>If someone has my app opened and I need to modify a table I have to get everyone off the app so I can.
>
>I am in the process of re-writing my app to make it better. I will use views for the user to interface with instead of the tables directly.
>
>I still have the problem above with the views. How can I set this up so I can do modifications the tables while the app is in use?

I think you can't, but you can change the views while the database is in use.

Usually, I do structural changes at midnight, as follows.

I have 3 copies of the database. One is empty (all tables with zero records), and I originally do all changes there. The second copy is for the developer, where I do the actual testing. When everything works fine, I update the third copy, which is the production database.

For updating, I use a small program that basically copies the empty structure to a temporary location, and does APPEND FOR for each table.

For urgent updates, I also have a system for kicking users out of the system.

HTH,

Hilmar.