Saving records on desktop version

[Doug_H]

Am piloting a database using an Asus EEE Touch tablet PC as I need more screen space than, say, a Palm device. I lost a number of records today due to an abnormal program termination. I get these when accidentally trying to fill text fields beyond their capacity (though I don't think that was the case today) but my real issue is how to be sure to minimise data loss in the event of any sort of problem as I'm not convinced that Windows is as robust as Palm OS in this regard.
It seems to me that the Palm version saves each record to disk when I use an Action button to create a new record, but the desktop version doesn't. Is there a way of operating a failsafe environment so that I can be sure each record is saved to disk.
I'm using a lot of forms using lots of action buttons. Clearly I can use Save and Close but I really want to Save and Create New Record and be sure my save is written to disk.
Any thoughts anyone?
thanks
Doug

[dhaupert]

Hi Doug,

You're correct in that the way storage was done on the Palm was different than the desktop or other platforms. On the Palm, there was no file system, so everything was done using a transactional database. This meant that if I saved a record, it was saved to the actual database stored in memory immediately. This actually changed in Palm OS 5.4 since they began using the Non-Volatile File System (NVFS). This meant that only at certain events, they'd move from the RAM storage to the permanent storage, and we found the same sort of limitations there as we have with the system we use on the Windows Desktop and other platforms- ie, if there is a crash, the recent changes were lost.

In v4.0 of HanDBase, we implemented an auto-save feature on our Windows Mobile platform. This made it so that the database was automatically saved to disk at pre-chosen intervals. Such a feature could be done on the Windows Desktops as well.

To me, the bigger issue is what is causing you to have abnormal terminations. I know there are sometimes unhandled exceptions, but I have not been able to duplicate any sort of actual crash reports. If you have any steps or even clues to making a crash happen (such as where you were and what you were doing at the time), please let me know!

[Doug_H]

Thanks Dave
one thing that certainly causes problems is overfilling text fields - beyond the limits I've set or beyond the limits of HanDBase - it causes an error that is impossible to recover from other than using Task Manager to blow HB away. I'd only seen this in testing, not in the field (where for me it's less likely to happen) - and had not realised how much data I was losing when it happened.
(I get quite carried away with using Append Captions to values where there is sometimes quite a lot of text in the caption)

I don't think that was the case yesterday, though - am really not sure what happened. I will try to replicate and come back to you

I'd welcome the autosave feature! To be honest, HB + tablet PC are maybe not the best tools for what I am trying to do because on Windows each form takes seconds to finish loading and the handwriting recognition of my tablet is 0 compared to Palm, but I haven't found a better way to handle a "tick the box" type of application that will, eventually, drive mail merge or custom reporting (ie Crystal Reports).
I clearly need to continue with the Palm and pause and rethink on the tablet approach for a bit.
Regards
Doug

[Doug_H]

found a cause of the crashing problem - one of my forms had a Jump to form button - but no form specified - so clearly my problem, though overfilling text fields also causes a crash in the desktop version where the Palm version just sits there.
would be very keen to have a save to disk action button - or some way of saving safely without having to leave forms and start again!

thanks
Doug