Australian Open Access User Group Meeting - 10 June 97 We have a new name! At the annual general meeting held at Chatswood RSL on 10th June 1997 the Open Access User Group Inc "ceased to be" and the Australian Open Access User Group (unincorporated) was formed. Thank you to Judy for all the effort in arranging the smooth change-over, which went very smoothly. The "old" committee members were elected in the same positions in the new Group, unopposed (see back page). The outgoing committee were thanked for their efforts over the year. It was noted that the Group is financially healthly, even if membership has fallen substantially from its peak in the early 90s. June 97 Meeting Show & Tell (Q & A) Importing comma-delimited text into Open Access The file-convertor function ( File_convertor) includes provision for converting comma delimited text (ASCII files) into Open Access database or spreadsheet format. A member brought along an ASCII file that he had been unable to import successfully. In turned out that the problem was that some records (i.e. a line of the ASCII file) exceeded 255 characters in length. Unfortunately Open Access File-Convertor cannot handle lines greater than 255 characters. During import it assumes that the 255th character is a "line feed" character and it creates a new line (and, in the process, skipping the 255th character so there is no way to recover it). Terry successfully tried importing the same ASCII file into Microsoft Excel. Then he exported the data in dBase 3 format so that it could be read and converted by Open Access. A tip is to insert a line at the top of the spreadsheet and type in the field names before doing the dBase export. It should be possible to do the same with MS Access. If you have Windowbase 2.0 you can import the ASCII file straight into OA DF format, no matter how long the line are. Creating conference name tags from an OA database Terry and Keith demonstrated how they successfully produced conference name tags by exporting OA data to dBase then using the Mail Merge features of Word for Windows to access the data and generate the labels (see Keith's notes for more details). Corrupt screen mask Michael Paine recently assisted an OA User who had a corrupted screen mask and was unable to change data from the Browse window. Unfortunately the screen mask was hopelessly corrupt and there was no backup copy. Luckily the utility program OASYS.EXE was able to open and document the contents of the screen mask. This turned out to have 6 pages and dozens of entries. The beauty of OASYS.EXE is that it also documents must match fields, external fields and expressions so Michael had a (very) long list of everything he needed to know to recreate the screen mask. One final trick was to print the field name list (in the order that they appear in the screen mask) to "file" and then create an SQL query with the SELECT clause based on this list. Then, when the "new" screen mask was created, the default entries were in the same order as the original screen mask. Considerable time was then spent cutting and pasting the fields onto the correct screen mask page - starting from the end of the list to ensure there was always space to paste the moved items. Finally the must match. external and expression (dependent) fields were fixed up. There is a lesson here for everyone - backup your SMKs and PMKs as well as data files! Its also a way to recruit new members. In the red Another member was puzzled why his spreadsheet stopped printing red characters in a particular cell. It turned out he was "in the black" for a change and OA was doing exactly as it was supposed to - print positive numbers in black ink and negative numbers in red ink. Barcodes After the break Lindy Kidman gave a talk and demonstration about automatically reading barcodes in to OA - the use of barcodes on bottles of wine was a clever way to capture our attention! Barcode printing was also discussed. Several types of printers for printing barcode on avery labels are available but they are relatively expensive and have limited application. Michael Paine showed how Omnibar works. It is an easy-to-use TSR program which works with any DOS or Windows 3.1 program and prints barcodes on HP laser or Epson dot-matrix printers. It is available from Bar Code Data Systems, Sydney 02 95345888, fax 02 95334605 for about $400. A demo version is available on the Internet (see Michael's web page for a link). Keith O'Donnell described a similar barcode printing program that he uses [details here Keith?] Email to the Group Subject: BACKUP PROCEDURES & APP.MNU Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 17:22:57 +1000 From: TRENGOVE.SHANE@epa.nsw.gov.au After reading the latest newsletter it may be worth adding for those who are not familiar with OA4 menu systems how you can create your own menus (nested four deep if you wish) to automate some of the database checking and backing up procedures. A useful backing-up submenu can be created eg BACKUP.MNU, using the notepad and saving them with the new name after inserting suitable title names and action commands. An example might be :- "DATABASE CHECK MENU" 8,8 (note use of Alt255 for spaces and adjust cordinates for screen position of the menu). ORDERS CHEK ordrschk.mon (create this first) ORDERS B_U ordrsbak.bat or /ordrsbak Save this as DBCHK.MNU Then edit the APP.MNU in the notepad by inserting a line CHECK DATABASES DBCHK.MNU This will call the submenu from which the required action is executed. This sub-menu can run OA macros to run databases through Verify file before backup or call DOS batch files as described in the last newsletter. Unfortunately OA keystroke macros do not have any error handling ability to allow for such events as a database file failing the 'VERIFY' check. Despite this the sub-menu system capability is still a useful way of organising and automating many tasks in