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The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

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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.

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Application Updating

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    Application Updating

    Hi,

    Can any body let me know which files in an Alpha 5 V8 I need to exclude from for remote updating. I need to preserve user related data but I may be adding new fields to the tables etc.

    I am using a software called Patch Maker by ClickTeam - its designed to manufacture professional Patches for updating remotely and does protect the user data, I just need to educate myself as I believe there are a number of files in the Alpha system that could be overridden, is that correct?

    thanks
    Andy
    Last edited by andycaps; 07-15-2009, 05:45 AM. Reason: spelling!

    #2
    Re: Application Updating

    Yes, there's significant risk of overwriting client data.

    This has been asked and answered many times. A brief search should turn up comprehensive responses, and the help file section on "Alpha Five File Types" will show you where the various bits of an Alpha Five application are physically stored.

    A complete response is not possible without knowing the specifics of the changes you're making, and without knowing more about how the app has been designed. For example, is runtime + being used? Have they designed custom reports ? Is security enabled? Have they set up groups and passwords that are different from what you have on your machine? Are you changing table structures ? Defining new index tags ?

    It gets complicated in a hurry. Time to do some self-study.

    -- tom

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      #3
      Re: Application Updating

      Hi Tom,

      Yes - self study is the key but I am somewhat mystified Alpha have not developed a 'Something' to automate remote updating - there appears to be masses of development since the launch of version 8 for Alpha 5 and multiple marketing campaigns to get us newbees to upgrade to the next version asap and yet a basic fundamental enhancement such as automating patch/upgrades for our end-users has been left to us to self-study. Some of us got the aptitude to learn this stuff faster than other but for me it not that easy. Or am I being cynical?

      Thanks
      Any

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        #4
        Re: Application Updating

        Andy

        generically automating update procedures would be very difficult but there is plenty of help on here.

        For example, updating a form or adding a new one is very straightforward (Jim Chapman has a great function in the code archive for that).

        However the moment you start amending table structures you ARE working with the data and that is where the danger begins. I recall seeing on here somewhere a routine to help with this.

        The first rule I personally ALWAYS stick to when doing ANY updates to a live application no matter how small the update is...

        BACKUP and VERIFY!

        Regards

        Glen
        Glen Schild



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