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 By
Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator
Golden Triangle PC Club
March 2007
Program Overview
With Alpha Five v. 8, Alpha Software, Inc., releases the latest and best
version of this super relational database that continues to turn heads and
gain attention, even from the most sophisticated programmers skilled in
using Visual Basic and Access, Microsoft’s relational database program.
For all the long life of this super program, users have continued to
marvel at its ease of use and more intuitive approach to developing and
managing databases than is available in other programs, especially Access.
Alpha Five v. 8 has tons of super features that are significant and
highly useful for users. With Alpha Five 8 you can create a powerful
database in minutes. The program intuitively walks you through every step
of creating the database, whether it’s from scratch or with one of the
over 40 pre-built applications and templates that come with the program.
You can also easily modify these applications and templates to suit your
own needs.
Alpha Five is making waves as the leading all-in-one application
development environment. Alpha Software has received the Computer Reseller
News Database of the Year and PC Magazine's Editors' Choice awards for
this premier product.
With Alpha Five, you can quickly and cost-effectively build fully
functional desktop and web database applications. Also included are
flexible report writing, intelligent email, data browsers and a full
security framework. A rich programming language and tools like Action
Scripting combine ease of use and complete extensibility.
Alpha Five is extremely "beginner friendly." Complete novices can quickly
and easily define and manage databases and create practical and powerful
applications without the need for programming. With Alpha Five's Action
Scripting, Genies and point-and-click Web Components you can focus on
building your solution, not the programming details.
Professional developers will like Alpha Five's ease of use and speed of
development, but will also appreciate the extensibility. With the Xbasic
language you can create user defined functions and integrate external
software libraries. There are literally thousands of functions included
that provide building blocks to create sophisticated applications.
Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, FileMaker, PHP, ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion all
have merit, but none can match the combination of power and simplicity
that is the trademark of all Alpha Software solutions.
Reasons to Choose Alpha Five v. 8
Award Winning common development system for building secure Web AND
Desktop applications quickly and easily
Chosen by a broad base of businesses and organizations because its ability
to produce results in significantly less time than alternative solutions
Example:
A secure web applications built in 40 minutes
Example:
A desktop applications built in 20 minutes
All in one solution (contains: relational DBMS or uses SQL databases,
web/application server, visual forms, visual browses, visual reports
including SQL data reporting, intuitive "action scripting," field rules
for fast and accurate data entry, fully integrated inbound and outbound
programmable email, powerful Xbasic /Xdialog programming language,
flexible querying including SQL queries and extensive genies (wizards))
Web or Browser Rapid Application Development
Rapid and straight forward Web application development using reusable
visual components
Components available for creating: dialogs, one-to-many grids with search
and drill down, navigation systems, graphing, maintenance operations and
reports
Server side programming using powerful Xbasic programming language
Portable SQL for seamless connection to any SQL Database and
transportability across multiple SQL databases such as: Oracle, DB2, MS
SQL Server, MySQL, Sybase, Cache, QuickBooks and Access
Comprehensive group security model with extensive login control
Fully formatted reports served up within web applications for local and
remote SQL data (supporting html, rich text and PDF output)
Fully customizable layouts and controls Built-in HTML and CSS editors
Easy deployment
Windows Desktop Rapid Application Development
Rapid Desktop development using visual forms, browses and reports
The ability to easily create applications that look like they were
designed by a professional graphics designer
The ability to create applications with rich user interfaces that operate
swiftly
Broad portfolio of data entry tools such as multiple types of lookups,
calculations, auto-increment, validations, transformations, posting and
events for rapid and error free data entry
Extensive genies (wizards) improves development time
Action Scripting – a "no programming required" way to add extensive
automation and logic to applications (it writes the Xbasic for you)
Extensive Xbasic/Xdialog programming language
Programmable forms using Xdialog
Powerful Reports, Letters and Labels (supporting html, rich text and PDF
output)
Fully integrated programmable email including the ability to parse inbound
