We are a non-profit organization looking for a platform to convert an existing Access database (with SQL Server back-end) to the web. However, this is not a typical web application. Below are some of the requirements we are wanting to know if Alpha Five can handle:
Can Alpha Five do these things, or maybe in a different way than we have visualized, or are we barking up the wrong tree? Alpha Five seems like a great product, but we just want to make sure we understand the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of Alpha Five before committing our resources.
Thanks in advance for your help!
- Our staff are often in areas of poor or no connectivity, so we want to build this as an "occasionally connected" application, that is, it needs to be usable offline by remote users and then sync with the server when re-connected, but when the user is online, the app needs to use live data across the web. This would be for use on notebook or netbook computers running Windows. Smaller mobile devices such as phones and tablets may be a future platform but that is not the current focus. I have seen posts on this forum about hybrid Alpha Five apps, but ours is a different type of hybrid app, more like the "hybrid", or client/server, MS Access 2010/SharePoint app described here: http://dmoffat.wordpress.com/2009/11...s-application/ However, we do not want to use Sharepoint.
- Similarly, as described at the link above, it would be ideal for any updates to the application to be deployed/synced automatically when the user connects, or somehow streamline that process.
- We also want the ability to build extensive business logic into the application, similar to the capability of VBA with Access. I understand that this can be done with Xbasic on the server side and javascript on the client side? Are there any limitations to this compared to the Access/VBA way of doing things?
- Are there limitations to UI customization? Most of the example sites I've gleaned from other posts on this forum display editable data in grids or fairly simple single-record forms. Is there plenty of flexibility for positioning fields anywhere on a form, highlighting fields (background colors), hiding fields based on roles of the users, etc?
- I see at this link http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/Feature+Pack+Overview that Excel or Ascii files can be imported into a grid or table. Is XML also supported, or will it be in version 11? What about MS Word form data or PDF form data?
Can Alpha Five do these things, or maybe in a different way than we have visualized, or are we barking up the wrong tree? Alpha Five seems like a great product, but we just want to make sure we understand the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of Alpha Five before committing our resources.
Thanks in advance for your help!
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