OA. Shane Trengove. Open Access - looking back - and forward by Michael Paine, Technical Co-ordinator, June 97 Well, another year has seen the Microsoft Steam Roller clear more in its path. MS Access seems to be firmly entrenched as the "corporate" database for PC users. Promising products such as Superbase, Foxpro and Windowbase seem to have been flattened by the onslaught. Even dBase for Windows seems to have fizzled out. Who can blame corporate bosses for assuming that the only database product was a Microsoft one when the only real exposure they have had to PCs is a word processor - and they no longer trusted their IT (not cousin "It" - Information Technology) experts for advice about PCs. Besides steam rollers, I can think of another vehicle-related analogy (being an automotive engineer I tend to think that way). Remember the kit cars which look flash but are built on a clapped-out old VW chassis? (note I am going to be careful not to name any particular software product, having just watched, on TV, the results of MacDonalds pursuing a couple of vegetarians through the courts for twelve years). Some of the "Windows" databases seem like this - flashy things have been added on because they seem like a good idea (or the competition has them) but the underlying mechanicals are pathetic and the resulting product is cumbersome and unfriendly. The great thing about Open Access database was that it was built on a strong IT foundation and the creators had brilliant foresight. Remember that OA was created in the days before LANs and SQL queries became popular. Recently we have had several demonstrations of application code-generating products where it took considerable time to do the same as we can do in OA programmer with the commands: VIEW va = FROM cardspi; USE va DISPLAY cardspi; BROWSE va (to open the familiar Browse window on the database table CARDSPI.DF). The other trap with some Windows databases is the constant changes to versions. A new version seems to come out every year . Although new features are added and data from the previous version can usually be converted it is rare that the custom source code of the previous version is fully compatible and tedious changes are necessary. Also data from two or more versions previously often cannot be converted at all - we are forced to keep upgrading just to be able to use old data (which seems to have no importance to the software creators). My advice to clients is don't commit your data solely to a proprietary format. If possible try to use the data in a long-lasting format such as dBase (for example MS Access will happily work with "attached" dBase files). At the very least, include a data conversion function in your applications so that you can quickly make dBase (or ASCII) files out of the precious data - of course OA has had this feature under "Desk accessories" since day one! My AOAUG web page still has the statement "We'll keep using it until there's a better product in Windows" for good reason! Okay - I've got that off my chest. Let me now review some of the technical topics covered in the Group's newsletter over the past few years. Use of OA data in Word for Windows Mail Merge (April & Feb 97) Strategies for backing up data (several issues) Barcodes (June 97) Networking OA (nearly every issue - note that a comprehensive document about OA Networking can be downloaded from my Web page) Printing problems with Windows 95 (recent issues - still no universal solutions - send in your tips) Warning about Word for Windows Macro viruses (Nov 96) Reviews of Delphi, Clarion & MS Access Demise of SPI and transfer of support to Europe (mid 96) Information technology management - a great talk by Terry (June 96) Demonstration of the World Wide Web (April 96) and creation of a Web page for the Group Potential problems with computing in the year 2000 (with OA we are lucky - it is only use of the abbreviated year that will cause problems because 00 will be interpreted as 1900 - and a fix for this minor bug is promised by SPG in Germany) (Dec 95) CD technology and interactive videos (Oct 95). Upgrades to Datapac System Manager and the release of Winframe (a Windows NT multi-user, remote access operating system which bridges the gap between PCs and diskless "network computers") (Dec 95) Promising new technology: Iomega Zip drives (100Mb capacity diskettes) and HP Officejet fax/printer/scanner (Sep 95). My web page now has numerous links to PC-related sites. If I come across an interesting news item then I try to refer to it on that page as soon as possible. If you have any news or suggestions for additional links please send me some email. I have also recently added to my web page the facility to download my Structured Program Primer (SPP). I wrote it several years ago to assist in the development of menu-driven applications in OA4 Programmer. SPP allows the user to quickly define a menu structure, with up to 4 levels of sub-menu, using a simple text layout (actually a memo field). SPP then generates the source code for a drop-down menu system (conceived by Keith O'Donnell who has vast experience in creating user-friendly applications). It automatically allocates a logical name for each text file and also generates a help (HLP) file and a batch file. I used to charge for SPP but you can now use it free of charge on the understanding that no support is provided - it is intended for experienced OA programmers (but please let me know if you are having problems running the program). Disclaimer Notice: Users should not act solely on the basis of the material contained in this document. Items contained in this document are presented as possible solutions to problems but do not constitute advice. In particular, no assurance can be given that the possible solutions will work in every situation or that loss of data will not occur. Always back-up data before trying to rectify a problem.