email and set up email merge
Powerful operations to clean, de-dupe, manipulate and transform data
Extensive Querying options for local and remote SQL data
Reporting against SQL databases such as Oracle, DB2, MS SQL Server, MySQL,
Sybase, Cache, QuickBooks and Access
Top 24 New Features in Alpha Five Version 8
Major speed improvements
Offers the ability to work with SQL databases through ADO or the new
AlphaDAO
Introduces Portable SQL which ensures transportability of applications
against multiple different SQL database engines
Visual two-way Query Builder for working with SQL data
The query genie now has many more built-in options when searching on date
and time fields (it understands terms like “previous quarter” and “month
to date”)
Improvements in Field Rules
Totally new, fresh, modern look - new toolbars, new icons, new gradient
fills
Ability to create applications with a contemporary, state-of-the-art user
interface
Powerful new Browse features with contemporary look, new functionality and
new methods and events
Contemporary looking Forms that are easier to create
Improved Network Optimization and email
Enhanced color control provides fine control (hue, luminosity, relative
color and saturation as well as explicit control of RGB content for any
color)
Hundreds of new powerful Xbasic and new Xdialog features
New Action Scripting actions including SQL support through AlphaDAO,
property grids, companion forms for embedded browses, List Box dialogs
creation
Alpha Five uses 0% CPU time when idling. Results in improved performance
of Alpha Five and of other applications running at the same time
Enterprise Report Builder for reporting on SQL, Access and Excel data is
included for use in both Web and Desktop applications
Database Explorer for working with DBF and SQL databases
New flexible web application development capabilities, including free form
layouts in components, client side logic and calculations (Standard,
Pre-calc, Ajax)
New components and significantly enhanced capabilities in existing
components makes building web apps easier and faster (for example in the
Grid Component, a Hyperlink Builder Genie makes it very simple to link
from one page to another showing a filtered list of records in the target
page)
Improved HTML editor and new CSS editor
Enhanced import of data from multiple sources (SQL data, Access, Excel,
ASCII etc) plus passive linked tables where the import can be refreshed
when the source data changes
Task Lists (which are Dockable/Resizable /Collapsible) are introduced into
the Script Editor, Layout Editors, and HTML Editor. They are a major
innovation because they make commonly used tools readily accessible. For
example in the Script Editor, the Xbasic Explorer, the Function Explorer,
the Code Library, the new SQL Database Explorer and the new
Script/Function list Explorer, are all displayed as Task Lists in the Task
Panes
Improved Drag Drop list in layout editor including search, right click
options and collapse/expand
Includes a robust Security Framework to automatically add a sophisticated
security system to web applications.
Other Super Features
The Contact Manager is just one of the many useful applications that come
with Alpha Five, and it now has more user-friendly Wizards than any other
database program. Alpha Five’s Wizards are there to guide you through
every function, from start to finish. Whether you are deleting duplicate
records from your mailing list, cross tabulating your sales data or even
posting information to your general ledger, the Wizards guide you so you
will never be left wondering what to do next.
You can also create powerful buttons on your forms with the intuitive
Button Wizard, and store more than just text in an Alpha Five database.
With Alpha Five, your database can contain spreadsheets, blueprints, word
processing documents, pictures, and even audio and video files. For
example, with Alpha Five, real estate agencies can print records that
include pictures of homes.
Alpha Five makes it easy to import data, whether it’s in a spreadsheet,
another database, or even in a file downloaded from the Internet. With
Alpha Five v. 8, searching for your data is a snap. The new
revolutionary “full text indexing” feature instantly searches your
entire database for the data you are seeking, regardless how many records
are in the table, or how long are the memo fields. You will be amazed by
the speed of the searches. The indexes in Version 8 are also now
self-correcting for exceptional stability.
Alpha Five's Query Wizard makes it easy to perform complex searches of
your database to extract just the records you need, and the powerful form
designer creates great looking data entry forms that include custom
designed menus, toolbars, and buttons to perform tasks. Maximize and
organize your data on each form with Alpha Five’s tab control feature.
You can color-code the tabs, and even put bitmaps on them.
Unlike other database products, Alpha Five’s unique Field Rules allow
you to easily set up rules for each field in your database without ever
having to program a single thing. With over 20 different Field Rules,
Alpha Five will also prevent data entry errors and speed up data entry.
