[AccessD] Access Database on Web

Hi Arthur,

I've been steering clear of Alpha because of the high price.  I will, of 
course, follow your advice and download a trial copy. Thanks.

T

Tina Norris Fields
tinanfields at torchlake.com
231-322-2787

On 12/30/2012 8:58 AM, Arthur Fuller wrote:
> In recent months I have become a strong advocate of Alpha Five v11. And
> especially for this sort of project. Assuming an app of a dozen to twenty
> tables, you can knock out a prototype web app in  4-8 hours, and the really
> cool part about it is that it will adapt itself to desktop, tablet or
> smart-phone, with no additional coding on your part.
> Part of the reason why I dived deep into JavaScript is that A5v11 totally
> supports it (among other languages). A recent example is an Access app I
> did a while back for a riding stable, consisting of about 20 tables
> (horses, riders, customers (the reason for said distinction being that some
> wealthy parents have two or more kids enrolled, so hence one customer),
> instructors, lessons, lessonTypes, and of course the tack shop, plus a few
> others.
> I did the prototype in a day. (On my nickel, the client didn't ask for a
> web solution.) I chose this app to re-do because it was small and
> straightforward.
> Then came the good part. A5 has a collection of FeaturePacks available for
> extra cost; one of them is a calendar presentation that looks a lot like
> Outlook, with day, week and month views etc. Back when I wrote the original
> Access version for desktops, I watched the principal user switch back and
> forth from Access to Outlook, and thought how cool it would be to have that
> calendar-UI built into my app. But I had no clue how to do it. I used the
> A5 calendar FeaturePack to do it, and presto! Not only was it built into my
> app, but it was a web app (again, meaning for desktop, tablet or smart
> phone)
> I should add that before tackling the A5 version of the original, I
> migrated the data to SQL Server and connected the project to that database.
> It also connects to Access and any other database that can speak ODBC.
> Since I work a lot in MySQL as well, I was pleased to find it easy to
> connect to.
> While refining the web version, I ran the Access original in another
> window, primarily so that I could look at its forms and duplicate them as
> closely as possible. That idea soon lost its credence, because A5 has way
> superior form options (for example, grids whose rows are automatically
> every other row, no code required).
> There's always a down-side, and this is it: to run an A5 web app requires
> the purchase of the A5 server, which runs on the web server. If you plan to
> do dozens of such projects, there's a price point that gives you the right
> to install an unlimited number of A5 servers. There's one more down-side,
> and that is that A5 runs only on Windows, and no Linux version is planned.
> But just about every host (in Toronto at least) offers you the choice, so
> that's really not an issue.
> You can download a trial version of the A5v11 software and check out my
> claims for yourself. There's a sample web app that shows you a couple of
> dozen variants on what you can build, with no additional code
> If I sound like an evangelist, well, I guess I am -- but I am unpaid by
> Alpha Software, so maybe "enthusiast" would be a more accurate description.
> If you don't believe me, or even better, if you do, then download the trial
> from AlphaSoftware.com and take it for a spin.
>
> Arthur