Karen, I know how to do it but it would be a daunting task to convert the entire application to work smoothly with a tablet and I am not sure it would be worth it. I have about 180 forms and about 120 reports that would need modified. Some forms would need parsed into three or four sub-forms. When I conduct product demos, I frequently get asked by potential clients if they could use a tablet PC with my software. I relate the following experience to them.
Last summer one of my clients bugged me to setup an IPad so that his employees could take it to the sales floor to gather patient information. The owner had gone to a trade seminar and learned that PCs were obsolete and tablets are the future. He was so convinced that he bought an IPad from a vendor at the trade show. I set his IPad up and he immediately deployed it. In a couple of weeks they decided that the IPad was not a good solution if you had information to collect; like address, phone #s and insurance. The extra time that it took to key the data using the on-screen keyboard resulted in angry patients and angry employees. By the end of the third week they decided to just use the IPad for verifying past history and for viewing the patient notes (that worked well but it did not save much time). During the fourth week, one of the employees dropped it on the floor and that was the end of the IPad. They are back to using a wireless notebook computer, on a cart, that they wheel over to the patient. Everyone is back to being happy now! There are definitely applications where tablets are a good solution but if there is a moderate or heavy need for data entry (especially while a customer or patient is waiting) a PC is much better. I will continue to experiment with tablets and I suspect my clients will come up with an application for the tablet in their business. I enjoy working with them but I will proceed cautiously. John Engwer (412) 751-2433 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 12:26 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Rbase and Tablets John: What you can do in your situation is to have a button or a menu selection on your main form that lets the user choose that they are using a "small screen". Keep that in a global variable like: xSmallScreen = "yes" You might also be able to trap (cval('computer')) if you can identify the exact machine. Then you can take the necessary forms, design a small screen version, and then do: SET VAR vFormname = (IFEQ(.xSmallScreen,'yes','FormSmall','Form')) EDIT USING &vFormname I don't think it would be that hard, and I'll bet you can talk your client into trying one as a test. Karen In a message dated 2/25/2012 10:44:34 PM Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: One of my clients asked me to connect her Kindle Fire (Android) to the RBASE application that she is using. I used a free RDP app called AccessToGo to accomplish the task. The ATG app works well and my RBASE applications are fully functional. However, the Fire has a small screen so it takes a lot of screen resizing to operate the RBASE application. I may redesign some of the forms and reports to work better with the small screen if there is enough interest from my clients.
