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

speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

    Has anyone else noticed when you make the upgrade for A4 to A5 that your processing speed slows down significantly?? Especially in the "runtime" version of the program. Our office is definitely not running lighting fast computers, but the time it takes to load the database off the server alone hovers around 45 seconds- a problem we did not have with the DOS based A4. This problem also rears it's ugly head in page-to-page loading (We have buttons that close form page and open another). Any ideas why this might be happening? Any ideas ideas on how we can speed things up?

    thanks!

    Jonathan.

    #2
    RE: speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

    Jonathan:

    Are you using Network Optimization? If not, that is a very powerful feature that should speed up the process dramatically.

    Windows is very different from DOS in that a lot of graphical information [forms, reports, etc] must travel across the network which slows down the process.

    However, when Network Optimization is utilized, it downloads all of your graphical information [forms, reports] and stores them on the local hard drive. After that one time download, your network performance should speed up because now you only have to transmit data to and from the server.

    Does this make sense?

    Robert T

    Comment


      #3
      RE: speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

      I don't have a summary of the Network Optimization Procedure for Ver 5. However, I do have one written for Version 4 by Tom Cone and slightly modified by me. The concept hasn't changed, however, there are several improvements/enhancements to the process in Ver 5. Nonetheless, this should help.

      Network Alpha Five � Version 4.x

      January 13, 2001- written by Tom Cone, edited by Robert Tishkevich

      The following assumes you're working on a peer-to-peer LAN:

      [1] Decide which pc is going to be your server, and store a complete copy of your database there. Put it in its own folder. For simplicity and portability it's useful to use only a single folder. You may, but you don't have to, install Alpha Five on this pc (server).

      [2] Set privileges and security options controlling the server to permit reads and writes to the database folder from other workstations in the office. This folder must be a 'shared' resource available to other workstations on your network.

      [3] Go to the first workstation you want to use. Install Alpha Five there, either the development or runtime versions will do.

      [4] Map the server's hard drive to your workstation as a local disk drive. Choose a drive letter that will be available on all your workstations.

      [5] Start Alpha Five from the local machine. Open the database on the server, and 'network optimize' it back to the local workstation. Use the default location [not necessary, see below] for the shadowed files on your local workstation. Make a note of the folder name within which the shadowed files are stored.

      I don�t like the default location so I use a folder called C:\A5_Shadow

      [6] Close alpha Five. Browse to the shadow folder and create a shortcut to the database ADB file that you find there. Drag that folder to your desktop. Your use can double click on it to open the database with Alpha Five.

      Repeat steps 3, 4, 5 and 6 on each workstation. Map the database folder as the 'same' local disk drive on each workstation.

      Thereafter, when the user double clicks on the shortcut to the database ADB file, Alpha Five loads and then opens the database on the server, transparently. Because the database has been 'network optimized' your forms, field rules, reports and other layouts are stored locally, and Alpha Five need only move your data back and forth.

      Note:

      The shadowed copy of your database is like a snapshot of the database as it existed on the server when the shadow was created. If you add forms or reports to the database you would do it on the server, then you must refresh the shadow.

      The folders needed for the shadow tables will be created by Alpha Five automatically. You need not create them by hand first. Nor should you copy anything into the shadow folders by hand, generally. The process is easier to complete than to describe. You start A5 locally but don't open any local databases. You 'open' the database *on the server*.

      You go to the A5 control panel and select File, then Network Optimize. When the process is finished, A5 automatically closes the database on the server, and then opens the shadow version that now resides on your local workstation. Thereafter, when you open the shadow version on your local workstation, A5 automatically connects with the real database on the server.

      If you add forms or reports to the database, A5 will store them in the database folder on the server. If you do your development work on a different machine, the revised version of your database should be copied to the database folder on the server, not the shadow versions on each work station. Be careful not to trash your real data when doing this. This means don't copy over your DBF, FPT or CDX files.

      Remember, as stated above, the shadow versions of the database are not automatically refreshed, so they will not contain the newer forms or reports until you refresh the shadow version on each workstation.

      Robert T

      Comment


        #4
        RE: speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

        Robert,

        Thank you for introducing this to me. I just created shadow databases on workstations in my office and the difference is incredible.

        I did discover under the options tab in Network Optimization you can set the shadow database to automatically refresh itself. Seeing as we hide the control panel from the users, to prevent any unintentional changes,

        Which presents the next logical question; if the database administrator creates, for example, a query, should it be done on the server or the shadow? Or does a shadow database eliminate the need to �work off the server?�

        Thanks again,
        Jonathan



        Robert Tishkevich wrote:
        -------------------------------
        I don't have a summary of the Network Optimization Procedure for Ver 5. However, I do have one written for Version 4 by Tom Cone and slightly modified by me. The concept hasn't changed, however, there are several improvements/enhancements to the process in Ver 5. Nonetheless, this should help.

        Network Alpha Five � Version 4.x

        January 13, 2001- written by Tom Cone, edited by Robert Tishkevich

        The following assumes you're working on a peer-to-peer LAN:

        [1] Decide which pc is going to be your server, and store a complete copy of your database there. Put it in its own folder. For simplicity and portability it's useful to use only a single folder. You may, but you don't have to, install Alpha Five on this pc (server).

        [2] Set privileges and security options controlling the server to permit reads and writes to the database folder from other workstations in the office. This folder must be a 'shared' resource available to other workstations on your network.

        [3] Go to the f....

        Comment


          #5
          RE: speed issues (A4 vs. A5)

          Jonathan:

          Glad you saw a significant improvement in performance. I think the automatically refresh shadow option is new for ver 5.

          If I understand it correctly, your next question is critical, you must understand the following concept.

          All of the data files reside on the server and I mean all. The shadow on your local machines is nothing more than a pointer to the data files on the server. Therefore, all changes made by the DBA to your A5 application are made on the server.

          After those changes are made to the application on the server, they will show up via "Refresh Shadow"

          When users are working on the local stations, any data they add or edit, is saved on the server. Once again, no data is stored on the local machines.

          Here is another interesting point. You don't need a copy of Alpha Five on the server, but you may want it anyway so that the DBA can edit the application. However, the DBA can make those changes anywhere and then add them to the data files on the server.

          Robert T.

          Comment

          Working...
          X