- TurboCASH as a Multi-User Program
- Create a Windows Mapped Drive
- Sharing a drive
- Se-tting Up a Mapped Drive
- Setting Up the BDE
- Adjusting the BDE to Improve Speed
- Errors
- Simulating a networks environment
TurboCASH comes standard as a multi-user product. It is important to know that the Paradox/BDE files used in TurboCASH are not encrypted or protected. The password system is there only to inhibit end users from tinkering with the system data. Any reasonably technically competent programmer can use a tool to open these files directly.
The Paradox/BDE is an old fashioned File handling system that has come in for a lot of criticism lately by programmers favoring the SQL style databases. Certainly there are a lot of arguments in favor of this but you will find that working in a single user environment or small user network, that this database system is faster than SQL alternatives. So for the target market of TurboCASH users, single users and 2-5 user networks it is fine.
The BDE just keeps going. As machines have improved, the performance has got better. If you are running all your machines 1 to 5 users using Windows XP and greater than 2 Mhz with 512 Mb of Ram, then you should have no problem using databases with 500 000 records.
We have some users using as much as 10 users. Large Windows 2003 servers and Linux SAMBA servers can increase this. By introducing Razor Accounting Servent we have been able to get as many as 150 users.....
But lets keep it simple and aim TurboCASH at the 1-5 user networks. Bigger than that and security and installation become an overriding issue.
I assume that you have a Working Networks and that you are able to see another PC using My Network places.
Here is an example of three
machines linked together (looked at from Philips machine). If you are
not familiar with how to do this you will need someone that know this
process or you will need to dig through the Windows Help system to
figure it out. It works by setting up the Windows Client Networks and
setting all TCP/IP addresses to the same domain.
Once you have a Windows network installed you are ready to proceed.
In the above example I have 3
machines Gina, Philip and Sylvain. I am going to set Sylvain up as the
server.
Sharing a drive
I assume that you will be setting the server up on the strongest PC. You need to share this drive with the other PC's in the network.
On the machine that is going to be the Server (Sylvain). Select Sharing and Security option to Share a drive.
You can share the whole drive;
- * Only the TCASH3 directory (or TurboCASH installation directory)
- * Or only the Set of Books directory
Choose TCASH3 as you may wish to share more than one Set of Books
Now on each Client machine you need to MAP this drive.
Open Windows Explorer, click on My Network Places and highlight the drive that you wish to map.
On each client machine make the network drive the same, say “Z”
The BDE (Borland Database Engine) is controlled in the Control Panel.
In the Control Panel, click on the BDE Administrator icon.
The BDE Administrator screen will be displayed. Click on the Configuration tab:
Click on the Drivers option.
First you must configure the NET DIR drive for Paradox. This MUST be the same on all machines and also on the server if you are going to enter transactions from the server.
Get this in Configuration – Drivers - PARADOX
The BDE Administrator will create a file called PDOXUSRS.NET which it will place in this file.
If the NET DIR directory is different for different clients unpredictable results will occur.
You MUST click the blue update button 
for
changes to take effect!
In System – INIT – LOCALSHARE
This must be set to TRUE
Remember to use reset button
Adjusting the BDE to Improve Speed
The BDE can be adjusted to give improved speed.If you get messages “lockfile too large” you can set the size Configuration->System->INIT set SharedMemSize to a bigger size (16384 = 16 Mb).
The standard file is 2048,
increase this to 16384.
You can also
increase the MAXBUFSIZE and MAXFILEHANDLES to increase performance.
This is a balance between network performance and Windows Resources.
However with a 512 Mb Windows XP machine you should have few problems.
To find out more about the these fields in the BDE press 
while inside the BDE
Administrator.
Errors
TurboCASH uses the NET DIR drive and creates lock files. These stop conflicts if two users try to enter the same record at the same time.
- PDOXUSRS.LCK
- PARADOX.LCK
If
you get a lock out error trying to access a TurboCASH set of Books.
make sure that all users exit the system and delete there files. You
will find them in the NET DIR directory (TCASH3 or Installation
Directory) on your server machine.
Simulating
a networks environment
You may wish
to test TurboCASH on a network to monitor performance on your network.
By default you can not run more than one copy of TurboCASH on one machine. But you may wish to run several copies on several machines. For example you have a 3 user network and by running 3 copies on each machine you can simulate a 9 user network.
To enable this feature, RIGHT click on the TurboCASH icon and reset the properties in your target application to be TCASH3.exe MULTY TRUE.
Apply and
start TurboCASH normally.
You will have
to go through all the processes of network setup you MUST create one
user for each machine in the simulation. Do not log in twice as the
same user.
Now you can open Invoicing and in the bottom left of the opening screen is the box on the left. This will let you automatically make as many invoices as you like in millisecond slices.
(1000 MS = 1 Second).
You can set some of the machines automatically invoicing, while on another machines or in another process you can post invoices or run reports. You will see that you can run very large systems with TurboCASH.