Barbara,
> 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, ...
Huh? Get it into the database as what? Do you suggest a temporary table
where everything is imported as varchar? Do you really thing that this
starting point would make anything easier? Excuse my lack of imagination.
Additionally to a smart import wizard, Base lacks the
capability to link external tables like Access can do (exception: hsqldb
can link csv independently from Base). I believe that both of those
heavily wanted features are interrelated. Once you have a link to
another datasource, you already know the types and can map them to valid
types of the target database. Oh, we can do that already! Just create
the target table *before import*, choose option "Append data", specify
the table by it's name and map the source fields to the already existing
target fields.
I believe that Base is severely broken. In particular that embedded hsql
thing is worth absolutely nothing. There is hardly one single reference
database out there because the developers did not implement a reference
for their own development purposes. Everything is split in tiny pieces
of functionality without testing the whole thing against a real world
database.
Apart from the problems of the zipped hsql-container (performance,
security and safety), they simply forgot some very important details:
- Everything in OOo has an URL, except for reports and forms. We can not
call reports and forms with a hyperlink (-button). We can not create
some entry form, menu or desktop-links to call forms and reports.
- They forgot the concatenation operator in Base's parsed query mode.
This leads to ridiculous queries with nested concat-calls (I quit using
"parsed mode" mainly because of that).
- Neither Base nor Hsqldb can calculate times. No DateAdd function, no
CAST("Date" AS INT), no CAST("Float" AS TIMESTAMP). There is no reliable
way to get a date/time from a calculation. Although Max("Date") is shown
as integer you can not even calculate with converted numbers. So we can
not do anything that deals with scheduling, not even a personal calendar
or list of contacts with days until birthday.
Halleluja! We have a tool which is able to import arbitrary flavours of
tabular data from the clipboard. It works. It simply cancels the whole
transaction in case of error (which is good).
Halleluja! Base allows for plain-text SQL commands, reusable with other
applications, sent directly to the underlying database, which is
hopefully not hsqldb. So we are not stuck with graphical tools that hide
away too much functionality while throwing irritating errors on valid
actions.
No, I did not mention forms and reports. That's another little shop of
horror.
No more features, please. Stop all those report tools (reports from
what?). Just import "Northwind.mdb" and try to implement some of the
forms that are necessary to buy and sell goods. Then import one million
records in embedded hsqldb and look what it does to your CPU. Then
decide how to fix the whole thing before throwing yet another tool.
Cheers,
Andreas
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