Conference 7.286::atarist

    	I've just purchased a replacement for my old database, H&D Base.
    The old H&D Base was a powerful, but very difficult to deal with
    database. It's user interface was not GEM and not very friendly.
    	The replacement is Informer II. It is a joy to work with, very
    flexible and very easy to get out/find what you want. It is fully GEM.
    You start out with a spreadsheet-looking table that lists all of the
    entries in the file you have accessed - you can use small height type
    to get a lot of entries (about 25 as I remember) on screen at one time.
    To enter new entries, you flip to a form, which you layout/design for
    each field. (The multi-line field is a bit of a puzzle, though.) The
    only problem now is printing out labels with a variable number of
    lines.  I'd like to be able to have 1 or 2 address line in a label:
    
    John Doe			Bill Smith
    Ajax Company		100 Main St.
    293 Industry Drive		Anytown, MA 01111
    Big City, NY 11111
    
    by having fields Address 1 and Address 2, John would use both, Bill
    only Address 1.  This is no problem, but the print out doesn't know how
    to skip a blank field. Bill's address prints out as:
    
    Bill Smith
    100 Main St.
    
    Anytown, MA 01111
    
    The developer, Rich Skraly (sp?) says this will be fixed in an upgrade
    due in mid-December.
    	Otherwise, I love it!  For under $50, you can't beat it!
    		- Chris

    Thanks Chris for the info, I check it out and see if I can locate it
    here at one of the stores.  Thanks again....
    

    There are other commercial programs. 
    
    Data Manager ST 1.1 (Timeworks)
    DBman 5.0 (Versasoft) 
    Base Two (Antic Software) 
    Superbase Personal (Precision Software?)
    Superbase Professional  "      "

    Thanks gilliam, I will add those to my list...

    SuperBase Personnel is very good , it has good relational capabilities
    easy to use and set up and very flexiable , but beware of the
    complexity of your application these GEM driven application can
    run out of steam all of a sudden , Ive seen SB profesional its just
    SB Personnel + with basic and a few new commands and some more
    flexability.
    
    Simon.

    I'm very happy with my Superbase Personal.  It does everything I
    want it to, and more.
    
    Theo

    I am also looking at Databases for the ST - in my case a 1040 with
    floppies.
    
    I am currently using the precursor to Base Two - I guess it must
    be called Base One.  It meets my simple needs fairly well, but has
    some irritating features on data entry, and I could do with slightly
    more flexibility on report generation.
    
    I've heard that Superbase Personal is good, but it writes to disk
    every time you update a record.  Is this true?  As I often want
    to make small updates to a number of records in quick succession,
    and I don't have a hard disk, this would be a distinct disadvantage.
    
    My current favourite prospect is K-data from Kuma software (UK).  It
    looks easy to use, but I still have to check out it's report generation
    facilities.  Is anyone using this package?  Is it any good?    
    
    Alex
    

    As this note is about two years old...
    
    What's still available out there?  My main application will be
    maintaining mailing lists.  The cheaper the better, PD would be perfect
    if it will do the job.
    
    						Brian

I have a home grown mailing list maintenance program that I've developed
over a 4 year period in GFA Basic. But you should know GFA Basic in order
to customize it to your own application.

Sizewise, it easily handles 4000 records, where each record is about 120
characters long. Multikey sorting is also built in, as is character
string searching.

I have a nice one I use for various maling lists, including NaVAUS
members and my personal phone book.  Setting up the database files and
print format file requires a small amount of technical ability with a
text editor.

(You have to enter each field name, it's "abbreviation", and the number
of lines it will contain on the screen in.)

- The data file is a text file.
- There is no practical limit to the length of any record.  Everything
  is variable length.
- GEM user interface
- Multiple database files can be open at once
- Elaborate search capability 
- Elaborate print-in-form capability.  (Requires some technical
  sophistication to figure out.  You make the templates in a text editor,
  printf-like template that uses % and the abbreviations, and has lots of
  conditional handling for such things as substituting fields for other
  missing fields, and picking a specific line number out of the result.)

It's all my own code.

The GEM version has the restriction that the entire database must fit
in memory, and the whole file is read and written each time it is
modified. I'd say that it is good for up to about 1000 entries before
it get's to be too much to read/write the entire file.

There is no limit on the length of any line, the form will scroll lines
right/left as much as needed.  The current version limits the number
of lines in each field to what you declared when you created the data
file.  You can change it later with a text editor.   A future version
will scroll fields vertically as well, so that there will be no limits
at all.

That leaves as the biggest problem being the complexity of the print
formatting.  If you are interested, I'll upload it as soon as I get a chance.