Most users can accomplish all their tasks using Alpha Five’s intuitive
user interface and powerful wizards. However, as your needs grow, Alpha
Five has a powerful programming language, called Xbasic, that allows you
to fully customize your applications. If you have never programmed before,
you’ll love Alpha Five’s Action Scripting. This is a unique, visual
way to create error-free Xbasic programs. Alpha Five also comes with a
powerful debugger that makes it easy for you to trace the logic of your
scripts and get them working error free.
The Script Recorder watches every action you take as you use Alpha Five,
and records these actions as Xbasic (Alpha Five’s programming language)
commands. Open a form, enter a new record, change a field value, print a
report, and so on. Every step you take is recorded. The Script Recorder is
the perfect way for novice users to learn Alpha Five’s powerful Xbasic
programming language. Power users will find the Script Recorder to be an
invaluable productivity boost. You can create hundreds of lines of error
free Xbasic code in minutes.
If you use Alpha Five on a network, you will really appreciate the new
Network Optimization feature. Depending on your network configuration, you
will see substantial performance improvements. Databases, forms, and
reports all load significantly faster and data entry is quicker.
Alpha Five can now access SQL databases using ODBC. This means that Alpha
Five can directly access data stored in Oracle, SQL Server, Microsoft
Access, and any other data source for which an ODBC driver is available.
Connecting to an SQL data source is very easy, and once you have created
the link, you can use SQL data just as easily as you use native Alpha Five
data.
With Alpha Five’s powerful report writer you can create professional,
high-quality output, including personalized letters, reports, invoices,
and mailing labels. You can design reports simply by dragging and dropping
fields, and create customized letters using the built in mail-merge
feature. Add conditional paragraphs, multiple fonts, and even pictures to
form letters.
Alpha Five lets novices use the provided tool bars and menus, or use the
program’s many Wizards to perform normally difficult database
operations, such as exporting or importing records, formatting fields, and
posting or summarizing data. The Wizard instructions make it almost
impossible to make mistake, and you can use Action Scripts singly, or in
combination, to run several operations sequentially.
Easy-to-customize forms have traditionally been a big part of Alpha Five,
not only in displaying actual and summarized data from tables, but also in
acting as control centers for many standard and custom operations. You can
also trigger previously saved data processing operations or macro scripts.
These let you perform almost any database procedure with a single click.
For more complex data operations and applications, Alpha Five has a
built-in script programming language, Xbasic, which works comparably to
Visual Basic.
Using Alpha Five's new ODBC support, you can read and write data stored in
Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Access, and other ODBC-compliant databases.
If you are tired of the limitations in Microsoft Access, or FoxPro’s
tedious programming conventions, then you may want to give serious
attention to Alpha Five. Alpha Five is also much easier to learn and use,
than Microsoft Access, and of course Oracle.
Key Features
Alpha Five was designed to provide you with enormous power and
flexibility. You don't have to know how to use it -- just let Alpha Five
know what you want to accomplish, sit back, relax and watch Alpha Five do
the rest for you. Time is your most precious asset. Let Alpha Five empower
you to create the applications you’ve always dreamed of.
Ease of Use
Action Scripting
Built-in Operations
Create a Database by Sample Data
Duplicate Records Genie
Field Rules
Genie
One Click Integration with MS Word and Excel
Visual Report Writer
ADO/ODBC Databases
Email Automation
Web Applications
ActiveX Support
Auto Complete Technology
Debugger
Expression Library
HTML Support
Productivity Boosters
Rapid Development
Security
Xbasic
Xdialog
Still More Super Features
Alpha Software has been building database software since 1982. It has sold
more than 1 million copies of its DOS based Alpha Four and Windows-based
Alpha Five relational databases. The design philosophy behind Alpha
Software’s products is that ease of use is key. Hard–to-develop
application requirements are pre-built and easy to integrate into finished
solutions without programming. The company’s goal is to allow businesses
to solve database problems in less time and with less hassle than
competing Windows-based databases.
Small businesses and departments in large organizations use Alpha Five to
manage their data. SOHO users rely on Alpha Five for both business and
personal data management. Most users haven’t considered establishing a web
presence because of the steep cost, significant programming requirements,
and management complexity. With Alpha Five Version 8, these same users can
now extend their applications to remotely located users through the
Internet.
