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

Application Dev

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

    Application Dev

    Hi All

    Q1 is it ok to put the tables in a sub dir say
    myapp\data

    And the Application in myapp\system and is their any advantages disadvantages to this practice I have done allot
    Of research and looked into Microsoft VB and this seems to
    Be the best way for updating the App ECT.

    Thank you
    Ray

    #2
    RE: Application Dev

    Ray,

    There are as many philosophies regarding where to keep thinks as there are people voicing them. Having said that, I prefer to keep EVERYTHING in the same folder so that when I have to zip or copy items, they are all in the same place and my little brain doesn't have to think about where everything is. Subfolders are not a problem, in and of themselves but it is just something else you have to think about.

    Dave
    Dave Jampole
    www.customalpha.com

    Women and cats will do whatever they want. The sooner men and dogs realize that, the happier they will be.

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Application Dev

      Hi Dave

      Thank you for the fast reply I was told a wile back and
      Was reading up on VB when I was going to Dev with it that
      The data should go in one Dir and the Application should
      Go in another this makes upgrading the system much easier
      And no lose of data or is less likely to loss data

      Any other comments on this are welcome

      Ray

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Application Dev

        Ray

        Different is a good way for VB and ACCESS because they work and are structured differently than Alpha 5.

        I'm with Dave, keep all the files in one directory. For Alpha 5, it is the best way to go to make it the most portable. The message board has a wealth of information about this topic. But you do need to search to find some of it.
        Al Buchholz
        Bookwood Systems, LTD
        Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

        Occam's Razor - KISS
        Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
        Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
        When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
        "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
        Albert Einstein

        http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Application Dev

          Ray -

          I am not sure you can split the data from the application.

          When you create a dbf file in Alpha Five so you can store data, Alpha Five automatically creates a *.ddd, *.ddx file and a *.ddm file. These files hold indexes, field rules and form definitions. Then if you make a set you generate *.set, *.sem and *.sex files that hold the rules and form definitions for the set.

          I do not believe you can put these files in a directory seperate from the dbf file. Hence you can't split the application from the data.

          What I do is have a seperate directory for the backups, and I make several as I am developing so I can back track. And I might have several versions of my program available so I can copy forms etc if I lose one from crashes during development.

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Application Dev

            Hi

            Thank you all for your input I will keep it all in 1 Dir

            Ray

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Application Dev

              Hello Dave,

              Just a clarification, you do not want to co-mingle the actual Alpha Five files, either full version or runtime, in you database folder. I keep all the database files in a single folder, however, if there is reason, other files can be kept in different folders UNDER the main database folder (sub-folders to the main database folder). Doing this will keep all paths relative. If you don't do this, the paths will be absolute and will create issues if you try to move the application to other computers.

              Good luck,
              Jim

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Application Dev

                Hi Jim

                Thank you for your reply I keep alpha5 in the its own Dir
                Then for Dev purpes of Dev I have a folder under A5 called
                Myapps then under that a Dir for the name of the App and
                I keep everything for the app in the same dir.

                Q1 If I do it this way any trouble later moving the App

                Q2 What about Image files and icons can I put them in their own Directory under the App Directory? Or will this
                Be trouble c:\programs\A5\myapps\TheNameOfapp\imiages

                Summing it all if I understand you as long as I keep everything from my database directory down example
                mydatabase\images
                mydatabase\fonts
                mydatabase\icons
                When I move the application all will be ok?

                Thank you
                Ray

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Application Dev

                  Yes, provided you use relative pathing. If you, even once, hard code a path on a lookup or operation, all H**l will break loose. At the outset, design things to be relative to the main path. My application(s) is(are) huge. I have set up addin variables for a couple of paths to the main folders on my server(s) that I will be using as certain parts of the system reside not only in a different directory, but on a different server. That being said, I did set things up so that All databases and applications are in subfolders off of these addin variable paths. This way, if I ever need to move things, then the only place I need to make a coding change is in my autoexec script.

                  Tom

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Application Dev

                    Jim,

                    I tried to say what you said, but you did it more clearly than I did. I did not mean to say (or infer) that Alpha Five program files should be co-mingled with application files, but I thought the question referred to the APPLICATION support files and the APPLICATION .dbf files. Those should be in one subfolder under the Alpha Five mail folder.

                    Dave
                    Dave Jampole
                    www.customalpha.com

                    Women and cats will do whatever they want. The sooner men and dogs realize that, the happier they will be.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Application Dev

                      Hi Tom,

                      Would mined giving me an example of how you do this
                      I would like to keep the tables in the data directory and
                      The database in the system directory if this makes sense

                      Thank you
                      Ray

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Application Dev

                        Minor correction - the application files belong in one folder.

                        It doesn't matter where the folder is. In fact, I NEVER put any data for any program 'underneath' the program folder for backup reasons. (Although I seldom use it, my feeling is that Microsoft called the folder Program Files rather than Files or Data Files for a reason.) My system is set up so Windows and system type files are on the "C" drive, my other program files are on the "E" drive, and my Word documents, Graphics, Excel sheets, HTML pages, A5 data, etc. are on my "F" drive. (For some reason my "D" drive is only 6 meg. and couldn't be accessed at all until I found a tweak utility to fix it.)

                        If I decide it's time to do a complete data backup, I just backup the "F" drive. No sense in backing up programs that haven't changed or can be easily restored from the original CD. Yes, I do have a program backup ("E" drive) but I certainly don't need to run that as often as my data backup.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Application Dev

                          Hello Ray,

                          >>I would like to keep the tables in the data directory and
                          The database in the system directory if this makes sense

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Application Dev

                            Hi

                            Thank you for your input.


                            Ray

                            Comment

                            Working...
                            X