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

Field definition notes

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

    Field definition notes

    Is there a way to add notes directly to the definition of each field in a table, to explain what the field is used for? This would help the next guy behind me imensely, and help me when I forget what I did and why. It would simplify the database documentation considerly.

    #2
    RE: Field definition notes

    Would be nice, wouldn't it. Afraid not.
    You've got two choices: you can define your own tables
    to hold this data (your own data dictionary) or use my method -- buy post-it notes in bulk from Sam's Club!

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Field definition notes

      Richard, I don't think the dbf files would remain compatible with the original format specs if Alpha Five modified them to include a descriptor for each field in the table itself.

      However, you can do this in field rules. For each field you can include a Default Descriptive Name and a Description. The Default Descriptive Name will be used when you drag and drop a field on to a form, too, so it can be real handy.

      -- tom

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Field definition notes

        Maybe not a direct method, but you have the ability to create "Global Calculated fields" - right click table in control panel, Restructure, Table menu.

        You could create a global calculated field for each table field. Say you have a table field called "cust_id". Create a global calculated field "d_cust_id", my d is for "definition", expression for the calculation is "cust_id holds a unique character sequence for each customer".

        Haven't investigated the performance hit this might entail, Ira would probably know.
        There can be only one.

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Field definition notes

          Stan,

          It wouldn't add much overhead, but it is not really necessary. The way Tom described is the way I do it, thus for every field there is a description "help" line that I fill in.

          If you'd like more information, create a table with fields like

          Table/Set Name
          Object Name
          Object Type (e.g. T for table, S for Set, I for Index, F for Field, R for report etc)
          Character Note - Field width of 255
          Memo field - for additional notes

          and fill in with any detail as you deem appropriate. Most fields using the field rule method described above would suffice, but when additional info needs to be added, this makes a good notes table.

          Regards,

          Ira J. Perlow
          Computer Systems Design & Associates
          [email protected]
          Regards,

          Ira J. Perlow
          Computer Systems Design


          CSDA A5 Products
          New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
          CSDA Barcode Functions

          CSDA Code Utility
          CSDA Screen Capture


          Comment


            #6
            RE: Field definition notes

            It wouldn't add much overhead, but it is not really necessary. The way Tom described is the way I do it, thus for every field there is a description "help" line that I fill in.

            ---------------------------------

            Unless, you're like me and can't remember why you created the table! Maybe I should create a table to point me to my post-it notes: "Post-it note with beer-ring, supercedes note with mustard stain, bottom of refrigerator door."

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Field definition notes

              We could call this the GARNISH system, with relish as an optional extra. System expansion entails the use of the freezer door!

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Field definition notes

                Bump to an old thread with a great idea!

                I was looking for a way to reuse bubble help for a field that appears in multiple places and Ira's table idea is perfect. Just add a field for bubble help - then I can look it up and use copy and paste.

                Now to work on getting each table's data into a text file that can be imported to create this table...
                Robin

                Discernment is not needed in things that differ, but in those things that appear to be the same. - Miles Sanford

                Comment

                Working...
                X