PRODUCTIVITY REVIEW
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		       SUPERBASE PROFESSIONAL 4
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			   by Murray Hassan 



   Ed: Here's a knowledgeable look at this fine database. Details on how and
  where to get this program, and its upgrades:



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   It's faster and more powerful than its Amiga competition, and it's able to
  leap beyond traditional database applications into the realm of multimedia.
  It's a relational database...it's an object-oriented programming
  environment...it's Superbase Professional 4 (SB4)! Yes, one of the prime
  defenders of productivity software the "Amiga Way", Precision Software has
  released another blockbuster sequel.

   History

   Before we take a look at SB4, let's review the Superbase story. From its
  earliest Amiga release, Superbase earned the title of "king of the hill" as
  far as Amiga database-management programs are concerned. Even as the
  product evolved into a fully programmable and relational
  database-management system, its designers have never lost sight of their
  goal - to make the product's powerful features accessible and
  straightforward. This is why Superbase is one of those rare products that
  is equally attractive to the novice with minimal needs as well as to the
  experienced user who demands power and performance.

   Sensitive to the diversity of its clientele, Precision split the evolution
  of Superbase into separate tracks. Superbase Personal offers an
  inexpensive, no-programmable version of the peroduct, while Superbase
  Professional affords a full-blown implementation that stands up to
  database-management systems available on any platform.

   SB4 for the Amiga addresses several of the minor deficiencies of Superbase
  Professional 3 while adding legions of new features. To give you an idea
  of this upgrade's scope, consider that the program's documentation grew
  from around 550 pages to more than 900 pages. Within you will find over
  250 new DML programming constructs, several new menu choices, and a myriad
  of other enhancements.

   Backward compatible

   Thankfully, the new version is fully read-compatible with previous
  versions of the program, but if you reorganize your database under SB4, you
  will need to export more data for use with earlier versions.

   Since the introduction of SB4 for Windows (on the PC), many of us have
  been clamouring for the enhancements found in the MS-DOS version. I am
  happy to say that our calls have been answered. In fact, other than the
  areas where the platforms involved diverge, SB4 for the Amiga and Windows
  are data-compatible and operate alike. The operational similarities
  between these two versions of SB4 mean applications written in DML (the
  Superbase porgramming language) require only minor or, in many cases, no
  modification to run under either version of Superbase. This gives Amiga
  Superbase owners the ability to tap into the wealth of applications created
  for use on MS-DOS machines.

   Forms Designer

   Perhaps even more exciting than the compatibility with the MS-DOS version
  of SB4 is the enhanced Forms Designer. Previous versions of the program
  allowed you to create custom data-entry screens and define relationships
  for multifile applications. SB4's Forms Designer, however, now includes a
  more efficient design and a number of new features.

   Of the Forms Designer's new features, I was most impressed with its three
  new object types. These add a higher degree of automated and interactive
  control to on-screen forms and DML applications. The CMD object makes it
  easier to add embedded automatic commands as well as to create on-screen
  push buttons that execute DML commands. Your push buttons can be either
  solid or transparent rectangles with titles in the colours of your choice.
  The program gives you the option of defining hot-spots over IFF backgrounds
  or other Forms-Designer objects.

   Two more objects allow you to define graphics-based data-entry constructs.
  You can create a set of specific responses for a field with radio buttons
  that a user can select via the mouse or by pressing the Tab or Spacebar
  keys. Likewise, using check boxes, you can create a graphical means for
  selecting binary choices such as yes/no or true/false.

   Another benefit of SB4's new Forms Designer is that now it is much easier
  to define relationships among multiple files. This was once a confusing
  and tedious chore, but now you can define these relationships simply by
  choosing a primary and secondary file and drawing a line on screen linking
  the fields in question. The same holds true when linking and replicating
  fields to define one-to-many relationships (transactional processing).

   One question that plagued pre-SB4 versions of the Forms Designer
  involved fonts. Even though previous versions allowed you to display
  information text and field names using any screen font you wished, you
  could not display your data field itself in any font other than the system
  font. This stumbling block has been removed, so that when you use the
  desktop-publishing-like tools provided, it is very easy to construct
  attractive data-entry and processing screens. In addition to these
  facilities are a number of new options for importing non-IFF graphics,
  scaling images, and working with image palettes.

   DML Control

   DML control is another benefit of the Forms Designer. DML now provides a
  complete complement of high-level commands for dealing with every sort of
  mouse, pull-down menu, control panel, and key-press event occurring in
  conjunction with screen forms and their new object types. Further
  enhancing DML's form-control facilities is a new set of commands for
  actually defining a new form and adding from objects completely under DML,
  thereby allowing you to by pass the form designer itself for applications
  where it might be desirable to do so.

   Although you may care little about MS-DOS compatibility or the Forms
  Designer, there are still plenty of reasons why you may want SB4. To begin
  with, Precision optimized Superbase's internal storage format in order to
  provide better performance and increased storage capacity. Precision
  asserts that Superbase can now store, index, and retrieve information from
  a one-billion-record database. In addition, SB4 now includes a
  single-character logical field type as well as virtual fields.

   Precision extended Superbases's ARexx support and provides adequate
  documentation. Overall, the manuals are greatly improved. We no longer
  have to live with the fascinating trivia on installing the Atari ST
  version of Superbase, the easy-to-lose stapled addendum booklet, and the
  27K read-me file. Replacing these rough edges are two well-written,
  beautifully illustrated, tab-divided manuals in D-Ring binders.

   Precision improved both the Superbase label-dialogue and report-generation
  facilities which now incorporates many new options and is substantially
  easier to use. And finally, Precision opted to make SB4 non-copy-protected
  right out of the box.

   Two gripes

   So do I have any whines or gripes about SB4? Just two. First, Sb4 comes
  with only slightly better than Preferences-based printer support. While I
  realise this meagre support reflects mostly on Commodore, given a package
  of this price and stature, I would like to see better support for resident
  and soft printer fonts. Lastly, I think that the indices of the new
  manuals are a bit thin for 900 pages of text.

   Overall, however, SB4 carries on the Superbase tradition of excellence.
  The enhancements, particularly those made to the Forms Designer, expand
  Superbase's potential considerably. SB4's interactive on-screen-button
  support and programmable nature make the program ideal for multimedia
  applications, especially when you need database accessibility on a grand
  scale. These new-found talents combined with the product's success as a
  traditional relational database manager, truly make it super.


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   Murray Hassan