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

A5 Repeating Fields possible?

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

    A5 Repeating Fields possible?

    Filemaker Pro user trying to adapt to Alpha5. One feature of FileMaker I have used extensively is "repeating fields".
    Whereby one field in one record can hold several elements of data. Almost like a mini table for that one record.
    Any way to do this in Alpha5? Or can I fake it out? Any insight is appreciated.

    #2
    Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

    Not being familiar with filemaker I googled filemaker repeating field. It seems to me you could mimic the behavior with either a long character field or a memo field.

    Then again, I don't see the benefit over a lookup table.

    Note Instead of using a repeating field, it is often easier to use a related table and a portal to sort or insert data
    There can be only one.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

      Niles, there are a few ways, but trying to replicate Filemaker will have you fighting your way out of a corner far too often. The products are very different.
      Suggest you let us in on the general trend of the app so you will get some specific ideas. These are NOT workarounds, it's just doing it the Alpha way.
      See our Hybrid Option here;
      https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


      Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
      You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

        Switching between FileMaker and A5 is kinda like translating from Lithuanian into Chinese. But I believe in the possibilities of A5 and am willing to learn.
        Suppose I have a field for widgets needed. Customer one needs:
        1 Red
        2 Green
        and 4 Purple widgets.
        Customer 2 needs:
        3 Red
        2 Blue
        and 1 Green Widget.
        This data is kept in one field (Widgets needed). Later on I can summarize how many of each color to produce.
        I need some kind of similar structure in Alpha 5. So far, It seems like I can only put one piece of info in any given field. I am stuck here..

        Comment


          #5
          Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

          Niles, the classic approach to this in Alpha Five, and other relational databases, is to use three tables.

          Customers - one record per customer, includes a customer id field that uniquely identifies each record.

          Order_hdr - one record per order, includes an order id field that uniquely identifies each order. This table might contain fields like date of order, order total, shipping information, etc.

          Order_items - one record for each item in an order. Includes order id field that will be used to match up with (link to) a specific order. Each record would contain the item descript, unit price, quantity, and usually a calculated field getting the item total.

          The Order_hdr and Order_items tables would be related to each other using a set, in which the hdr is primary and the items are a one-to-many child, linked on the order id.

          During data entry an order would be done using a set based form. The particulars on the order itself would be entered into the header, including possibly a "lookup" to the customer table to get the customer info and id. Then items would be entered for the order.

          A good working example of this is in the Samples folder of your program directory. Look for AlphaSports. Then study the Invoice form.

          Welcome to Alpha Five.

          Later:

          Here's a link to a good book many have recommended: Database Design for Mere Mortals
          Last edited by Tom Cone Jr; 12-01-2011, 01:29 PM. Reason: sp

          Comment


            #6
            Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

            Something else Niles, look at the Posting function
            I use this in Stock Control, and have
            Onhand Stock - all that is in the building (you hope)
            Committed Stock - what the current Orders plan to use up
            Available Stock - O'h minus Cttd. This is so a committed item isn't sold just because it's on the shelf. But you knew that.

            When an order is taken, the quantity for that item is Added to Committed and decremented from Available.
            When the Item is shipped, the quantity on hand and cttd stock gets decremented.

            Hope this helps.
            See our Hybrid Option here;
            https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


            Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
            You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

              Thanks Ted it does help. I am starting design trying to define my needs (tables + fields) and had not gotten to sets and relationships yet. And I will look into that book.
              Will keep pounding the square peg until it gets more rounded.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

                Niles,

                If you wish, call me on Skype.

                tomconejr2

                -- tom

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

                  Niles, you might want to look at the Free Community Edition of Visual Paradigm for Requirements Capture. It's a bit "professional" in as much as you are able to easily document derivations and constructions etc.
                  Toad has a few good freebies as well, like Data Modeller and MySQL.
                  And I'd definitely take up Tom's offer.
                  See our Hybrid Option here;
                  https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


                  Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
                  You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

                    Originally posted by Niles Bangledesh View Post
                    Switching between FileMaker and A5 is kinda like translating from Lithuanian into Chinese. But I believe in the possibilities of A5 and am willing to learn.
                    Suppose I have a field for widgets needed. Customer one needs:
                    1 Red
                    2 Green
                    and 4 Purple widgets.
                    Customer 2 needs:
                    3 Red
                    2 Blue
                    and 1 Green Widget.
                    This data is kept in one field (Widgets needed). Later on I can summarize how many of each color to produce.
                    I need some kind of similar structure in Alpha 5. So far, It seems like I can only put one piece of info in any given field. I am stuck here..
                    Niles, to address your question directly,
                    Alpha does provide repeating fields without you having to repeat anything
                    Example; maybe some plan like
                    Use "widgets" in a product field and "red" or "Green" in a color field - so each can be tracked individually to enable color planning/production/supply correct color widgets

                    Anyway, then - wherever you require only information on product (say "Widgets") you can have a product_type table with information applicable to ALL widgets with a one to many link (SET) to the product table -
                    If you ever want to - When you view it in a flattened form (ie a browse on the SET - you have got exactly that -Repeating fields from the product_type table
                    this cascading is for practical use, unlimited in number of levels and records in each.
                    Last edited by Ray in Capetown; 12-02-2011, 09:53 AM. Reason: removed OR use

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: A5 Repeating Fields possible?

                      Thank you Ray for your good advice. This message board is a great resource. I appreciate all of you for taking time with the newbie.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X