Alpha Software distinguishes itself from competitive products in a number
of key areas:
• The Web Application Server and Web Component Builder included with Alpha
Five allow non-programmers to develop and deploy sophisticated,
interactive, web-enabled database applications. Experienced developers can
create web database applications in a fraction of the time currently
required using conventional coding techniques.
• An extensive group of wizards enable users to quickly and easily create
sophisticated application components, such as forms, menus, toolbars,
reports, and batch operations.
• Field Rules associate rules (for setting default values, controlling
data entry, transforming user input, validating user input, providing
lookups, posting data, and responding to events) with the data in a table.
As a result, data entry is more reliable and error-free, and all views of
the data, including reports, are consistent and reliable.
• Action Scripting brings the power and flexibility of programming to
non-programmers. Action Scripts, which are generated by easy to understand
wizards, allow novices to put the power of Alpha Five into dialog boxes,
into menus, or under buttons.
• Powerful wizards allow non-programmers to merge multiple tables, query
their contents, and generate sophisticated formatted reports without
writing a line of code.
• Access/ADO/ODBC Connectivity. Alpha Five Version 8 provides easy-to-use
wizards that allow non-technical users to connect to, display, and edit
the contents of MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Microsoft Access, and other
ADO/ODBC compatible databases.
• Extensive integration of e-mail. Alpha Five includes a full-featured
email program with support for both plain text and HTML formatting.
However, Alpha Five goes beyond simple user interaction with email. It
automates sending and receiving email. You can now write scripts that send
messages merged with data from your database. You can also automatically
respond to the contents of emails, filtering the contents of your inbox
and responding with Action Scripts that can do anything that an
interactive Alpha Five user could do. For example, email Alpha Five and
request that a report in .PDF format be sent to you as an attachment via
email based on the selection criteria you specify in your email. You may
also add a record to the database by sending Alpha Five an email.
• ActiveX and OLE support. ActiveX components are programs that can be
inserted into other programs. With ActiveX, you can add a Web browser
window to your form, create graphics, add specialized statistics to your
Alpha Five applications, and much more. Thousands of ActiveX components
are available. Working with ActiveX components has traditionally been for
programmers, now, however using Version 8’s point and click tools, anyone
easily can add Active X to their Alpha Five applications.
• HTML Design Alternatives. Alpha Five Version 8 include a WYSIWYG HTML
editor with visual tools to help you build cascading style sheets, an
Internet Browser, new Xbasic functions for converting to and from HTML,
and the ability to use HTML in your Xdialog boxes. Alpha Five enables
users to not only build highly functional web database applications, but
also have the tools to ensure that their applications are visually
attractive.
Flexibility - applications can easily and quickly be modified to adjust to
changing business requirements
Application templates - ready-made solutions in some cases, and easy
starting points in other cases
Easy integration with Excel and Word - works seamlessly in Office
Appropriate for beginning, non-programming end users all the way through
to experienced programmers
Cost effective solution - rapidly and easily build applications
Build your own applications - without relying on a MIS department
Custom solutions – deliver results in a quick, easy, reliable and cost
effective fashion
Ease of learning and ease of use
Intuitive user interface
Highly Productive - extraordinary amount of sophistication at work
Speed of custom application development
Building Database Applications
Alpha Five is the best way to build database applications, whether
for the Web or the desktop. It was designed with three principles in mind:
Connectivity – Access and work with your data no matter where it resides.
All you need is an Internet Web browser.
Usability – Alpha Five is renowned for its ease of use. Version 8 is even
more user friendly.
Power – Solve complex database design challenges with total confidence.
Alpha Five has sophisticated tools that satisfy even the most demanding
programmer.
Genies – Similar to Wizards, but better. Alpha Five has hundreds of
easy-to-understand dialog boxes that you can use to build powerful custom
database applications. Whether it’s designing a database, laying out
reports, building queries, or creating sophisticated data-entry validation
procedures, there’s a genie ready to do the heavy lifting.
Action Scripting - Take control of your data with hundreds of predefined
actions. Use them to build applications without writing a line of code.
Action Scripts generate editable, structured, and fully-commented code. If
you’re a programmer, you can switch from the Action Scripting menu system
to the integrated code editor.
