The Alpha Software Newsletter

The Alpha Software Newsletter was created to help keep developers like you informed about everything that is happening in the world of Alpha Five. Each month, we highlight the most important news, blog posts and videos to help guide you through our ongoing Alpha Five v11 product development effort. Below, you will find an archive of past editions.

March 2013

Video: In the New World of Mobile and the Touch Enabled PC, Scrolling and Swiping are Fundamental

Mobile has ushered in a new era where we interact with our mobile devices through a brand new user interface (touch, gestures and swiping). These videos demonstrate some of the powerful capabilities coming in Alpha Anywhere in the areas of touch initiated vertical and horizontal scrolling

Video: Building a Mobile App in 27 Minutes with the Next Version of Alpha

Steve Workings, a well known Alpha developer and trainer, was given 30 minutes to develop a mobile application with Alpha Anywhere, but he failed—it took him 27 minutes.

"Alpha Five Saves Lives"—Not Our Words, but Those of a Customer

We recently received an email from Alpha developer Sean Werner showcasing his NEMSIS compliant database application.

Using Linking/Control Tables with Alpha Five v11 and MS SQL Server

Doron Farber, of dFarber.com, demonstrates a design pattern to create a lookup form utilizing a linking table.

Video: The Power, Flexibility and Programmability of the Alpha Anywhere List Control

According to developers, one of Alpha's biggest strengths is in combining feature rich high level components (builders) with the ability to drop down into lower level coding.

Video: Mobile, the Next Frontier for Business and Enterprise Reporting.

See some of the dramatic enhancements to Alpha's reporting capabilities coming in Alpha Anywhere including HTML reporting, exporting to Word and Excel and Mobile reporting.

HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript are ready for prime time

Alpha Software adviser and industry legend Dan Bricklin convincingly makes the point—HTML5 and JavaScript have really come of age in the last few years.

IDC Report Cites the Difficulty in Recruiting Mobile Enterprise Developers

Among the findings of the IDC Mobile Enterprise Report for Q1 2013 is that the potential for enterprise adoption of mobile apps has barely been scratched, with huge growth ahead.

Video:Setting Up Hosting for Your Alpha Five Application in 15 Minutes

In this blog we wanted to make you aware of two videos, recorded a while ago, that take you through the steps of hosting you Alpha Five web app.

Video: Exporting Data from the Grid and UX Components to Report Formats in Word, Excel, PDF and ASCII

With Alpha Anywhere, a new type of export is available. You can use a Report Definition to specify the format for an export operation. Data can be exported to Excel, Word, ASCII, HTML or PDF.