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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:
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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.

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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.
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Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New Web S

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    Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New Web S

    Soon after the launch of our new web site, we will be launching a new section entitled �Tip of the Day�.

    The purpose of this section will be to publish tips/tricks/techniques for our products designed to make everyone more productive with Alpha Five and Alpha Four. Over time, we expect to be able to store these tips in a searchable knowledge base that will make it easy to find any of these tips.

    Some of these tips will come from Alpha Software, but we know that we have a very active and creative user base that will be interested in sharing their real world experiences and expertise. One of the side benefits of this will be to add to contributor�s visibility within the Alpha Software community.

    As part of this initiative, we are looking to create an �editorial board� that will consist of one or more members. This will ensure that the tips are well written and follow a consistent format. Please e-mail me your feedback on this idea and ALSO let me know if you are interested in being one of the editors of this section.

    Thanks

    Richard Rabins
    Alpha Software




    Richard Rabins
    Co Chairman
    Alpha Software

    #2
    RE: Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New W

    I think this is a very good idea. Might suggest you consider sub-groupings - basic users, those who are into developing sets, those that do more complex things like using scripts etc - not sure what you might call them My thought is that many users are just struggling along trying to do really basic things and would not find the more complex tips helpful and vice versa. While I have been a user for some time I am certainly no expert and am not able to use the program to capacity - I learn what I absolutely need to know to get the job done. If I couldbe of help with this project, let me know but I suspect I lack the expertize to be of much help on the technical side On the other hand I am very good at documentation and writing up clear "how-to" directions for people.
    Sincerely
    Sue Pellant

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New W

      Richard,

      I've been using Alpha4 software since the 80's when you had a corporate agreement with General Electric Company. I have stayed with it all this time, and have tried several different programs to "upgrade". Access, Foxpro, DBase, even Alpha5. I'm not a programmer, but I do manage more than 10,000,000 records for Integrated Business Services, Inc., a medium-sized Medical mailing List firm in Cleveland, OH. I have no plans to change. But, Windows 2000 has presented some problems relative to normal installation, database corruption, and screen size variations. I realize that I represent a small and dying segment of your business, but... have any of these issues been addressed?
      Sam Tartamella
      [email protected]

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New W

        I presume you've checked the Alpha Four forum...

        Alpha's way of addressing those issues is to offer software designed to operate under modern operating systems -- Alpha Five. I don't think that's an unreasonable approach considering that Microsoft has been making it increasingly difficult to run DOS programs with newer releases of Windows.

        The transition to A5 is not easy for long time users of A4. I fought it for a long time. The feautures you've come to love in A4 are still there in A5, but are not in the same places and finding them takes a bit of patience.

        Order up a copy of A5. Play around with it to find the pieces you need for the things you want to do. Once you've found them, your .dbf tables will operate directly from A5.

        It's time.

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Tips, Tricks & Techniques Section on New W

          I purchased a copy of Alpha5 after LONG internal debate. The simplicity of A4 was legendary. I also have Access and Paradox. I usually ignore them unless I abosutely have to for a client. I did a lot with the scripts and screens. I didn't want to upgrade but with M$ deciding that I didn't want DOS anymore I decided that I had better figure this out. I am now fighting w/the A5 Expre4ssion builder. The messages are EXTREMELY criptic and no other explaination is offered in the manuals. I realize that (like w/A4) I will eventually figure out what the sam hill the message means but an error suggestions guide might be helpful. I am going to go over to a more logical portion of the board to post the question but ......

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