Andreas Saeger wrote:
Hi,
This thread proves that a severe lack of documentation on one side meets
innocence on the other side of the screen. No, a database is not
"another file format for tables". It differs completely from a
spreadsheet. You can not simply paste all kind of data from spreadsheet
to database in one or two steps.
Linking (connecting) spreadsheet tables into a Base container, so *it
looks as if the spreadsheet were a database* does not actually turn a
spreadsheet document into a database.
On the other hand, pasting (importing) tabular data from arbitrary
sources into a "real database" requires a lot of processing to make the
data actually fit into the database. IMHO, the import wizard is one of
the better tools in Base since it is quite universal and works pretty
well if you understand what you are trying to do with it.
Andreas
I notice you call it the "import wizard" and not the "paste wizard" :-)
Yes, it would be overly innocent (naive?) to expect data from another
source to magically become a database table. But if you're starting from
legacy data, before you can make it a proper database table you have to
get it into the database as best you can, and the cited issue basically
refers to the fact that most software dealing with such things calls
such an action an import, and does not rely on an operating system
clipboard to hold the data in transit (or at least if it does, it's not
obvious). So the interface is unexpected. Among other things, there is
no explicit recognition of the type of data source you are dealing with,
and yet it clearly matters. In this case, the "quite universal"
interface may paradoxically have gone too far in trying to hide some of
the underlying realities, and they come up and bite you if you don't
really understand the issues involved. And that's by no means a given,
even for relatively sophisticated users. I pretty much count myself as
one of those, since I was a professional programmer for 30 years,
working in depth with *lots* of different types of data stores/
databases -- and this interface definitely threw me. I've learned to
live with it, but I think there are real improvements possible. This is
not in any way intended as a put-down; creating such a worthy competitor
for Access, etc., on the basis of volunteer effort is enormously
commendable!
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