Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - Help!

[Dave Whittle]

I've attached a file that is a derivative of the Alpha Sports app that contains a subset of the tables and files - the ones that I'm having a problem with. Here's a list of the problems:

1) When the Main Menu form opens for the first time, the title text and first button text is oversized. This goes away the 2nd and subsequent times you open it, but returns every time you exit Alpha 5 and start it again. I've tried changing the font, the style, and anything else I could think of, to no avail.

2) When I run the ShipListExport operation, it's imbedded query finds the right 3 records from customersales.set for the 3 items that need to be shipped to the one customer, but then exports nothing from the customer table (should export name and shipping address).

3) In attempting to create an Action Scripting operation based on the customersales.set (with customer as parent, invoice_header as child, and invoice_items as invoice_header's child) to export only those customers who need to have something shipped (Invoice_header->Allpaid=.t. .and. Invoice_items->Ship=.t. except I left out the .t.s), if I select by expression, then the only table I can choose fields from is Customer, if I drill down through the expression builder.

4) When I try to create an Action Script to Run the ShipListExport operation and designate the query as part of the script, I encounter what seems at best confusing results in trying to build the query using the various means offered - specifically the Genie and the Expression Builder. Sometimes multiple tables are offered (which is good) - sometimes only customer is offered. In any case, the query doesn't yield the desired results.

5) On the full data file, when I browse the set, the last record (the same customer who needs the shipment), has five records, not three. I can delete the first of the five records while in the set, but not the last. I've tried packing, re-indexing, and everything else I can think of, but I just can't get rid of that superfluous record, which has no Invoice_ID, and doesn't show up as a blank record in any of the three tables.

Any suggestions anyone can offer on any of the 5 problems would be much appreciated!

Many thanks,
Dave Whittle

[Ohlen Cartmell]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

Your main menu opens fine on my computer; win98SE.

I ran a query on the customersales.set using the conditions in your export operation. I could find no records which satisfied the query.

Ran out of time. Hope this helps.

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

Found one ADB file in your upload. 'Contact Manager'. Double clicked on it and the database loaded. Opening screen is the Auction Sales System menu.

I'm using Win98SE and Build 1342 of Alpha Five Vers 5.

The title text and button text seemed well proportioned. No problem here.

Sounds like a video display issue on your machine. Try reducing demand on Windows resources, and possibly even reducing the amount of hardware acceleration on your video display adapter.

By the way, I've found this board seems to work better if each thread deals with a single question or issue. The post, reply, reply to reply, reply to reply to reply format makes it difficult if there are several 'mini-threads' within a single topic. We'll see how your's turns out... may not be problematic since 4 of the 5 questions seem to revolve around a cross-level query that's not working.

-- tom

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

Your main menu opens fine on my computer which is running WinME. Your problems 2 -4 are all working with the same issue. There are no records that meet your query criteria. The way to check this is to open the default browse for the set and select record number index. Scroll to the Allpaid column. All records show T. If you continue to scroll, the ship field shows F for all records. Therefore, there are no records to fit the query. If you change any record to Ship = .T., then the query works. The problem is in your data.

While checking the data, I did find another problem. In the field rules for invoice_items, you have a posting rule for quantity which is incomplete. This prevents changing the ship field to T

Jerry

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

I cannot explain why the cross-level query is not working.

Here's an example of a workaround that may be of use.

1) I deleted the incomplete post field rule Jerry mentioned.

2) I defined a new set, inverting your original arrangement (InvoicesToCustomers)

3) I defined a new export operation (Export2) which seems to do what you want.

I'd like to know more about cross-level queries. Will they work when search terms are pulled from both a child table and a grandchild table?

-- tom

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Oops. Here's my revised copy of your model.

[Dave Whittle]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Thanks for looking at it.

I believe I've narrowed down the display problem to my use of Adobe Type 1 fonts (Trajan and Optima - my company's combination) in the menu. When I change the fonts to True Type, they work OK - which means that I believe Alpha 5 has a font-handling problem, since other applications using those fonts don't have a problem.

On the query, the fact is that three records satisfy the filter condition - the last three records in invoice_items (look at the "Ship" field, which is .T. only for those last three records) which is linked to the last record in invoice_header (All records are .T. for the "allpaid" field) and the last record in customer.

So since the query returns no records, something's wrong.

[Dave Whittle]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Thanks, Tom, for your suggestions. Points taken - it was 2am after an aggravating day when I posted, so I was in no mood to flood the forum with five different posts. :-)

I reduced hardware acceleration on the video and it made no difference - I'm pretty sure it's an Adobe Type 1 font handling issue with Alpha 5.

Thanks again,
Dave

[Dave Whittle]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Hmmm... in the data I uploaded, the last 3 records in invoice_items show "Ship=.T." , so there should be three records in the set that satisfy the filter criteria (invoice_header->allpaid=.t. .and. invoice_items->ship=.t.).

So I beg to differ on it being a data problem, although in the interest of keeping things as simple as possible I neglected to upload the product table, which is part of the app I'm developing but doesn't seem to be part of this problem. That's simply a problem with my selective uploading... Should I add that table and upload everything again?

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

On my Win98 box objects on the Main Menu form are using the TrueType Abadi MT Condensed Light font. The Menu title static text boxes are showing 12 pt size, and the buttons are using 11.

In most of my own work I use Arial, even though it's boring, it's widely available. What fonts are you using in your design?

-- tom

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave, well now I'm really confused.

Went back to examine your Main Menu form in design mode again. Alpha Five reports the Abadi font mentioned previously, but I think maybe that's happening only because it happens to be the first item in my fonts listbox display. If I actually select Abadi, then the display changes dramatically. So, it looks as though I misread the font type reported in my earlier post. On further testing it looks like my system is now using Arial instead. Is that, by chance, what you intended?

-- tom

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Dave,

The last three invoice items do show ship = .T.. These are connected to invoice 5135, which is for customer 5035. When I open the default browse for the set, there are no invoices shown for the last 12 customers. Your indexes are corrupted.

Update the indexes for Invoice_header and invoice_items. Now all of the invoices are linked to the customers and the query and export will run.

Jerry

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Jerry,

after updating the indexes, the export still fails. The query finds the desired 3 records, but does not export the desired fields to the target text file.

Have you succeeded in creating the export text file?

-- tom

[Dave Whittle]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

Hmmm...I just looked at the sample database I uploaded and there's nothing wrong with the links. Customer #5063 is listed for Invoice #5135, which is properly referenced in the last three records of invoice_items which show ship=.t. and should thus satisfy the criteria.

In my real data, the first thing I tried was to pack, re-index, and double-check the data and its linking fields. Bad data doesn't seem to be the problem here. I verified the links during the process of importing the data, at least on the real data. I wish I could upload the whole thing, but it's got 5000+ real user group members and eBay buyers in it that I'm sure wouldn't be happy about me sharing their information. :-)

[Dave Whittle]

RE: Multiple Problems Causing Major Headaches - He

On mine, the "Webworking Services" uses Trajan, a genuine (expensive) Type 1 Adobe font. The buttons use Optima, also an Adobe Type 1 font. When I change those font choices to True Type, the problem seems to go away.

Apparently, when the font used isn't found on the system, Alpha 5 substitutes the first font on the users list. I have no problem with that - it's almost as reasonable as defaulting to Arial.

However, Alpha 5 doesn't seem to handle the Type 1 fonts. Do you have any Adobe Type 1 fonts you can use to try?