Security

[Astrid Mazur]

We are running Paradox 7.0 and have forms that are used by different
people in the company. Some maintain the information accessible through
the form, while others should only have view capability. What is the
best way of allowing or restricting fields in a form based on the person
using the form, and can you give an example that I can use as a
template.

Thanks for your help.

Peter Purves

[Dennis Santoro]

The best/easiest way is to use User authentication with intermediate
passwords for the user that issue real table level passwords behind the
scenes. The table level passwords can control various access levels. You can
most likely install and implement our Security Guard product cheaper than
you can write one of your own. (you can download the documentation from our
web site for review and the product is available from our online store.

You are unlikely to get "template" code because much of it would be specific
to your needs. Should you decide to write it yourself there is a free basic
password dialog form available on our Paradox resources page.

An additional advantage of the table password approach is that if the user
tries to access the tables in Paradox directly they still have to issue the
passwords and since you have not given them real ones, just their
intermediary one, they will not be able to open the tables.

Denn Santoro
President
Resource Development Associates
http://www.RDAWorldWide.Com
375 High Street
Rochester, MA 02770
(508) 295-7350
and
Waldweg 5
83512 Reitmehring
Germany
08071 924271
Providing solutions to health care, business, governments and non-profits
since 1982

[Astrid Mazur]

Thanks Dennis
The programmer wants to set security on fields in a form. I mentioned that we
can make a field read only & /or visible. He wants one form to be used with
multiple users inputting data to select fields & restricting access to fields to
other users. The way we presently did it was to have different forms with the
same fields visible as read only. I have passwords on some tables & restrict
table access thru Novell.

[Dennis Santoro]

Astrid,

You can set different field level restrictions with Pdox table level passwords. So
it is the same thing except you create a custom set of filed rights on a particular
PW. Still manageable via pdox table PWs and Security Guard. And still in place if
the user goes to the tables without your form so still a much better approach than
form based security.