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

Can AlphaFive do this?

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

    Can AlphaFive do this?

    Hi - I am new to AlphaFive and have just downloaded the demo. Everything I've read and seen so far looks very good. Before I go too far, though, I have one question about capabilities - can I build a workgoup application for laptop users who will be disconnected most of the time? They need access to their own data, and need to be able to send and receive both data and database structural changes when they connect to the server. I've reviewed "shadow" databases and e-mail sending of changes, but neither seems appropriate for 60-80 users with large amounts of data being moved around. Am I asking too much?
    Thanks for any input.
    Mike G

    #2
    RE: Can AlphaFive do this?

    In general, you can do the stuff you ask about re: data. The devil is always in the details, but overall, "sure."

    On another point, though, I see all sorts of red flags when you talk about uploading structural changes. Users should not generally be allowed to make structural changes to tables once a database is in place. Please be sure you understand this before you proceed. And this goes for any database application, not just A5.

    Welcome, I hope, to the Alpha community. Jump right on here and (search first then) ask all you need.

    - Steve
    -Steve
    sigpic

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Can AlphaFive do this?

      Thanks for your comments Steve. Of course, users should not be allowed to make table changes. But as a developer, there needs to be an easy way to get changes and enhancementws out to users. I understand your use of the term "sure", but can you provide any of the details of how it would work?
      Thanks
      Mike G

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Can AlphaFive do this?


        Can AlphaFive do this? Most certainly.

        The reason for the "sure", in Mr. Working's answer lies in your ability, and not that of the software, to meet the application requirements of the users' needs. Our software can definitely do what you require. The foreseen "wildcard" of your success will be the layout of your table (data) relationships and the creation of operations that meet your end users' needs.

        For your application needs you will require a license to create the application, and a runtime program (we will need to custom quote you for the qty of users you have specified) to distribute to your workforce. The runtime will permit you to create a distributed executable that may be installed multiple networks (here, the each network is each individual laptop.)

        The ABOVE combination of software will work if your end users can directly dial into your network for connection to the data for "data updates." If you cannot permit this, then you may need to consider our Web Application Server, which would permit them to access the application for updates through a URL you will provide (and the WebApp Lic would replace your need for the Runtime program.)

        In reference to how the end users will receive updates in the application, you will need to customize an application, or process that would verify the "version" or "release" number of the application previously released, and replace/update if a newer one exists. Our software will permit the creation of an unlimited number applications -you can custom create an application/database for each remote user, or subset of users, should you choose.


        -Jeannette
        Alpha Software Customer Service

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Can AlphaFive do this?

          Thanks Jeannette for your reply. Obviously there will be numerous development challenges, but that is not really an issue as long as the product is capable of doing what I want. I will proceed with the demo and see if I can get a simple prototype working.

          Thanks again
          Mike G

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Can AlphaFive do this?

            Hello Michael,

            ""I've reviewed "shadow" databases and e-mail sending of changes, but neither seems appropriate for 60-80 users with large amounts of data being moved around. Am I asking too much? ""

            Not at all, but as Steve said 'the devil is in the details'. What you want to do can certainly be done with Alpha Five. Simply put, I probably start by creating some type of 'trigger' at the server level. This 'trigger' could be some type of file, either dbf or text, that contained the fact that a structural change had taken place, and what the change/s were. When the disconnected users connected to the server, the trigger would be 'found' and an update routine would then be run on the laptop at an appropriate time. Not to mention the synchronization of data, you'd need a method to ensure that all updates were applied to each user in a sequential manner, ie: user 1 logs in and updates to version 1.01, user 1 logs in and updates to version 1.02. User two logs in later, you'd want to make sure that this user had both updates applied in the correct sequence. You'd also need make sure that any updates didn't 'violate' the structure of the current tables, wiping out data that didn't match the new data type, etc.

            I did a short article not too long ago about a couple of remote update approaches that may speak to what you are wanting to do. You can find the article in the back issues of the Alpha Newsletter. The current issue is at:
            www.imakenews.com/alphasoftware
            The back issues can be accessed from the current issue.

            Good luck,
            Jim

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Can AlphaFive do this?

              Thanks Jim - appreciate the input. I will certainly review your articles.

              Mike G

              Comment

              Working...
              X