. Probably you are doing something tiny (not fundamentally) wrong.

    Why not post your sample here. That would be faster than describing the picture.

    Bill
    Bill Hanigsberg

    Comment


      #3
      RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

      Joe,

      Welcome to Alpha Five. I duplicated the lesson you described. It worked for me but only after closing the form and re-opening it. Did you remember to save your changes in design mode?

      Derron

      Comment


        #4
        RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

        Ok but what does it mean to "post your sample here". Sorry to be so basic...

        BTW is there anyway to get emails from this group through to my email client? The coffee shop connection is slow and opening the browser isn't the most efficient method for me (sorry if I sound like I'm complainin').

        Thanks,

        ~joe

        Comment


          #5
          RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

          Dang... We have a winner! I thought I did (save it)... Evidently didn't. Tried it again (closing it first), and sure enough worked just fine.

          Thanks for holding my hand :-)

          ~joe

          Comment


            #6
            RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

            Hi Joseph:

            Filemaker or Access may call you a turncoat, but here you'll be known as one of the enlightened ones.

            Hopefully someone familiar with the samples in that book will see you message, but it is unlikely that it is a glitch in Alpha. The other thing you can be assured of, is that should there be a glitch that Alpha staff can duplicate, they'll have it fixed in no time (meaning hours, usually, maybe days).

            As Bill suggests, when you run into problems like this with your own apps, the best thing is to post your work here so others can see if it can be duplicated.

            Welcome to the wonderful world of Alpha Five.

            Bob

            Comment


              #7
              RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

              To get email replies, check the box labeled " If someone posts a reply to any message in this thread, email their reply to me." at the bottom of message dialog.

              There's also a link "What files must I send?" that will advise how to "post your sample".

              Comment


                #8
                RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

                Thank you! That explained it perfectly.

                ~joe

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

                  I truly know how you feel Joseph. I've only been working with Alpha for about two months now and I'm finding some of the so-called easy stuff more difficult than I imagined. On the bright side, the more I learn about it the more I like it. I'm beginning to believe that there's nothing you can't do with it. It's definatley going to revolutionize the DB market.

                  p.s. I liked Roberts comment about becoming an "Enlightened One". I'm about there myself.

                  Rick

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

                    "More difficult than you imagined" - I can understand.

                    More difficult than with other databases - I would doubt.

                    Once anyone gets into building a real database application they will quickly find that it can be much more complicated than a spreadsheet - basically because you can do so much more. In general, I would say that the difficulty of building a database can be related to a spreadsheet the same way that building a spreadsheet can be related to a word processing document. If we consider spreadsheets to be 10 times more difficult than word processors, then databases are probably at least 10 times more difficult than spreadsheets. (Of course, "10" is only used as a reference. It all depends on the complexity of the particular document/program.)

                    I think many neophyte database designers have no idea of the number of issues that can arise as they begin to add more and more features to their database. Building something simple where they will be the only user is fairly easy but that just leads you into adding more features which adds more complexity. Then, start adding other users and now it becomes necessary to add even more features to (A) help the users who aren't familiar with A5, (B) keep those users from doing things you would never have considered doing yourself because you, as the developer, knew better, and (C) take care of network issues.

                    It doesn't matter whose database program you use (A5, Access, Filemaker...) building a good database application will always be much harder than building a spreadsheet. Alpha just does, in the opinion of most of us on this message board, a much better job of making it as easy as possible.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: glitch or newbie nonsense

                      ...there it is there! Very well said Cal.

                      Comment

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