Newly added records

[Joan Hannan]

I've just installed A5 Home and it is successfully reading my records from A4V7 (those that were on there when I did the upgrade)
However, in the transition, I'm still using A4 to enter new sales. These show up on my set form in A5, except for new customers. The Invoice # and Cust# is there, but the Name, Address etc. is blank. Also, the embedded browse listing inventory items ordered is blank. Would like to have A5 stay current for when I finally make the switch.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Stan Mathews]

I'm sure you'll get other answers, but it sounds to me like the A5 indexes are not curent with the records added in A4, and I would be surprised if they were.

Try a database compact in A5, which will update indexes, among other things. Then look at your forms and browses again.

[Ohlen Cartmell]

Joan,
It may not be a good idea to mix A4 and A5; both processing the same records. I believe this will continue to cause indexing problems.

Instead, make a copy of your A4 data and use the copy to develop your application in A5. When you've got everything working the way you want, clean out the copied tables and append your active data to the now empty A5 tables. Keep a last copy of the A4 tables until you're sure all is working as you wan.

Under no circumstances should you try to develop an app in A5 using "live" data.

[Joan Hannan]

Thanks for your help. It worked!

[Joan Hannan]

Thanks for your help. I'll try it. Wonder why it didn't mention that on the "Welcome to Alpha5", "I have existing data in .dbf format" choice. Guess I'll have to buy the book.

[rtbtat]

Hello Joan:

I want to expand upon the previous comments in this thread. It sounds as if you may have a combination of Alpha Four and A5 files in the same folder. If that is the case, you are making a serious mistake.

All of your Alpha Four files should be in one folder. There should be NO A5 files in this folder period. If that is the case, it’s time to make some changes.

Once you have a folder that contains only DOS A4 files, you should then create a second [new] folder with a different name. For example, you may want to create a new folder called Invoices. You will store all of your A5 files in this new Invoices folder. Remember, all of the A5 files for this specific application will go into this one folder. Make sure you do NOT put any data files in the A5V5 Program folder.

Now that you have two separate folders for DOS and Windows data files, you can continue to enter live data into A4 just as you’ve done before purchasing the Home Edition. So in that regard, nothing has changed.

After you entered new records into your A4 application, you can easily update your Alpha Five files by doing the following:

[1] Open two copies of Windows Explorer side by side.

[2] In the Windows Explorer window on the RIGHT side of the screen, locate the folder where all of your A4 DOS files are stored for this application.

[3] In the Windows Explorer window on the LEFT side of the screen, locate the folder where all of your A5 data files are stored for the A5 Windows application If you named the new folder, Invoices, that’s the folder you want to locate.

[4] Once you find that folder, copy the DBF [or DBF files] from the A4 DOS folder on your right, to the folder where your A5 files are stored on the left. If asked, choose YES to Overwrite the old files.

[5] Start A5 and your data files will be up to date. However, you probably won’t see that most recent information until you update the index files. You can do that in one of several ways. Here are the two best options.

[a] File, Compact Database as you did before per one of your earlier messages. Or

[b] Open the A5 Control Panel, right click on each table where data is stored and choose “Update Indexes”.

Once you’ve followed the above steps, your A5 application will have the same exact data as your A4 DOS application. But once again let me remind you that Ohlen was 100% correct. Do not mix A4 DOS and A5 windows files. Keep them in totally separate folders.

Have fun and let us know if you have any other questions,
Robert T