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
Devcon 2020 Goes Virtual! LEARN MORE >

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

Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
    #1

    Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

    Has anybody had any experience doing this kind of upgrade?

    A search brought up a thread, but all it was, was a bunch of people agreeing that it was hard to do.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Ray
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

    Tom Henkel is probably the best authority as he is converting / has converted a large A5V1 database to A5V5. His comments on the various forums is that it is difficult as much of the syntax is different and some methods have changed. If the A5V1 database is very simple, it may convert reasonably well. I have a fairly complex A5V1 application that I tried to convert to A5V5. It didn't go well. After working with it for some time, I went back to keeping the A5V1 application running and starting design on a completely new database in A5V5. Since the A5V1 app is running ok in Win2000 and WinXP, the project is on the back burner.

    Jerry

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

      Thanks Jerry

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

        Thanks for the compliment, Jerry. ...and, yes, we are still in the mire of conversion. It is very difficult to take such a masssive "production" system and get it cut over. Current users still need maintenance, reports, new systems, etc.

        Ray, to reiterate what you have seen on this forum already:

        1: xbasic has changed!!
        Many of what was written before should not be used again as there are better ways to write it. However, much of the code can be used as Selwyn and crew somehow made it backward compatible. JUST BE CAREFUL!

        2: Indexes are different.
        This manifests itself when you miss a lookup or field rule that references a file from the old system, and all of a sudden, your old index is compromised! Lesson here is to edit the field rules FIRST, Edit All reports, forms, operations, etc., then try to set up your application.

        3: Card stacks are Gone.
        Card stacks were "forms" associated with the application. They were, for lack of a better term, menu forms that were used to "call" database(now table) or set forms, reports, etc.

        To emulate the "card stack" method, you would need a dummy table to associate all of the forms with that would "call" your other forms, reports, etc. No big deal, just a different philosophy.


        Simple applications using one related group of tables really shouldn't be terrible to convert. Time conduming, YES, but not terrible. My biggest issue was syntax. Having written in ver 1 for 10 years, getting used to the new syntax of version 5 was a pretty steep hill to climb.

        If you have a fair understanding of version 5, some of what happens in version 1 may seem somewhat arcane. Take your time to try to understand the flow in version 1, and you can get it converted fairly quickly.

        Good luck,
        Tom

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

          I've done a couple, Ray. My preference: re-build the whole thing in v5 (now, I guess, I'd choose v6).

          Gonna see you at the conference? Forwarned is forarmed.

          - Steve
          -Steve
          sigpic

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

            Steve,
            I am, by no means, advocating using ver1 methodology with version 5 (or 6) databases. I am stating, hovever, that Ray needs to understand thestructure and FLOW of the version 1 application before trying to do a conversion.

            In our painfully slow conversion, we are changing many things. Going back and looking at how you did something can be very scary. You tend to wonder how it ever worked in the first place. You also get to see better, more efficient methods of doing things with the new software.

            Tom

            Comment

              #7
              RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

              Tom:

              You wrote,

              [.... Going back and looking at how you did something can be very scary. You tend to wonder how it ever worked in the first place. ]

              Isn't that the truth! I recently spent many hours updating/rebuilding some of the Ver 4.5 apps I built when I worked with the U.S. Park Police and had many of the same emotions. I looked at my design and wondered if I must have been on drugs at the time.

              Nonetheless, somehow it worked and did the job so I spent a lot more time updating the forms and reports for a more contemporary look. If and when I have a real need, I will update the actual scripts and improve on many of the design flaws that managed to work for a number of years.

              Robert T

              Comment

                #8
                RE: Upgrade from A5v1 to v5

                I think we're all in agreement. And, I know Ray and was looking for a chance to tweak him about whether he's coming to the conference. He'll understand all viewpoints just fine, wontcha Ray?

                - Steve
                -Steve
                sigpic

                Comment

                Previous template Next
                Working...
                X