Alpha Version 10 - Desktop Application Features (videos)
| Number | Category | Description |
| Debugger | The V10 debugger has been completely rewritten. It is much faster
and has a huge number of new features to make your debugging easier and
more productive.
This video gives a brief overview of the key new debugger features.
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| Conditional Breakpoints | This video shows how you can set a conditional breakpoint.
Previously, if you set a breakpoint in your code, the debugger would
always stop when that breakpoint was hit. Now, you can set a breakpoint
and specify a condition. The debugger will only stop if the condition is
true.
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| Global Breakpoints | Sometimes when you are debugging code, you know that a variable's
value is getting changed, but you don't know exactly which section of
your code is changing the variable. The new 'Global Breakpoints' feature
allows you to set a breakpoint on an expression.
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| Variable Logging | This video shows how you can use the new Logging feature in the
Debugger to track changes to a variable.
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| Arguments - Dynamic Choices |
When prompting for argument values at run-time Arguments are used
extensively in Alpha Five. For example, they are used in reports, Passive
and Active-link tables, or in custom Xbasic. When you use arguments, any
argument values that are not supplied are prompted for. When prompting
for missing argument values you can use combo box or list box controls.
The choices in these controls can be dynamically populated
from a .dbf or SQL table.
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Supercontrols
| Number | Category | Description |
| Alphabet Button Search | This video shows how easy it is to put an 'Alphabet Button' search
bar on a Form layout using the new 'Alphabet Button Search' supercontrol.
The control puts buttons for each letter of the alphabet on the form and
when you click a button the table is searched for records that start
with the letter of the button you pressed. You can choose options that
automatically disable or hide buttons for which there are no matching
records.
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| Dropdown Browse Search | This video shows how easy it is to put a 'Dropdown Browse Search'
supercontrol on a Form. The control is like an edit-combo box. When you
click the down arrow, a drop down multi-column browse appears. You can
navigate to a particular record in the dropdown browse and then when you
click on a record in the dropdown browse, the dropdown browse is closed
and the record shown in the Form is changed to show the record that you
selected in the dropdown browse. Alternatively, you can type a value into the control and press enter, which navigates you to the correct record. This video shows how we place a 'Dropdown Browse Search' supercontrol to search the Customer table by Lastname. The dropdown browse also shows the Firstname, City and State fields.
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| Dropdown Browse Search - Cascading | This video shows how you can create cascading Dropdown Browse Search
supercontrols on a Form. The first supercontrol shows a list of states
and the second supercontrol shows a list of cities. The second control
however is constrained to show only the cities in the selected state.
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Automatic Backup and Version Tracking
| Automatic Backup and Version Tracking of Layout and Field Rules | Now, when you save any Layout (Form, Report, Label, Letter or
Browse), or Field Rules, Alpha Five makes an automatic backup of your
Layout or Field Rules and it keeps all previous backups as well.
At any point you can right click on a Layout in the Control Panel and revert to any prior version of that Layout.
You can now more freely experiment with your Layouts because you know that at any point you can revert to a prior version. Also, the risk of losing a Layout because of a file corruption is eliminated.
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Form Layouts - Headers and Footers
| Headers and Footers | Spreadsheets have headers and footers - sections of the spreadsheet
that you 'lock' so that when you scroll the spreadsheet, the headers and
footers always remain visible on the screen.
Now, you can add headers and footers to your form so that when the window that contains the form is smaller than the form itself and the window has a vertical scroll bar, the header and footer section always remain visible.
Similarly, you can place locked content sections on the left and right hand side of the form so that when the window has a horizontal scrollbar, these locked content sections remain visible.
Headers and footers and great for placing buttons and logos that you want to be visible at all times, regardless of how the window has been scrolled.
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Dynamic Properties
| Number | Category | Description |
| Report "Greenbanding" | This video shows how the new 'Dynamic Properties' feature in Layout
can be used to create a 'Greenbanding' effect in reports where
alternating report rows are shown using a different background color.
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| Dynamic Properties In Reports | This video shows how the new 'Dynamic Properties' feature in Layout
can be used to create a red frame around certain 'standout' values in a
report.
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| Forms | This video shows several different ways in which the new Dynamic
Properties feature can be used in Forms.
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| Forms - Disable Button | In this video we show how Dynamic Properties can be used to easily
disable a button and change its appearance if a condition is true in the
current record.
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Layouts - Modeless Properties Editor
| Properties Task Pane | Previously in Alpha Five, to edit an object's properties, you had to
right click on the object and bring up a modal properties dialog. Now,
the Dock Panels on the left and right of the screen can contain a new
modeless Properties dock panel that allows you to edit properties in a
modeless editor.
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Use Grid Components in Desktop Applications
| Number | Category | Description |
| Grid Component in an Xdialog - Action Scripting Genie | The V10 Grid Components offer a huge array of features - many of
which are not possible on the Desktop, or are only possible with some
programming effort. However, now you can take advantage of the huge
richness of the Grid Component in your Desktop applications. This video
shows how you can use the Xdialog Genie in Action Scripting to place a
Grid Component in an Xdialog.
There is no need for the Application server to be running when you open the Xdialog - the Grid Component works without the Application server. The results are stunning!
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Action Scripting
| Number | Category | Description |
| Toolbox Control | This video shows how you can use the Xdialog Genie in Action
Scripting to place a 'toolbox' control in an Xdialog. The toolbox
control is a very rich control that supports an 'Accordion' style view
with animation as different sections of the toolbar are opened and
closed. This control makes an excellent menuing system for your
applications.
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| Dynamic Tree | This video shows how you can use the Xdialog Genie in Action
Scripting to place a 'dynamic' tree control in an Xdialog.
A 'dynamic' tree is populated dynamically as you expand each node in the tree. For example, if you have a dynamic tree that shows countries, then states, then cities and the companies, when the tree is initially shown, it only contains a list of countries - so populating it is extremely fast. Only when you start expanding the country nodes, does it do queries to get a list of states in the selected country, and so on.
The genie allows you to build dynamic trees against SQL and DBF data sources.
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| Dynamic Dropdownboxes (i.e. Cascading Dropdownboxes) | This video shows how you can use the Xdialog Genie in Action
Scripting to place a dynamic dropdownboxes in an Xdialog.
For example, you might have four dropdownboxes. The first control will show a list of countries. When you make a selection in the first control, the second control is populated with the states in the selected country. When you make a selection in this control, the third control is populated with a list of cities in that state, and so on.
The genie allows you to build dynamic dropdownboxes against SQL and DBF data sources. |