[Kexi] Linux Voice review, Kexi wins in the Databases category

[cl at isbd.net]

Jaroslaw Staniek <staniek at kde.org> wrote:
> >
> > My fundamental requirement is soemthing like Access' table view that
> > allows very simple creation and updating of a table.  I've yet to find
> > anything.
> 
> Yes, sometimes I am looking into ways to make Kexi even simpler to
> use, so if user wants it - it can be in the middle between a
> spreadsheet and a db creation app. Ad-hoc creating table designs
> (while entering the data) is one of the things, quite hard to
> implement though. Interesting, after the idea came MSA (maybe 2003?)
> added similar feature.
> 
> But before it's reality we probably need to get reliable alter-table
> feature to work.
> 
My main reason for not persevering with Kexi (I did try it a while
ago) is that it is effectively proprietary in the way it uses
databases.  You really can't share data between Kexi and other
applications.  I have, for example, a lot of sqlite3 databases created
by a DokuWiki plugin.  I'd love to be able to access and use them with
Kexi, but I can't.  I could import them into Kexi but then the
Dokuwiki plugin could no longer access them.

Simply by making kexi databases have the unique .kexi suffix I believe
you are putting a lot of people off.  If one could at least *read* a
Kexi database directly it would help.


> 
> What exact features of simple table creation do you mean?
> 
I want to be able to edit a table in place on a tabular form.  Table
creation I am quite happy to do by other means, I just want simple,
straightforward data entry the way that Access does it by default.

Having created the table one is presented with a 'spreadsheet' form
where existing data is displayed (scrolling if required) and I can
edit existing entries directly and add new rows.  By default Access
shows a 'new entry' blank line at the bottom of the table.

Editing entries needs to be very straightforward, just click on a
field and enter/delete text.  No pop-up forms, double-clicks or
anything. 

-- 
Chris Green
·