Field Rules - Innovative, menu-driven “field rules” and a data dictionary
allow you to dramatically speed data entry and prevent input errors that
occur when an operator keys in bad data. Alpha Five is the only desktop
database or rapid application development product that lets you create
rules to ensure fast, error-free data entry without any programming. Set
up field rules in a matter of minutes. Applying equivalent data entry
controls in other systems such as MS Access requires serious coding and
significant development time. Examples of field rules include data
validation, lookups, conditional lookups, posting, required and skip
fields, and data transformations.
Visual Report Writer - Enjoy the power and flexibility to handle
complicated report layout requirements. Alpha Five’s Visual Report Writer
lets you easily group and aggregate related records, perform calculations,
select and sort, design columns, and create custom layouts.
Web Application Server – Build Internet and Intranet applications that
interact with virtually any data source, including an Alpha Five
database—without any programming or network skills. And convert your
Windows server into a Web Server.
Security – Keep your data safe from unauthorized users. Comprehensive
built-in security features keep your data locked and safe. You can now
create different security levels for diverse departments or individuals.
HTML Support – HTML is now the most popular file format on the planet.
Alpha Five works with HTML. Included in the software is a WYSIWYG HTML
editor, Xbasic functions for converting to and from HTML, and the ability
to use HTML in your Xdialog boxes.
Email Connectivity – Our HTML email program works with contact information
in your database. And it can automatically read incoming email, filter it,
and perform an action (such as print a report, add a new record, or run a
script) based on the contents of the email.
ActiveX Support – While ActiveX is primarily for programmers, even if you
don’t know Xbasic, the power it can add to your forms and Xdialog boxes is
great. As you may know, ActiveX components are program components that are
installed into Windows. With ActiveX, you can add a Web browser window to
your form, create visual graphs, and more. Thousands of ActiveX components
are available.
ADO / ODBC Support – Need to access live data that isn’t stored in Alpha
Five format? Not a problem. With ADO and ODBC you can now use Alpha Five
to view, edit, and modify data in virtually any format. Connect to MySQL,
Oracle or MS Access databases and tables. Even MS Excel spreadsheets can
be used as a live data source. No programming required.
Rapid Development capabilities – Several tools dramatically increase
developer productivity. Xbasic is a very powerful database programming
language; and Xdialog is a fast way to build dialog boxes. The development
environment includes a multi-pane, color-coded code editor with
auto-complete logic for Xbasic and HTML commands, a profiler, an
integrated debugger, customizable menus and toolbars, and an intelligent
function finder. The combination of Alpha Five’s programming tools and
action scripting enables developers to produce high-quality applications
in a fraction of the time normally required to build custom database
applications.
Data Operations - Besides building applications with custom menus and
screens to manage data, databases are often useful to manipulate and
transform data. Alpha Five includes Genies that allow you to perform
actions with your data in batch modes such as: import and export,
transformations, summarize, copy, append, intersect, cross tab, join or
subtract data between two files.
Query Capabilities - The ability to find the exact information you need
quickly and easily is fundamental to a database’s usefulness. Alpha Five
lets you find your information in many different ways: Query by form,
Query by Expression, the Query Genie, and the Expression Builder are a few
of the tools at your disposal. All of them are easy to use and lightning
fast.
This is an exciting new and extremely versatile way to browse and view
data. The List View Genie presents a user with an attractive, well
formatted, and easy-to-use dynamic or static list view of data. The list
looks and behaves like Windows Explorer. You can: allow single or multiple
selections, and hide or display column headers, grid lines, and scroll
bars. Dynamic lists can query and present data from any field retrieved
from an Alpha Five, ADO or ODBC compatible database. You can use Xbasic or
a new Action Script to create List View style dialogs.
The ADO Import Genie allows you to import data from remote databases, such
as Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, or any other
database for which an ADO provider or ODBC driver is available. The user
can select a table and fields within a table, or use a SQL SELECT
statement to retrieve data. The ADO Import Genie also imports data from
the most current versions of Microsoft Excel.
Propsheet Control - A powerful control for use on Xdialog windows. Ideal
for use when you need to prompt for a lot of information, and you want to
categorize the prompts into different categories. You can use Xbasic or a
new Action Script to create a Property Sheet style dialogs. These dialogs
can: accept text input from users, present choice lists to users,
selectively hide and display entries, selectively make entries editable or
read-only, write scripts that respond to user selections, and format your
display with any of the included cascading style sheets.
