Pulling my hair out

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Pulling my hair out

The latest build 1896 - 3222 seems to have cured my problems. I would like to say thank -you to the Alpha team

[Alastair]

Re: Pulling my hair out

The latest build hasn't cured my problems!

The OnRowChange event seems to have been crippled in the last 2 patches.

I agree with a lot of the posters on this thread, there needs to be more quality control on these patches. Curing one problem and introducing another used to be what other software companies used to do! I am very concerned to see this occuring with Alpha.

A lot of the problems I have encountered with this latest version seem to have been caused by the "Patches". The more problems I encounter with this software the less likely I am to upgrade the next time around.

[dik_coleman]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Hopefully this will not 'anger' anyone. I skimmed thru the thread and did not
see any reference to a common sense approach to 'new upgrades'.
No one is going to change from one database system to another (say from
Alpha5 to File Maker9) without doing extensive testing on the new system.

That same approach might be a good idea for Alpha upgrades.

I personally DO NOT use a new upgrade on any 'working, completed'
database until I have tested it with the new upgrade. I do this by copying
the database into a separate folder and running the test on the 'test folder'.
It sometimes takes a few hours to 'get approval' for the new upgrade, but I
NEVER have a problem with the working database going bad or losing
valuable current data.

D

[Doug Page]

Re: Pulling my hair out

No anger from me Dick. It's just common sense! I am also quite surprised with the importance of updates, that more people do not maintain a copy of at least the last update that worked properly for them. Then if you do find things not working you just have to reinstall the previous update and quit raising your blood pressure or "Pulling my hair out".

[aRob]

Re: Pulling my hair out

I didn't know that we were getting a new database system from Alpha every few weeks. I always thought that patches were small fixes that don't require hours of testing. Go figure.

[rleunis]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Even "so called small changes" or patches can have great unforeseen impact for your application users. That's why you should test whether it has an impact on your application. By making sure all the important functions still work as they did before. A special test environment should be used for that before you implement on the real live system.

Whenever there is a patch from Alpha, I first look at the release notes, save that in a separate folder which mentions the build and version with the date, and then download the patch in the same. This way I can always go back to previous patches when tests (or feedback f.i. from this board) advise so. regards, Ron

[JarekZ]

Re: Pulling my hair out

That's all true - we should take precautions before we install new patches, but how it is possible that somebody is releasing new patch for some software before testing it before on the first place. I don't know how alpha software works but I think it should be common sense to test your product before giving it to people! Why we (customers) have to be the beta testing people.
I know that alpha is a good software and so on... but it my eyes alpha lost a lot. Now I am to deep with my application to change alpha for something else, but I am not sure to use it for my next project!
I just look at the new patches and what I see - 3 patches in 3 days - that does not look good. I don't have to install it to know that something is wrong - if alpha will at least try to test it they will catch the bugs before publishing another patch!
In my opinion something is not right.
Dear alpha software developers please save us some of our time, reputation, stressful days, and test your software before giving it to us. Please remember that we are your customers not enemies.

[davidv43]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Richard,

I think the sentiment which many on this forum have is summarized by the statement that we are happy with current features (maybe a few niceties more) but we would rather have development dollars spent on making A5 an airtight program. I view it and any applications I develop as "fragile". In Access, I can depend on two things 1) the program will work as designed and 2) I will never understand the design.

In A5, I desperately need to quit being frustrated with the thought of code which doesn't work ... is it me or is it a bug? The answer often is that it is a bug. Even simple things like trying to select code from the Code Editor - the cursor does not behave like it would in a text editor or word processor. Scroll bars don't work like every other program in Windows. And on and on.

I have spent many hours with A5 developing some fairly sophisticated patient research databases and I would love to deploy them to other docs, but I can't .. they are too fragile.

A5 has a great product. It is THE development tool for RAD of databases. It suffers not from lack of exposure and marketing, but from being an unstable product. Even us non-professional developers do not want to share applications which are unstable. I don't have the time to troubleshoot anything but my own apps.

Please share with the rest of the leadership what I think most of us agree with ... make it stable, rock-solid and the product's existing features will sell it for you.

Dave Volgas, MD

[Richard Rabins]

Re: Pulling my hair out

David we take these comments seriously.

What specifically are you referring to?

Sincerely

[davidv43]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Thank you Richard. You and the rest of the Alpha team are approachable and seem to listen, which is why there is such interest in the product.

