I just solved my own problem with regards to linking fields so this is for everyone's general information.
Since starting to use Alpha 5, I have come across certain issues that are not mentioned in the user manual, etc.
For the Beginner - Rule #1
The one mistake I made that drove me crazy when I first started using Alpha (because I was doing everything correctly step by step in the book) was that I found out you can never use a hyphen " - " in a file name (tables, sets, forms, etc). I had used it as a separator in my table/set names to organize my directory. Makes sense but causes alot of grief. Proper method uses either a space or an underscore as separators. That was my first lesson!!
For the Beginner - Rule #2
I had a lot of help with this problem, but I got to the root of it today. When you create tables, you must give every field a unique name. Never use the same description as the first word in a field:
example 1. field 1: Vendor,
field 2: Vendor Product
Keep it simple
example 2. field 1: Vendor
field 2: Product
I didn't find anything noted in the manuals anywhere. This will save many hours of frustration when you want to link a set together using a field (ie. Vendor) and want to use all the fields from a child table in an embedded browse.
If you have more than 1 field that has "Vendor" as the first word in the description, as noted in first example above, it will created a hidden link with all fields that start with "vendor". I originally used "Vendor" in both my tables to link each other. What happened on my form when I created an embedded browse was that all my fields in my child table that started with "vendor" (Vendor, Vendor Product) where considered linked files and unusable. I found this out by fluke when I decided to rename my "Vendor Product" field to just "Product". I was finally able to access the "product" field in my embedded browse and the form worked!
I worked on this problem on and off for 2 days, but hey I got it figured out.
Hopefully this will be helpful to other Alpha users who might come across the same problem and not realize these somewhat insignificant but important aspects of the program are not noted in the manuals.
Since starting to use Alpha 5, I have come across certain issues that are not mentioned in the user manual, etc.
For the Beginner - Rule #1
The one mistake I made that drove me crazy when I first started using Alpha (because I was doing everything correctly step by step in the book) was that I found out you can never use a hyphen " - " in a file name (tables, sets, forms, etc). I had used it as a separator in my table/set names to organize my directory. Makes sense but causes alot of grief. Proper method uses either a space or an underscore as separators. That was my first lesson!!
For the Beginner - Rule #2
I had a lot of help with this problem, but I got to the root of it today. When you create tables, you must give every field a unique name. Never use the same description as the first word in a field:
example 1. field 1: Vendor,
field 2: Vendor Product
Keep it simple
example 2. field 1: Vendor
field 2: Product
I didn't find anything noted in the manuals anywhere. This will save many hours of frustration when you want to link a set together using a field (ie. Vendor) and want to use all the fields from a child table in an embedded browse.
If you have more than 1 field that has "Vendor" as the first word in the description, as noted in first example above, it will created a hidden link with all fields that start with "vendor". I originally used "Vendor" in both my tables to link each other. What happened on my form when I created an embedded browse was that all my fields in my child table that started with "vendor" (Vendor, Vendor Product) where considered linked files and unusable. I found this out by fluke when I decided to rename my "Vendor Product" field to just "Product". I was finally able to access the "product" field in my embedded browse and the form worked!
I worked on this problem on and off for 2 days, but hey I got it figured out.
Hopefully this will be helpful to other Alpha users who might come across the same problem and not realize these somewhat insignificant but important aspects of the program are not noted in the manuals.
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