Charting - make your applications more professional with useful and
informative charts on your forms, Xdialogs, and Web pages. Many of you
have been asking for this capability. Now with the charting capability
built into Version 8 you can easily add bar, line, and pie charts
functionality to your desktop and web applications.
Alpha Five is a great tool for building order entry, invoicing and payment
applications. With our new relationship with Authorize.net (one of the
leading payment gateway services) Credit Card Transaction capability can
now easily be added to your applications. This feature provides Internet
Protocol (IP) payment gateway services that enable merchants to authorize,
settle and manage credit card or electronic check transactions. The
Authorize.Net Payment Gateway is a secure Internet bridge between your
application and the credit card payment processing network. It provides
merchants with fast, reliable and secure passage for transaction data via
a 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Internet Protocol (IP) to the
appropriate credit card processors.
Major enhancements in output from the Report Writer - many new options
when saving and sending layouts in PDF, HTML, and RTF file formats. These
utilities provide new ways to make PDF reports more accessible to your
users. For example, now you can: optimize PDF reports to be read on-line,
convert PDF reports to be read on-line as HTML, protect your PDF reports
from unauthorized access, modification, copying, or printing, and
watermark your PDF reports, so that your authorship is always evident. You
can use standard print utilities, Action Scripting, or Xbasic to use these
new drivers.
New Grid Component Features - Dozens of new features for the Grid
Component include:
lookups that will populate multiple fields in a record validation of user
input event coding much faster display of detail view data tabbed,
calendar, and custom controls field level access control update function
access control
New Dialog Component Features - Dozens of new features for the Dialog
Component include:
lookups that will populate multiple fields validation of user input field
level access control tabbed, calendar, and custom controls
New TabbedGridLinker Web Component - Create web pages that display a
parent grid linked to multiple child grids, with the child grids organized
into a tab control so that the user can select which child grid to view.
New NavigationSystem Web Component - Create professional navigation
systems for your web pages with horizontal or vertical toolbars with drop
down and fly out menus. You can use Navigation System toolbar components
to add a menu to an A5W page. Menus can have all entries on a single
level, or can have child entries, which in turn can have child entries.
Menus can have either a horizontal or vertical layout. The display of an
entry can be restricted by setting a Minimum Access Level requirement.
Web Publishing
While publishing database content to the web is not a totally new concept,
Alpha Five Version 8 represents a paradigm shift. Alpha Five Version 8
extends the ability to create powerful web database applications to a much
larger marketplace. It empowers people who can program, to now build
complete database applications extremely rapidly and at much lower costs.
Plus, people who don’t know how to program, are now able to create
database-driven web solutions themselves.
Easy, Powerful Data Management
Alpha Five Version 8 is easier to use than previous versions, and is much
more user-friendly than MS Access. A virtually limitless supply of
carefully and logically thought out Genies provide enormous power and
flexibility for manipulating and reporting on data, without requiring
programming skills. Built-in Field Rules, visual Report Writer, e-mail,
field statistics, backup, integration with Microsoft Office and ActiveX,
security and data manipulation tools make Version 8 a true breakthrough.
• Easily Import and Export Data - With the ODBC Import Genie, you can
import data seamlessly from data sources such as Access, FoxPro (versions
above 2.6), Excel, Paradox, Outlook/Exchange, Any ODBC data source, and
SQL server.
• Genies Help You Export Data – With the Export Genie, you can export all
or part of a table to various ASCII text, Lotus, Excel, and Word
compatible formats.
• Control the Appearance of your Data – Apply any one of dozens of style
sheets to your layouts, instantly changing the look of data, controls, and
forms. You can also edit and create new style sheets. Menus and buttons
can appear in Windows “classic” or XP styles.
• Edit the Look and Feel of your Applications – Every Alpha Five
application can have its own unique graphical or text toolbars. The
Toolbar Builder takes you step-by-step through the process of copying and
editing system toolbars, or creating your own from scratch.
• Customize Menus – The Menu Builder allows you to create your own menus
that appear when a user is editing or querying the database.