Specifics include the bug reported elsewhere with the browse.onrowchange method, which doesn't work. Also, the inconsistencies which I pointed out above with the way windows behave. Even scolling up and down a record set doesn't behave the way other Windows programs behave - sometimes I scroll down, but the record set scrolls up.

Documentation is generally good, but the loss of your fellow who did all the help system and the like is missed. For example, the help files don't really tell someone who doesn't understand how to do it, how to use XBasic to manipulate individual fields within a set. For example, see my post : http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=77500

The published instructions don't really work. I figured out a work around, but it required about 6 hours of trial to realize that I wasn't doing it wrong ... it just doesn't work as published.

It is very time-consuming to troubleshoot people's programs, but having several examples published of how to do complicated things would help. This could even be linked to the help system.

A5 seems to be geared heavily toward the web, and while many or even most people might see that as a useful thing, my primary interest is in desktop apps. For healthcare information, security is paramount and something I don't have the legal background to ensure whether A5 can technically do it or not.

For what it's worth.....
Dave

[jkletrovets]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Dave,

Specifics include the bug reported elsewhere with the browse.onrowchange method,

FWIW, I too have experienced this issue. A lot of parts of a major app I am developing stopped working(thankfully I have not deployed yet). I have found that if I took the code from the onrowchange and put it in the onfetch event things started working (sometimes with minor tweaking). From what I can tell the onrowchange event does not work at all anymore. I know it is a work around to some degree - but why did it work before and now not at all.

Richard....I echo what Dave says...there are just too many inconsistencies. One problem I had just yesterday is that I have a simple parent child set. I have some calculated fields (lookups) that are based on the child table. I then show the calc fields for informational purposes to the user. This works great for every record as you scroll through the child browse on the form...that is...unless you are on the topmost child record for any particular parent. Sometimes it shows the values sometimes it doesn't. As soon as you navigate off the topmost record everything resynchs and every thing is fine.

I am definitely following others advice to NEVER patch or upgrade once this major app is deployed. It just doesn't seem there should be that degree of skittishness around your product.


That being said...I love Alpha(frustrating as it can be)....just yesterday I was also blown away at how fast I was able to do something else because of the built in tools. As I have said before, there is true genius in Alpha. It just needs to be made more stable.


Regards,

Jeff

[davidv43]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Another niggle... when using the text editor for a memo field, you can only place one word on a line ... the editor automatically inserts a <CR><LF> after each word....

Dave

[Fred Cochrane]

Re: Pulling my hair out

Richard,
I have also been impacted by a patch that stopped lookup tables from populating (the problem seems to be fixed now).
I don't know if this helps, but I started the software quality assurance programs at two large computer companies that were having similar problems. Both results were successful. I'm in Methuen and I'd be glad to come and discuss what we did to just give you some background.
Alpha Five is such a great product; I'd like these issues to go away.
Regards,
Fred

[davidv43]

Re: Pulling my hair out

and yet another "niggle"... why can't I exit the browse design screen without saving a layout? Sometimes i want to look at browse view just for a particular thing and then quit ... not save.

[tldent]

Re: Pulling my hair out

We sincerely apologize for the problem in the latest Build!


in the meantime please go to http://downloads.alphasoftware.com/a...nate/index.htm

and then

please go back to

Build 1847_3216

(this is near the end of the page)

Our plan is release a fixed New Build Tomorrow

Thank goodness for this thread! I just paid for, installed and started my learn cycle. I was very impressed by the preliminaries (hype) re A5.

I did make one call to A5 folks on my initial order and got a speedy resolution which made me feel good. I almost cancelled the whole order due to the condescending attitude of the A5 employee. He gave me an uneasy feeling about the whole operation.

I, too am a small company yet I have never once seen a client who gave a damn about my problems. They just want what they are paying for to work, nothing more or less than anyone else and they also don't give a damn if I have no competition.

I liked what I read. It was spot on; quick db deployment, minimal code writing, etc, etc, Problem is I can't get through the first chapter of the first lesson, which I guess should be lesson enough. The button to open "Field Rules" and other buttons in the Control Panel do not respond, I have no idea what to do next. So I think I will punt and give the ball back to A5, ask for a refund and get on with my business. I am already late due to my asking for time to explore A5 to see if it might offer a better solution than Access or FM. I think it might if I could just get through the learning cycle.