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Develop setup? -Best practice to develop appl and have user working?

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    Develop setup? -Best practice to develop appl and have user working?

    I;m new to A5 v7 but I have written DBII applications. So I have been around and I have the no hair to prove it. A5 is a great product. With not training I have developed a usable appl. in a few weeks. The development difficulty I have is how continue to upgrade the appl. while users are working on portions of the appl. that are currently 95% complete. I have created a Development folder but then syn the two (Develop and Active) database get difficult. Is there a best practice or a recommended approach.
    Much appreciated for any useful approaches.
    Thanks
    Peter

    #2
    As long as you don't make any changes to your Tables, especially adding or subtracting fields, updating your you in-use applications should be very straight forward.

    But of course we do like to add and remove fields as we continually aim to please our users. I have thought about this at length, as it is is especially important to programmers that must update remote users. Nothing I see is easy or straight forward. As once the file spec has changed it, I expect you can no longer reliably preform operations on the modified table; operations such as add field or remove field. I do know that Xbasic does have these functions.

    Personally-- the solution I've come up with, to minimize any confusion or disruption to the daily business of my users, it to use two versions of any modified Table. Leave the old Table alone, and create another similarly named Table, such as Clients2, then simply copy records from the old Table to the new Table.

    Maybe there's a better way. That's just one idea.

    Comment


      #3
      Solutions in the Code Archive

      In the code archive there are two good tools to copy forms, reports, scripts etc. One is written by Finian Lennon found here: http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=22899

      and the other one is by Jim Chapman found here: http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=22900

      Basically I would take the in use app, copy the whole folder into my development folder. Work on a form or report and then using one of the above tools, just send the revised form, report, or whatever back to the in use folder. If your in use app is on a network and network optimized you will need to reset the version number, so the user can refresh the shadow for your changes.

      The main thing to remember is not to send the development folder *.dbf files back to the in use app folder if the in use app is or has been used since you last grabbed the in use folder. If you do you will loose the - in use data.

      As Neil mentioned if you need to add fields to a table, I recommend using an xbasic script. [search the message board- you'll find examples] You can create the script in the development version, test it, and then copy the script to the in use app and run it from the in use app when the in use app is NOT is use.

      Have Fun!
      Dan

      Dan Blank builds Databases
      Skype: danblank

      Comment


        #4
        Develop setup cont.

        Thanks Dan & Neil. I looked at he Finian utility but it did no have a Letter component to copy. It is not an easy care-free task given I can lose data. I have used version numbers ie Clients1, clients2 etc but having to get users to log out to get the updates can be problematic.
        Thanks again
        Peter

        Comment


          #5
          I myself haven't done this yet. The only reason I suggested using different file versions: ie, client1, client2, etc, is because this way there would be absolutely way to mess up the conversion. BUT... I'm thinking now after reading...

          You can create the script in the development version, test it, and then copy the script to the in use app and run it from the in use app when the in use app is NOT is use.
          This may not be the best way. Especially considering every Form and every Script that references that file must be updated. This could become VERY work intensive in a big project.

          Comment


            #6
            I've done letters as reports for as long as I can remember, so I forget that the letters option even exists!

            I'll add them next time around.
            Finian

            Comment


              #7
              Development Environment

              Thanks Finian, I think "Best Practice" guide should be written for newcomers to get upto speed.
              Thanks.
              Peter

              Comment

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