• Precision control over Help Formats, Email Settings, Fonts – If there is
more than one way to do something (and there always is), your preferences
for the way you use Alpha Five applications can be recorded, so that you
have a predictable and comfortable work environment every time you open a
database.
• Browse, Analyze and Manipulate Data and Images – Browse (or tabular)
layouts provide multi-record views of your character and image data. Your
can split a browse in multiple panes, reorganize and format columns, even
assign conditional color and font formatting to cells. Browses can be
read-only or provide full editing access, and can be embedded into forms.
• Advanced Database Security – Alpha Five provides a robust security
framework that grants or denies access to objects (tables, layouts,
reports, etc.) to users and groups. The database administrator can then
define that all users log on with the same password or require that each
user or group have its own account. Individual accounts may be associated
with optional startup scripts. This allows you to define a unique
application context for each user of an application.
• Integrated Backup and Restore - Alpha Five allows you to create
customized backup definitions that save only the portions (all by default)
of an application that you select. You can then backup or restore an
application, manually or under the control of a script.
• Developing Applications in Alpha Five is Quicker and Easier than
Microsoft Access – The secret is that Alpha Five Field Rules and Action
Scripting allow you to build sophisticated and powerful applications
without programming. Unlike Access, Alpha Five provides hundreds of
high-level utilities that can be incorporated into your application by
simply making selections from a series of “Genie” dialog boxes.
Action Script: Power Without Programming
Action Scripting is one of the most exciting features of Version 8. Action
Scripting allows nonprogrammers to build custom applications as if you
were a programmer.
• Introduction to Action Scripting - Action Scripting automates over 200
different actions and allows you to create highly customized, fully
automated applications in an entirely menu, and prompt-driven fashion. No
knowledge of Xbasic, Alpha Five's programming language, is required to use
the Action Script Genie. You will find Alpha Five Version 8 is designed to
provide you with enormous power and flexibility in manipulating and
reporting on data, without requiring programming skills.
• Record Actions – The Records action category provides tools that relate
to records. You can operate in a record in the current window, or another
window. If the window is based on a collection of related files (a set),
you can specify whether you want to operate at the parent level, or one of
the child levels.
• Dialog Box Actions - The Dialog Boxes action category contains routines
that present information to the user, or prompt the user for information.
Dialog boxes can contain multiple data controls formatted as text fields,
list boxes, check boxes, or radio buttons – all selected by making
selections in the Action Script Genie.
• E-Mail Actions – Alpha Five e-mail actions allow your application to
send and receive emails (plain text and HTML). Outgoing e-mail messages
may include data from your application. You can also filter incoming
e-mails by examining their contents before downloading. Other actions can
then automatically process and respond to the contents of received
e-mails. For example Alpha Five can generate a specific report in response
to an incoming email request, or add a record to a database, or run a
script to summarize data. Alpha Five e-mail is fully compatible with
popular e-mail clients, such as Outlook and Eudora.
• Fields Actions - These actions allow you to automate activities like
setting field values, defining insertion points in scripts, dialing phone
numbers in a field, inspecting Memo or Image fields, and spell checking
fields.
• Find Action Scripting - The Find category contains actions for moving
the record pointer to a specific record within the current selection of
records. Contrast this with Queries (i.e. searches), which change the
current selection of records. The Find by Key action finds the record that
matches a key value, specified in advance or at run-time.
• Index and Miscellaneous Action Scripting - The Index/Sort category
contains actions for sorting records, selecting the primary index or
query, and running saved queries.
• Setting and Getting Object Properties – This set of actions allows you
to hide and show, enable and disable objects on the layout. These actions
also allow you to select any object on any layout, select any of its
properties, and choose or set a new value for that property.
• Operations – Operations include a wide variety of batch processes that
run against one or more tables, such as append, copies, exports, and
joins. The Operations category contains actions for creating (through
genies), saving, and running saved operations.
• Reporting – The Reporting actions preview, print, archive, and e-mail
reports. In addition, they will configure printers and display dialogs
prompting for user selections.
• Querying – Query actions display a range of different utilities that
query or filter the records in the current or in another open layout
window.
