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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.

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.
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Simple Question

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    Simple Question

    Hi,

    This may sound like a stupid question. I tried to move my Alpha database to a different folder on my hard disk, by zipping up the application files and unzipping them in the new location, and now everytime I try to open the database from it's new location, it says that it can't locate the .dbf file in the old location. What the heck did I do wrong. Is there anyway to fix this?

    Thanks,
    Andrew

    #2
    RE: Simple Question

    Are you opening the file from a shortcut icon?

    Were all of the original files in only one folder?
    You may have not copied all of the files.

    Is it on a network drive?

    usually it is because of the path in the shortcut

    Can you start alpha 5 and then do a file open and open the database in the new location?

    charlie crimmel

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Simple Question

      I hope these answers to your questions will help:

      Yes I was developing the database only in one folder. I only zipped up the application files, not the data files as I didn't want the data. I used the Zip Database command under the Tools menu item to create the zip file.

      The files are local to my hard drive, they are not on a network. In order to get the database to it's new location I copied the zip file to the new folder and unzipped it there. I didn't create a shortcut to the database from the desktop.

      I can start alpha 5 and then do a file open and open the database, but doing so meets with the same result of receiving an error with it saying that it cannot locate the .dbf file, in the old location. After I click okay on that error message I also get a second error message: Error opening startup for 'MainMenu@kappa_set1.set'

      I hope that helps.
      Thanks
      Andrew

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Simple Question

        Andrew, what you're seeing may result from 'adding' tables to the database from directories other than the folder where the ADB file is located itself. To maintain portability of your database it's recommended that all tables and sets be saved to disk in the same folder as the database itself. In your case it's possible the 'missing' table was originally located in a different folder than the ADB file. If so, Alpha would have stored a physical path specification in its internal dictionaries. When you moved the database to a new location, Alpha may be trying to use the originally stored physical path specification to connect to your table.

        -- tom

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Simple Question

          So what you're saying is that unstead of using the zip database command and just zipping the Application files I needed to zip both the applicaiton and Data files? And then I should've placed the Database in it's new location? Am I right or am I totally missing the point?

          Thanks,
          Andrew

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Simple Question

            Andrew, yes. That's right.

            Others may disagree but to me in Alpha Five the database 'IS' the application. If I want to move it somewhere else, I include the tables and sets, even if I empty and pack them first.

            -- tom

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Simple Question

              Andrew I do this all the time to create multiple copies of the same database for changing client logos and styles. Just use windows explorer to locate the folder that holds your database. Then just copy and paste the entire folder into whatever directory you want.

              Marc
              www.a5solutions.com
              Marc King
              A5solutions

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Simple Question

                Andrew,

                In case you're wondering... the zip application files is useful, once you have the database working in the new folder.

                Say, for example, you'd like to have a development version in one folder where you can experiment, play, make mistakes, and learn... if you want to update a copy of the database that already lives in another folder, you could use the zip application files to move your changes to that folder. If you don't include your data files in the zip file then when you unzip the app in the other database folder your data there won't be affected.

                One way of keeping this straight is to think of these as three different things:

                1) moving a copy of the database involves moving the application and the tables (and sets);

                2) updating a copy of the application involves moving a copy of the app, but no data files; and

                3) updating a the data files, involves moving a copy of the data, but not the app.

                Hope this helps. -- tom

                Comment

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