Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

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:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

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.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

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.
See more
See less

Attention Desktop Developers

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #31
    Re: Attention Desktop Developers

    Bob - thanks for taking the time to do this, we all (including Alpha) will hopefully benefit from your work.

    I am not sure where I should add new suggestions.

    For example, I would like to see unbound forms adds. 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.
    Regards,

    John W.
    www.CustomReportWriters.net

    Comment


      #32
      Re: Attention Desktop Developers

      John,

      For example, I would like to see unbound forms adds. 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.
      I think you can do it with xdialog

      Comment


        #33
        Re: Attention Desktop Developers

        Originally posted by johnkoh View Post
        I think you can do it with xdialog
        You can create a "button" in an xdialog. But you can't then copy that "button" to a form - which is what I believe he is asking.
        Peter
        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

        [email protected]
        https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


        Comment


          #34
          Re: Attention Desktop Developers

          I use the blank form like a canvas to hold other objects to code against. I simply would like to see an unbound form, that is - a form not associated to or with a particular table to be created and used in the application. It should not be a too hard to add such a feature.


          I find xDialog while powerful not a RAD tool. When I have worked with it I feel like I am back to using a text editor and the programming language. To be honest its takes me back to writing console apps in C++, Pascal, or Basic. I know this will offend some, but apart from its power its just not very friendly. I fail to see at this stage of Alpha Five, soon to be v12, why xDialog functionality has not be rolled into xBasic, and xDialog given the boot. It would be nice to have single code base. All that is off topic and there are those who will disagree. S
          Regards,

          John W.
          www.CustomReportWriters.net

          Comment


            #35
            Re: Attention Desktop Developers

            i wish the A5 default database would be like sql.
            "Knowledge without application is useless."

            Comment


              #36
              Re: Attention Desktop Developers

              Originally posted by Bob Whitaker View Post
              For anybody who is interested in this thread I have started a new thread with the results enclosed.

              Bob
              Note that someone merged it into this thread as Post #29.
              Peter
              AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

              [email protected]
              https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


              Comment


                #37
                Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                Like Ray Lyons,

                A form is a from, a browse is a browse and and as long one does not use a browse for data entry, a form (mine at least) is not "inherently flawed" and does not fall apart when stressed
                I do about the same. I do us some Xdialogs. They are a bit harder though.

                Bob, Steve,

                Asked but I did not see it in the list: Why Desktop? 1. Why Not 2. Ever try to get web support at a Race track in the boon docks?( I do have a race car setup app). 3. Ever try to convince an old savy car dealer that his inventory, customer base, payment tracking, etc. will be housed on a server anywhere but own inside his business location?
                Dave Mason
                [email protected]
                Skype is dave.mason46

                Comment


                  #38
                  Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                  Originally posted by Raymond Lyons View Post
                  I give up (almost!). A form is a from, a browse is a browse and and as long one does not use a browse for data entry, a form (mine at least) is not "inherently flawed" and does not fall apart when stressed
                  I am sorry, but I see this as a way too simplified statement.

                  To begin with, you mention a limitation in the use of the browse that (if honored) would make the browse not fall apart when stressed. This limitation would be the use of the browse for data entry. However, this limitation is not stated anywhere in the product, and at no moment in history Alpha has claimed that the browse could not be used for data entry, or should better not be used for data entry. So the pure fact that it, in your eyes, should better not be used for data entry is proof in itself that there is an "inherent flaw" in that technology.
                  I can remember being send out to my customer by my engineers a very very long time ago, when I just started in the industry, for a demonstration of the software at the customers office. The engineer told me: please don't use function so-and-so and whatever you do: don't press THAT button! When I asked "why not?" the answer was: "then the software will break down and you will need to get back into the code by making a jump to line number 1745". As a result of which I threw the disc back into his face and told him to go and visit the customer himself. That, of course, never happened. I phoned the customer and told him there were still some issues with the software and that it would not be presented to him by me if it would not be ready. He understood.

                  The fact that you can not use the product to the fullest of the reasonably to be expected boundaries but only in a limited way that is not even documented is a proof of a flawed product, not a "user instruction".

                  I agree with Finians conclusion that at least the embedded browse is seriously flawed and that it indeed tends to fall apart under severe stress. I have seen it happen many times in daily practice. Furthermore, it can produce all kinds of "ghost data" appearing and disappearing at will, records that would appear in the browse like three times instead of just one and things like that, and has serious problems in the area of navigation using the sliding bar. Also, whenever there appeared a situation of corruption on any form (which happened quite often) there was always an embedded browse on it. Forms without those seemed to have way less risk of getting corrupted. Put a couple of embedded browses on a conditional object or a tabbed object in layers and you can wait on trouble. "Then don't use it that way" is not a valid point since that is intended use by the manufacturer. It is just flawed. And it really is not like this is the first time we hear about this and all be surprised. There have been hundreds of complaints about the embedded browse on this forum. This really is old news and besides that, quite a few years ago it was even confirmed by Alpha that the embedded browse object urgently needed to be "completely rewritten". Now, I am not saying that this should now be done in a hurry dropping everything else, but doing just like the browse is perfect "if you would just not do so-and-so" is an over simplification, not correct, and not in line with the standing instructions.

