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

Little Thing

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

    Little Thing

    Guys:

    I've finally got something that slightly resembles a point of sale application. I'm using Win98; not networked; and launch from an Icon on the Desktop.

    Funny thing should happen........

    It launches fine but none of it is active. Both the A5 window and the menu form within (set as a startup form) are dimmed. A single mouseclick on either will light up the whole shebang. I'm using the 'nosplash' startup command and have tried with an without with no success. Had an autoexec script which set a few variables - disabled it and still the same.

    Using the Windows ALT-TAB combination shows 'A5Halt'. When tabbed to 'A5' it lights up and A5halt dissapears. [no mouse click needed].

    I have another App in the works displaying the same start up problem -never had command line goodies and no autoexec.

    From all of this I conclude that I've done something wrong TWICE. Anyone else experiencing this?

    What's happenin'?

    Ken the Newbie

    #2
    RE: Little Thing

    Ken,

    I have W95 (patched up) at home and W98 on two different machines in my office.

    What you observe is just the way it is with W98. I haven't been able to do anything to force the focus to the A5 form at application startup under W98.

    Notice Bill Parker's post below which indicates W2000 is the same.

    Perhaps someone else has been successful with this.

    Bill
    Bill Hanigsberg

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Little Thing

      I have not had this trouble with Windows98. In my apps I create a shortcut to the ADB file and drag it to the desktop. When I double click the shortcut Alpha Five loads and my startup form is active without additional mouse clicks being required. Wonder what's different in my setup and yours?

      In my case for example I have not been suppressing the filing cabinet guy, or using an alternate splash screen.

      Do you have a small database that illustrates the problem you could zip and post?

      -- tom

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Little Thing

        Ken,

        I do the same as Tom but suppress the file guy. Never had the problem you describe.

        kenn
        TYVM :) kenn

        Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Little Thing

          Tom Cone:

          Can't figure out how to attach a Zip to this so am sending to your e-mail address. Be intersting to see what the problem could be - maybe mine and Haningsberg's machines?

          Question: How do I attach a file to one of these messages.Or should I start a new topic.

          Learning is soooooooo slow.

          Ken the Newbie

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Little Thing

            Does your startup form have a bitmap as background?

            This situation was the only time that I have experienced similar problems.

            Michael

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Little Thing

              I have had the same type of problem with some apps. One app in particular does on most win98 machines but on one Win98 machine it works fine. Go figure. It used to work fine on all win95 machines. Mystery still not solved.

              Daryl

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Little Thing

                Ken & Bill:

                In comparing my startup form to Ken's, I see that I have an OnInit script for my startup form which activates an object on the form when the form is first loaded. Frankly, I had forgotten that this was even there.

                As you know this puts the focus on that object (In my case it's a button) when the form loads. This is what eliminates the need for the user to click somewhere on the screen to activate the form as a whole. I find that if I remove this from the OnInit script, or eliminate the script altogether, the startup form's title bar remains greyed out until the user clicks in the form.

                When I add a similar script to Ken's startup form and activate the BIDNO field it works the same way as my startup form.

                Ken, in your Floors form my onInit script reads:

                Bidno.activate()

                Try it and let us know whether it gets you past this 'little thing'.

                --- tom

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Little Thing

                  Tom,

                  I just tried it but to no avail.

                  On the startup form's on_init event I added:
                  this:myfieldname.activate()

                  It moves the cursor there instead of the field at the top of the tab order. Otherwise no difference.

                  Strange.

                  Bill
                  Bill Hanigsberg

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Little Thing

                    Bill I think I see what you mean (at last).

                    The activate event in my OnInit script for the form succeeds only partially. It gives focus to the Alpha Five window (... the application title bar for Alpha Five, itself, turns from grey to blue...), but does not seem to have any impact on the startup form's own menu bar, which remains unemphasized. When a mouse click occurs inside the form, the form's menu items darken noticeably. I'll explore some more and let you know what I find, if anything. If this isn't what you are talking about, let me know.

                    -- tom

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Little Thing

                      Tom,

                      FWI.....You said, "When a mouse click occurs inside the form, the form's menu items darken noticeably."

                      This happens on my app all the time. I always thought it was the way A5 was supposed to be. I'm running the 1st edition of Win 98. This even occurs during the use of the app as well.

                      kenn
                      TYVM :) kenn

                      Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Little Thing

                        Bill,

                        This is definitely a Windows thing. Here's what I've learned:

                        this:myfieldname.activate()
                        sys_send_keys("{ALT-TAB}")

                        Seems to work well in the OnInit script for the startup form, *provided* the database is started by clicking on the ADB file, or a shortcut to it. In this context, this causes both Alpha Five and the startup form to achieve complete focus. The user can immediately start tabbing through the form, without having to click the mouse.

                        However, if you first start Alpha Five, and then use File | Open Database to open the same database (instead of clicking on the ADB file, or its shortcut), Windows interprets the sys_send_keys() command as a desire to minimze Alpha Five, and rotate to another open application. This can lead to unpredictable results to be sure.

                        Nevertheless, if your users will begin by clicking on the shortcut to the ADB file, I think the two statements above will do it for you.

                        Let me know...

                        -- tom

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Little Thing

                          ken:
                          the following works all the time.
                          with or without the splash file, with or without
                          oninit being active. screens come up just fine.

                          "D:Program FilesA5V4Alpha5.exe" "D:appfoldersubOPS.ADB" -nosplash

                          bob

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Little Thing

                            Yes, we're talking about subtle things here. On your startup form can you tab to another field or object without first clicking somewhere with the mouse?

                            Is the Alpha Five title bar at top of screen greyed out or blue?

                            Do the menu items in your startup form change appearance, ever so slightly, when the mouse clicks on an object in the form?

                            We're able to get the forms up on screen just fine. One mouse click fully completes form activation. We're struggling with how to avoid having to click one time.

                            (Reminds of that scene in The Hunt for Red October, where the Russian sub captain (Sean Connery) asked Vasily for 'one ping only, please'). Here, 'no click, only, please')

                            -- tom

                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: Little Thing

                              OK OK OK

                              Thank you all for your input. I've settled on Tom Cone's
                              'sys_send_keys' IDEA. [One of the few things I think I understand in A5]

                              For the moment it fires properly at least 6 times in a row. Makes one wonder how Alpha's xbasic's executions can work on a dimmed application. STRANGE.

                              Summary: Who cares.......... it works.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X