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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:
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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:
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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:
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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.

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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.

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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.

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A note about attachments
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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.
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Database Designing

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    #1

    Database Designing

    I want to visually see how I am designing the database. Is theere some software that would allow me to visually see what the heck I am doing, I want to visually see the realtionships, I want to see what the key index and indexs are.
    John Wexler
    Information Now!
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Database Designing

    Hi John, usually what your describing is created before development begins using Visio or some other business art app. It's a novel concept, actually designing the whole system before you open Alpha. The only software products I have seen that approximate the level of build time integration you are describing are FuseBox for Cold Fusion and C++, or SoftWire for .NET and VB.

    Marc
    www.a5solutions.com
    Marc King
    A5solutions

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Database Designing

      John,

      We used to have a product that came along for Clipper that did what you are asking, but to date I have seen nothing as good.

      I do sit and draw everything necesarry for me out on paper before starting a project. I use circles, squares, triangles and lines. I write my connections by name so I make fields to match properly. Tables are written one at a time and a page is set aside for each one. Indexes needed are written on paper for each table. sets also have a page of their own and connected to each page is a list of forms, reports, etc. and a rough layout.

      I hope this helps you a little. It is the only way I know how to price a job or to build a program without a lot of redundancy and confusion.

      Dave
      Dave Mason
      [email protected]
      Skype is dave.mason46

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Database Designing

        Hi John,

        Have you looked at the A5Doc, the documentor for Alpha Five. It makes a drawing of the sets, lists the field rules, the code, etc. It does a real good job, and is worth the money. A lot of times when you go back into an app after a while the documentor is a good place to start to refamiliarize yourself with what you did. It is also helpful in tracing errors.

        Just a suggestion.

        Dan
        Dan

        Dan Blank builds Databases
        Skype: danblank

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Database Designing

          Six or seven years ago I used the documentor in A4. Its a great tool but its not a planning tool. True, It helps you see what your doing but I want to come up with a naming convention, normalize and do some general planning before I put up the framework.
          John Wexler
          Information Now!

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Database Designing

            John,

            I use a product called 'Database Design Studio Pro' or DDS-Pro for short. It's from Chilli Source Software. You can look at it at http://www.dds-pro.com/ .

            I am not affiliated with them in any way but found it to be a real pro's tool. It does support reverse engineering, plus automatic schema creation for many formats amongst many other things.

            HTH

            Charles
            SwissCharles
            Between the Alps and a comfy place

            Comment

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