Chapter C 2 : Introduction to the Sample Application

Advanced Revelation comes with a complete sample application already installed. This sample application will give you an idea of the power of Advanced Revelation’s application development and reporting tools.

The sample application serves two purposes. The first is to show you how a finished Advanced Revelation application looks. As you work with the sample application, you will see how you can take advantage of the many application development tools that Advanced Revelation provides: windows, menus, softkeys, and even R/BASIC programs. The second purpose of the sample application is just as important: to provide you with an application that you can examine and explore. Everything we used to create the application is available: dictionary fields, windows, and program source code. We encourage you to take a look at what makes the sample application work, including how to create a window, establish softkeys, use R/BASIC programs, produce reports, and add other application features.

The sample application is a typical customer and invoice tracking application. You can enter new customer records or modify existing ones, add or modify invoices, and add or modify products. In addition, you can run a series of reports that provide information about the customers, invoices, and products, such as a customer list, an aged invoice report, or a product list. All files in the sample application are in the GLOBAL account, so they are always available. The sample application files are stored on a volume called SAMPLE_VOL and installed on a subdirectory SAMPLE beneath your default Advanced Revelation subdirectory.

For general information about the sample application, choose Overview from the Sample Application menu.

There are several ways for you to reach the sample application:

• Choose the Access-Sample Application option from the Main menu.
• Enter SAMPLE at TCL.
• Run the last lesson of the Tutorial.

However you access the sample application, you first see the sample application main menu. From there, you can follow the menus to use Customer, Invoice, or Product windows.

All of the standard Advanced Revelation function keys work in this sample application. There are four keys that you will want to use frequently while you tour the application:

There is extensive online help throughout the application. Each help screen includes:

• Help that a user of the application would normally see. For example, if you press [F1] at a window prompt, you will see a description of the prompt and information about the type of data expected there.
• Help that tells you, the developer, something about how that prompt or window is set up. This supplementary help — not normally found in an application —- explains how or why a feature was implemented. These asides will help you understand how to take advantage of features throughout the system.

You can modify the sample application in any way you choose. For example, you may decide to add more data, change the softkeys in the windows, or create additional reports.

The sample application is a “live” application, so the changes you make are immediate and permanent. And because the sample application is in the GLOBAL account, changes you make wherever you are in Advanced Revelation are reflected for all other users in all other accounts.

You may want to back up the sample application, restore it from the Advanced Revelation installation disks, or disable it.

You can easily back up the sample application. Just copy the contents of the subdirectory \AREV\SAMPLE to a diskette. If you installed Advanced Revelation onto a subdirectory other than \AREV, look for the subdirectory SAMPLE beneath that path.

To restore the sample application to the way it was when you first installed it, you can either restore it from a backed up version (see above), or follow these steps:

1. At the operating system level (DOS or OS/2), log to the subdirectory SAMPLE beneath the path on which you installed Advanced Revelation.

2. Make sure you are in the SAMPLE subdirectory, and then delete any files already in that subdirectory.

3. Using the operating system COPY command, copy the file SAMPLE from your Advanced Revelation disk set onto the SAMPLE subdirectory.

4. Use the operating system REN command to rename the SAMPLE file to SAMPLE.EXE.

5. At the operating system prompt, enter the word SAMPLE. This executes a utility that unpacks the files for the sample application.

6. When the unpacking is finished, you can delete the SAMPLE.EXE file. When you next log into Advanced Revelation, you will have a fresh copy of the application.

On a newly installed copy of Advanced Revelation, the sample application is automatically available whenever you log on. This is because the logon process automatically executes the TCL commands in the LOGON record in the VOC file, and this record contains the command ATTACH SAMPLE_VOL.

To disable the application, you can either:

• Delete the ATTACH SAMPLE_VOL command from the LOGON record.
• Delete the LOGON record from the VOC file.

If you specify a logon verb in either the Secure Account window or the Secure User window, that logon verb takes precedence over LOGON. For more information, see “Setting Up Accounts” and “Setting Up Users” in the chapter “Users and Accounts: Planning Access and Security” in Developing an. Application.