What do I need?

D

dadiOH

I've been looking for a spreadsheet or DB program that would let me
view the data entered and relate it to other data so that it can be
viewed in various ways. Easily. I can do that with what I have
(MSWorks) but it is pretty cumbersome.

Let me give you an example: suppose you are building a house and you
want to track materials used, costs, area where the material was used
(rough construction, room, etc). There are many types of materials so
it would be a real time saver to be able to pick from a list box.
Suppose, for example, that there were a material "Lumber"; a list box
for it might include 2x4s, plywood, pressure treated, finishing. Each
of those would be associated with other things such as "Date", Vendor",
"Quantity", "Cost", etc.

Additionally, it would be useful if there were things specific to a list
box selection. For example, if one selected "Finishing" under "Lumber"
another list box could include a list of various species of "finishing
lumber". Naturally, one would need to be able to add additional list
box choices.

As far as viewing data in various ways goes, what I envisage is
something with an explorer view; i.e., a tree on the left side and the
data related to a selected tree item on the right. Something so that
you could select "Lumber" on the left and see all data associated with
it on the right. Or select a specific room on the left and see all
materials/dates/costs/vendors/etc used on the right.

Years ago I had an 8 bit relational database manager that did this sort
of thing by letting one define the fields as "part of" or "belonging to"
another field or fields. It took a bit of time to set up but worked
pretty well; however, being on an 8 bit computer, it was excruciatingly
slow at its job. There was no such thing as "explorer view" then so one
had to define each type of "report".

Has anyone run across anything like this? Free is best, $$ware
considered. Thanks.

--
dadiOH
____________________________

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C

Cousin Stanley

| I've been looking for a spreadsheet or DB program
| that would let me view the data entered and relate it
| to other data so that it can be viewed in various ways.
|
| Easily.
| ....

Cousin dadiOH ....

If you have any SQL experience you might consider
SQLite for a relational data base backend ....

http://www.hwaci.com/sw/sqlite/

It is a command-line only interface, but if
you design your db tables well, you can build
queries in the form of scripts that could be
used with a wide variety of selection criteria ....

There is also a Python interface called PySQLite
that could be used in conjunction with any of
the several available Python GUI mechanisms
to eventually include the ListBox frontend
interface you desire ....

In general, I don't think building custom data base solutions
fits your Easily requirement and that a fair amount
of work will be required no matter which data base backend
and GUI frontend is chosen ....
 
C

Cousin Stanley

With regard to SQLite I should mention
that it is available for both Windows and Linux ....

Also, under Linux there is a package
called Knoda that provides a GUI frontend ....

Description: graphical database frontend for KDE
knoda is a database frontend for KDE.

Knoda allows you to:

* define and delete databases
* create, alter and delete tables and indices
* add, change and delete data in tables
* define, execute and store sql queries
* import and export CSV data
* define and use forms
* define and print reports

Its driver concept allows a uniform connection
to different database servers.

These currently include MySQL and SQLite Version 2 ....

I've contacted the Debian package manager for Knoda
by eMail and he will be adding support for SQLite 3
within a few weeks ....
 
D

dadiOH

Cousin said:
With regard to SQLite I should mention
that it is available for both Windows and Linux ....

Also, under Linux there is a package
called Knoda that provides a GUI frontend ....

Description: graphical database frontend for KDE
knoda is a database frontend for KDE.

Knoda allows you to:

* define and delete databases
* create, alter and delete tables and indices
* add, change and delete data in tables
* define, execute and store sql queries
* import and export CSV data
* define and use forms
* define and print reports

Its driver concept allows a uniform connection
to different database servers.

These currently include MySQL and SQLite Version 2 ....
Click to expand...

Thanks, cuz, I have a couple of Linux versions so I'll look up the
program. My (ample) gut tells me that "easily" may not be in the cards
though :)

--
dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
H

Helen

If you can find a copy of an old program.....DbaseIII...you can design your
program, and a report it really is EASY. You determine the length of the
fields and what goes in
them....I used to use it years ago to matain records of expenditures for
thousands of dollars...and
do reports too. It does the math automatically ... you just have to get the
plus and minus signs in
the right order for $ in and $ out....Of course that's the one I
designed...you can design your
desired activity otherwise. But basically it was an electronic ledger.
Dbase IV was more
complicated...I didn't like it. DbaseIII was small, simple and did the job.
 
A

André Gulliksen

dadiOH said:
Years ago I had an 8 bit relational database manager that did this
sort of thing by letting one define the fields as "part of" or
"belonging to" another field or fields. It took a bit of time to set
up but worked pretty well; however, being on an 8 bit computer, it
was excruciatingly slow at its job. There was no such thing as
"explorer view" then so one had to define each type of "report".

Has anyone run across anything like this? Free is best, $$ware
considered. Thanks.
Click to expand...

MS Access (part of the Office suite) is probably your best option. The Base
component that is a part of the upcoming OpenOffice 2.0 (betas are already
available for download) costs 0$. My first impressions based on the beta is
that it falls pitifully short of Access, but it might be enough to do what
you want.
 
D

dadiOH

Helen said:
If you can find a copy of an old program.....DbaseIII...you can
design your program, and a report it really is EASY.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much. I'll see if I can find it.

--
dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
D

dadiOH

André Gulliksen said:
MS Access (part of the Office suite) is probably your best option.
The Base component that is a part of the upcoming OpenOffice 2.0
(betas are already available for download) costs 0$. My first
impressions based on the beta is that it falls pitifully short of
Access, but it might be enough to do what you want.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll check it out.

--
dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 

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