Emily Harris wrote:
> Hi - I'm a journalist trying to evaluate Base in OO version 2.2 to see
> if I can finally have a truly useful contacts database. Running Windows
> XP.
>
>
>
> I keep track of sources, people who I talk to for reporting stories. I
> keep the obvious information; names, phone #s, email, webpages. Also I
> keep fairly detailed notes on their areas of expertise and dates I've
> contacted them previously. I give each contact one slug (category) or
> more, a keyword such as "econ" in case I need to find all the possible
> economists in my list for a given story.
>
>
Here's where I think you're designing your database wrong. You either
need a linking table or a foreign table. Something like this
CONTACTS:
CONTACT_ID (PK)
CONTACT_NAME
....
EXPERTISE:
EXPERTISE_ID (PK)
EXPERTISE_NAME
CONTACT_EXPERTISE:
CONTACT_ID
EXPERT_ID
Primary key = (CONTACT_ID, EXPERT_ID)
That way, rather than having to search three or four fields for the word
"econ", you just need a join query and the right keyword ("economics").
As NoOp suggested you should talk to the Base mailing list, not only
about how to use Base properly, but how to set up a normalized database
that is a lot easier to search.
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