• Record Actions and Navigation – These actions allow a script to add,
change, delete, duplicate, and save records.
• Controlling Scripts that You've Developed – The Scripts category
contains actions for running and editing scripts. For example, “Display a
pick list of scripts” displays a pick list of scripts. The selected script
is run. The pick list can be displayed as a dialog box, a pop-up list, or
a toolbar. If you choose the dialog box option, you can divide the scripts
up into categories. Each category is shown on it own tab in the dialog box
pop-up list option allows you to create nested sub-menus. The toolbar
option allows you to create a tabbed toolbar.
• Managing Variables - The Variables category shows a list of actions for
setting the values of variables used in your script.
• Controlling Windows – These actions allow a script to maximize,
minimize, restore, hide, show, close, and position application windows.
• Switching Between Action Scripting and Xbasic - You can switch back and
forth between Action Scripting and Xbasic anytime – giving you the
benefits of both a code and a non-code world. Once you have specified an
action script, the underlying code that Alpha Five automatically generates
from the Action Script can be inspected in the Code Editor. You easily
switch back and forth between the Code Editor and the Action Script
Editor. When in the Code Editor you can also invoke the Action Script
Editor to “write” code for you. Additionally, you also have the choice of
permanently converting an application script to a block of in-line Xbasic
code, which you can copy and store for later re-use.
System Requirements
Pentium 200MHz processor (300MHz or faster recommended)
Windows 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, Vista
64MB RAM (96MB or more RAM recommended)
IE 6
800 x 600 screen resolution
Targeted Customers
Any small to medium sized organization will want to give serious attention
to Alpha Five 8, especially if these companies have not standardized on
any alternative relational database. In larger, complex companies with
significant e-commerce transactions, I suggest they stick with their
Oracle or SQL Server approach. However, on the desktop with individual
workstation users, Alpha Five 8 will still present value inside these
companies.
Whenever small workgroups need to gather together information that can be
better managed with a relational database, and do not necessarily need to
link into their main e-commerce support processes, Alpha Five 8 presents
super value to these teams as they work with the program to help them
manage their data. If these work teams consist of employees that are
relatively unsophisticated computer users, then I suggest Alpha Five 8
as the preferable relational database. The folks at Alpha Software, Inc.,
have diligently worked to make this program very easy to use, and it
definitely will be appreciated by those less skilled with database
applications and certainly those with no experience in programming.
Price
$249 single license
$179 upgrade price
About Alpha Software, Inc.
The mission of Alpha Software is to build cutting-edge database software
that enables their customers to build breakthrough applications and solve
database management problems rapidly and easily. With well over one
million units of software sold, Alpha Software has been successful in
making their customers significantly more productive than they would have
been with competing products by providing them with easy and highly
productive tools.
Alpha Software products are used across a wide range of installations,
including corporate settings, government departments and small to medium
sized business. Alpha Software products support customers as they achieve
a complete, modifiable, and reliable solution to their database problems,
and build their customized solutions quickly and easily.
Alpha Software products have also become the products of choice for a
rapidly expanding consultant and developer force worldwide. Alpha Software
products provide these customers with the capability to meet client needs
in less time, while delivering a higher quality result.
The company’s award winning flagship product, Alpha Five, combines
sophisticated database management and application building capabilities,
all wrapped in an extremely straight-forward and intuitive user interface.
Alpha Five has solved database problems for the smallest businesses, all
the way through to government users and Fortune 100 companies.
Alpha Software believes that most database applications can be built
without writing code. They also recognize that even people who know how to
write programs would rather work with a menu-driven solution than write
code. Their philosophy is that as the complexity of the problem increases,
the software should have the sophistication to provide a natural,
menu-driven solution to the problem.
In certain circumstances however, coding is appropriate and provides
supreme flexibility. To this end, the Alpha Software Xbasic language has
been designed to be an extremely powerful and versatile language for
creating highly customized applications.
Contact Information
Richard Rabins, Chairman
Alpha Software, Inc.
83 Cambridge St.
Burlington, MA 01803-4483
781-229-4500
FAX 781-272-4876
richard@alphasoftware.com
info@alphasoftware.com
custserv@alphasoftware.com
www.alphasoftware.com
You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.
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Alpha Five v.8