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Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

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    Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

    Are there any plans to have the ability to integrate business graphs and charts (pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, etc, etc) into Alpha Five -- typically in reports, possibly on forms? With Access you can build charts/graphs into reports you design. This would be a great feature -- graphics/charts can be a very powerful way of analyzing and presenting data.

    Thanks.

    #2
    RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

    Check the learn alpha site. There is some information on creating simple graphs and piecharts

    http://www.learn alpha.com/

    Unfortunately, as yet, there is little built in graphics capability.

    Jerry

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

      Can anybody recommend a package that could be integrated into / called from an alpha program (until the alpha folks add the feature(s), which I'm sure they will - perhaps an excellent addition for version 6.x??) for bar / pie / column / scatter as well as x-y (scientific) graphing?

      I've tried several products (Crystal, Infomaker, SigmaPlot, Access, Excel, etc.) and have come up short for one reason or another.

      Does anybody have any experience with Pinnacle Graphics Server (www.graphicsserver.com)? They list support for VB, Delphi, Access, Fox, etc. on their page (but no alpha).

      TIA,

      George

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        #4
        RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

        You need to look for compatability with dbase or foxbase.

        I've used products from Cognos - Impromptu and PowerPlay to handle the graphics and data mining needs of clients.

        There are other products that will do this also.
        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

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          #5
          RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

          I've used Crystal reports for graphs and it worked very well with the Alpha data.
          If the Pinnacle Graphics Server has an ODBC interface, then it should work with the Alpha tables using the Visual Foxpro ODBC driver.

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

            A simpler, less expensive approach is to use what ever wordprocessor/spreadsheet you have. I use Wordperfect and quattro pro, word and excel do the same. Both will do all kinds of charts using dbase data, and you probably already have the program.

            Russ

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

              All:

              Thanks for your thoughts!

              I appreciate it.

              I guess I'm just hoping that graphing capabilities will be added to the report writer in Alpha. An integrated solution (especially when you can intermix data and graps in the same report / page) always seems to be the best (Selwyn: Hint, Hint!).

              I really like SigmaPlot; it works with .dbf data, although it does not have any built-in query capability (i.e., SQL access to data).

              Some of the other packages have the query capability, but lack in scientific graphic capabilities (std. deviations, 95% confidence limits, multipe y values for a given x value, multiple x-y graphing on a single graph report, and other statistical type graphs / formulas / ranges etc. useful for QA / QC work related to a laboratory) that make life much easier.

              Thanks again,

              George

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                George,
                One possibility is to go with sigma plot for its graphng abilities and build a temporary work file with the desired data from within Alpha.This could be a summary table depending on what your graph requirements are.
                I wouldn't bet the farm that Alpha will ever have a completely integrated graphing capability that will satisfy you.
                John

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                  I completely disagree!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have done such items and I am positive that alpha will do the same. Really this is very simple to do. However, Alpha will have to reprogram the entire program (a5VX) to do this and it can and will be done. Compare this to Email and style sheets.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                    I completely disagree!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have done such items and I am positive that alpha will do the same. Really this is very simple to do. However, Alpha will have to reprogram the entire program (a5VX) to do this and it can and will be done. Compare this to Email and style sheets.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                      My comment was not based on Alpha's unwillingness to enhance the product or the potential of alphaV and beyond. Nor was it based on any direct knowledge of Alpha's plans. I have a great deal of confidence in the future of the product as do many others.
                      They may very well have some integrated graphing in a future release. George seems to have seriously investigated the graphing features of a number of programs and not found a perfect fit. I'm not sure that if and when alpha offers some graphing features integrated in the report writer that it will have a feature set that will completely satisfy George's detailed requirements.
                      Then again I could be wrong.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                        I Xbasic for DDE (dynamic data exchange) directly with Excel or Word to control the graphics and reports. The data capibility of Alpha Five is far superior, however, the esthetics available from Excel and Word are significantly better. I do the data analysis in Alpha Five, then push the report data into a dedicated Excel or Word file, then command it to run a MACRO which sets everything up for printing. I then command it to print. I usually use a PDF print driver (readily available and either cheap or free) which gives me a report file that can be read on any system (PDF soft copy). This technique gives me the best of three worlds. CAUTION: I have found that Office XP doesn't support DDE anymore, but Office 2000 does, and works fine on Windows XP.

                        Rick Smith

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                          What about ActiveX?

                          We now have support for it built into Alpha Five. I know not all ActiveX objects will work with Alpha but surely there is a package out there that will work.

                          Jim

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                            John:

                            Thanks for the reply.

                            While I really do not expect Alpha to provide graphing on the level of SigmaPlot (which is actually *more* than most folks would want or need), I guess I'm hoping for both a business/financial graphing capability that is easy to use (i.e., pre-designed 'canned' 2D and 3D bar / pie / column graphs, similar to Excel / MS-Graph), as well as a set of 'mid-level' level drawing functions / methods intended to ease the creation of the more complex graph types (scientific / engineering graphs).

                            In a perfect world, these mid-level functions would be built from developer-accessible, lower-level drawing primitives that would allow you to completely control every little (excruciating) detail of a 'roll your own' graph if desired.

                            The tricky part, in my mind, is to create mid-level functions that are easy to use / program, and that have sensible default behaviors (that can be overridden, of course).

                            For example, a graph creation function(s) should auto-size grid size based on the extremes or range of the data for the chart; however, if a set grid size is required regardless of the range(s) of data to be graphed, the auto-size default should be able to be easily overridden for a specific grid size / graduation.

                            Just to add to my ever-growing wish list, the graphical representation of data should extend not only to reports, but to forms (and a web browser, if I understand the implications of the Web App Server) as well. An interesting application of this can be seen in the 'datawindow' feature of Sybase's Powerbuilder product. Obviously, the PB product is not aimed at exactly the same market as Alpha (it's *alot* more complicated, it costs *alot* more money, and it's not particularly easy to use), but it has a few nice ideas.

                            Sorry if I got too far off track, and thanks.

                            George


                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: Alpha Five -- Graphics + Charts ?

                              Graphs in Excel can auto-size if you use "name" variables. There are many Excel help sites that can show you how this works. I have an application I can email you if you want it.

                              Comment

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