Alpha Tutorial Videos

[cbbankz]

I love the tutorial videos and have often wondered who does them? Does anyone know if the person doing the videos has a profile somewhere with a name and picture so I can put a face to the voice?

The time and effort is most definitely appreciated!! That is several over-all hours of free videos that is a constant source material I reference on a regular basis! So thanks whoever you are, and thanks to Alpha Software for providing it (not many software companies do that and its exceptional).

[Clipper87]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

Selwyn Rabins is doing most if not all; they are indeed invaluable.

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

Most, but not all.

[mbustin]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

I just wish courses billed as advanced - would actually cover advanced material - stop covering what a field and a record are ... very frustrating. I have 3 desktop courses and they're all basically the same ...

[Ted Giles]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

What do you want to know?
There are a few of us who would put together a screencast for a specific item you wanted to know about.
(As long as it's not Geography - I'm cr*p at maps and all that stuff.)

[Steve Workings]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

As you might know, I do some of the instructional videos that ya'll see.

There's little question that "more" and "more advanced" training and instruction would be welcome. A question that immediately arises for me when I see a thread like this is "what should be in such a training video?" Alpha Five is such a wide, deep, broad product (and getting more so every week) that the challenge of providing "intermediate" or "advanced" training for a reasonably wide audience is quite a challenge.

Kind of following up on Ted's response here, but "What list of topics, subject matters, examples, etc. is going to be the most helpful to the most people?" We could cover 20 topics in substantial depth, but miss that 21st topic that would have meant so much more.

So I'm pursuing this in hopes of coming up with a topic list. Then, of course, we need to see if Alpha Software would like to produce such a training video (my guess is "yes") and one of us (hopefully me!) come up with time -- and soon enough time -- to produce the lessons.

Anyway, a bit of a rambling start I guess, but any feedback definitely welcome.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

I'm not sure that a list will work Steve.
As the questions are likely to be most varied, I suspect very specific screencasts are likely to give the questioner what they want.
But - been wrong more than once before!

[Steve Workings]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

Or both! I think there's room for a lot of both, and I pitched in here to see what we might learn about peoples' wants and needs.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Vidoes

We'll see what Mark asks and suggests Steve.
Where do you have your screencast links?
To my shame, I don't think I've ever looked at any.

[mbustin]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

I very much appreciate the time & effort work that people such as Steve, Jay and Selwyn put in to their videos. They're very helpful. As you said, there's so much to learn in Alpha. My frustration arises when a course billed as Advanced Desktop goes back over basic material such as what is a table, a row, a field , a numeric field vs a character field, how to sort objects in the control panel. Otherwise the process of building an app from the ground up is great as well as the natural progression of building and deploying a deskop app over a network and adding web-based components to a desktop app.

I'll be repeating the process for the web, which seems even more daunting. Some differentiation between beginner, intermediate and advanced courses would be nice. People who take int/adv courses should be versed in the basics IMHO, and time shouldn't be spent reiterating basics unless it's to illustrate a particular point. I guess the difficulty is where to draw those distinctions ... I don't know everything Alpha is capable of - so I can't make suggestions, just that a course helps guide the natural progression ...

-Mark

[Ted Giles]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

IMHO, when learing Turkish as a language, I tried to move a bit too fast thinking I was a bit more tha a novice, and got deeply dispirited trying to understand traffic directions in the language.
Had to take a step or two back. That's why it's difficult to pitch courses at different levels such as beginner through advanced.
If there is a particular thing you would like to try out Mark, and are having difficulties, let us know.
Personally I like prefer the short sharp "try this" response to my questions as the response is usually focussed and succinct. The "What's new" Vids are a bit like that but they presume a knowledge level.

Alpha is capable of as much as you can imagine and I've usually found that if there is something I need to do - the developers have it mostly covered already.
On the other hand, the facilities offered by Xbasic are manifold and while I avoid coding as much as possible - preferring to stick with the original Alpha princilples - the features are almost endless.

[Steve Wood]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

Going back to the original post, allow me to use this thread to announce we have put together a nice collection of longer videos at http://alphadevnet.com/video.a5w. They include formal training videos by A5 Masters, Application Showcases, and some are shorter videos covering single subjects.

If you want to see some of the faces of the trainers, you can visit http://alphadevnet.com/webinars.a5w, middle tab for "Trainers".

Here is an index of what is there at present:

• Introduction to SQL
• SQL Reporting
• Alpha Five Web Applications - the Basics
• Alpha Five Desktop Applications - the Basics
• Introduction to CSS for Alpha Five Applications
• Javascript progress bar (silent)
• Dynamic Linked Content Areas ("Tab Groups")
• Filter Records by UserID
• Wendy Welton Showcase - Home Plan Sales
• Jeff Walczak Showcase - E-Truck Biz
• Steve Wood Showcase - Facility Mgmt System. (Presentation being made to client)
• Pat Bremkamp Showcase - ASQ
• Canadian Wireless Showcase

Note - login is required.

[Maroine81]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

I think A5 user needs can be fetched from the questions that are already asked which receive more attention (views/replies)! Once sorted by the level of difficulty, it'd provide a better perspective into what is need for intermediate and advanced users. If you target each advanced question for each user that'd be a lot of work and time involved unless you get paid for the individual advanced tutoring.

Happy new year

[MarionT]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

omit

[madtowng]

Re: Alpha Tutorial Videos

I thank god for the people that take the time to put these videos together.
I know I am one of the dangerous people, knowledgeable enough to do more than
"Hello world", yet too busy with the job that pays the bills to RTFM as often as I should.

This last training video from Steve Workings finally included enough information for A5WS
that I think my long overdue project is back on track. I think security is a topic that fails
to get anywhere near enough attention, and even with what was done, I think there is more
that people like me just need a little shove to get me going. I should know more by the end
of the weekend, when if all goes well, I should be able to start testing in real-life, the benefits
of security and html5.