                  Comment


                    #39
                    Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                    Marcel, obviously you enjoy writing, lots.
                    Lets ask Raymond perhaps if he has a method to simulate, or to enable his customers to use a browse in the manner that most (mine anyway) clients demand - for example -as a browse!!, for point, click and enter, naturally and smoothly. That I would be interested in.
                    Last edited by Ray in Capetown; 02-26-2013, 04:59 AM.

                    Comment


                      #40
                      Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                      Originally posted by Ray in Capetown View Post
                      Marcel, obviously you enjoy writing, lots.
                      Last time I checked, this was not against the law in the Netherlands fortunately.

                      I guess what it all boils down to is, that Alpha Five has become such a wide platform with such a deepness that keeping it all completely up-to-date requires a company size that supersedes the current size of Alpha Software. And now the platform even gets larger by adding mobile to it where they can't even coop with maintaining the current platform as it is. This will in my humble opinion either force them to reject the "3 flavor" design (desktop, web, mobile) of the platform in favor of a "one flavor design" (would be a good thing) or it will increase the problems with maintaining and updating all three of them even more (which would be a bad thing). We will see what happens.

                      Comment


                        #41
                        Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                        Yes true, but all Nederlanders are radical free speakers, we on the other hand jus praat k*k
                        (read this quick Marcel, it may disappear soon. BTW I enjoy some of your discourse)
                        We mostly want the same thing/s.

                        Comment


                          #42
                          Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                          Originally posted by Ray in Capetown View Post
                          Yes true, but all Nederlanders are radical free speakers, we on the other hand jus praat k*k
                          (read this quick Marcel, it may disappear soon. BTW I enjoy some of your discourse)
                          We mostly want the same thing/s.
                          for us Dutch (besides Belgian) the South African language is the most hilarious one on the planet (with all due respect!). Words like: "hijsbakkie", "pletterpet" and so on have us rolling on the floor.....

                          Comment


                            #43
                            Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                            Originally posted by mronck View Post
                            I am sorry, but I see this as a way too simplified statement.

                            To begin with, you mention a limitation in the use of the browse that (if honored) would make the browse not fall apart when stressed. This limitation would be the use of the browse for data entry. .....

                            I agree with Finians conclusion that at least the embedded browse is seriously flawed and that it indeed tends to fall apart under severe stress......
                            I am sorry too (well, not really) because in regard to the embedded browse I agree with you and Finian. But most of us have long since given up waiting for Alpha to fix the browse. So, as desktop developers, do we flee Alpha or do we figure out how to deal with well known flaws (memo fields are another example of things I try very hard to avoid--or use the methods Peter Wayne outlined years ago), things that for rational financial reasons will probably never be fixed.

                            So as I said, forms without embedded browses (and without memo fields) in my long experience are not inherently flawed, and coupled with use of some Xdialogs (lots if you can afford the time) results (for me) stable, reliable apps. I also said that I sometimes do use embedded browses on a form for displaying (usually only for displaying) multiple records or as a quick means of navigating to a record showing in the browse. Once on a record, it is usually child's play to have data entry fields on the form--for entry or changes.

                            But yes, I think we all agree, the embedded browse is seriously flawed and in a perfect world should be fixed. So should poverty and disease, but only people with Bill Gates and Carlos Slim's wealth can do much about it. Since to my knowledge Carlos isn't doing what Bill is doing at least on disease, maybe Carlos could help Alpha? Probably not!

                            Raymond Lyons

                            Comment


                              #44
                              Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                              True Raymond, but the fact that you can't do anything about it, but can live with it by workarounds etc does not make the browse inherently stable. It is what it is, no matter how we deal with it: flawed.
                              But that is no longer a point of discussion, since we all obviously agree. Hilarious to note that Bill Gates is apparently able to do something on poverty and disease.... by producing flawed software..... which kind of gives a whole different view on the matter . And on that bombshell we can leave this part of the discussion for what it is. Nothing that includes humans will ever be perfect.

                              Comment


                                #45
                                Re: Attention Desktop Developers

                                Bob

                                Well said on calendar functionality. Equally so on drag & drop - using applications which have both just makes users so much more productive.

                                And equally well pointed out about mobile, Internet connectivity in the UK is by and large abyssmal.

                                If would be nice to see some snazzy graphing capability. The simple chart genie could be so much better if it offered a wider choice of graphs.

                                I've just invested in V11 and would like to think they have dramtically improved MS Word integration.

                                Kind regards

                                Alex
                                Database Software Solutions Limited
                                www.dbasesolution.co.uk
                                http://www.precise360.co.uk
                                PRECISE360 -
                                LYNCHPIN -

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X