Alpha Four has some keystroke and mouse short-cuts that are not very obvious (plus many that are pretty well documented, which I will not include).  These can make working with the program much easier.

The Alpha Four Main Menu shows many items, but you can use keystrokes to get to places that aren't shown on the menu.  For example, you can go directly to the currently selected browse by pressing B.  Or, you can press E and go to the currently selected form, and start a new record.  Press W to switch databases (assuming you have more than one open).  You can view the structure (not in edit mode) of the current database by pressing F2.  F3 will show a status screen with various information about the program and your computer.

When you are in form or browse view, pressing A will prompt you to create a search/sort.  If you press H, the program will automatically scroll through records at about one per second.  Pressing L will bring up the Locate window, and R will bring up the Range Settings window.  

When you are editing a form or report, there are some neat tricks you can use.  If you want to make a field longer or shorter, you can press + or - to change the size by one space.  Or, you can double-click on the field to go directly to the Formatting Options screen (if you like using a mouse, remember that one of the handiest features is using the right-click in place of ESC).

There are many other short-cuts you can use.  I haven't mentioned them in this article, because they are pretty easy to find once you know where to look.  For example, when editing a form, press F2 (Fields).  This shows a list of commands, and gives the keystroke short-cuts for many of them.

Once you have learned these short-cuts, you should find that using the program is much easier.
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