QuickFile 3.00 Description There are now many low cost data bases available for the Amiga. Why should anyone choose to use QuickFile over one of the others? This is an attempt to explain its features and give a brief comparison to other data base programs. Significant features are: Ease of Use I have tried to make QuickFile easy to use, although there has to be some trade-off between power and ease of use. Apart from text entry, all operations are done by pointing and clicking, using menus, buttons and selection from lists. Capacity. Many low cost data bases work well on the typical sample file, but rapidly slow down, or run out of memory when you throw a larger file at them. QuickFile can cope with a respectable number of records on a 1 meg system. One user sent me a copy of his data base containing 6700 records. Even on my 1 meg floppy based system, you could find any record in under 1 second. Random Access with buffering Most cheap data bases are either random access (disk based) or sequential (memory based). QuickFile combines these. It is random access, but holds as much of the file as it can in memory. This makes access much faster, and reduces wear and tear on your disks and drives. It also allows files to be larger than available ram. You can control how much memory it uses. Multiple indexes. Your records are automatically kept in sequence. You can have any number of indexes if you want to see your records in different sequences. Each index can be based on any number of fields in ascending or descending sequence. You can prevent or allow duplicate index entries. Multiple Views QuickFile provides both Form and List displays. You can use the default view (format), or define and save any number of your own views for a file. For example you can have one view that shows all fields to enter, display and alter records, another to list only names and phone numbers, and yet another for a mailing label format. A view includes field positions and lengths, report details, window position and size. Field Formats Field types include character, integer, number (float), calculation, date, cycle, image, and external. Any of these field types can be used in an index. You can add, delete, or change fields at any time. You can even change the type of an existing field, provided the actual content is compatible with the new format. Searching QuickFile has powerful search facilities. You can combine conditions to find, for example, all males with a postcode 4001 born between 1960 and 1965, with a name that sounds like Smith. Sorting Fast sorting over multiple fields in one pass. The sort can be restricted to a portion of large fields to reduce memory requirements. Printing Includes form and list reports, and multi-column labels. A page heading with page number, date and a user specified report title is optional. Pica, Elite and Condensed print can be used. Control breaks and totalling are supported. Import/Export Allows records to be moved between applications to easily load large numbers of records. Creates text files in a number of formats including mailmerge files for WordWorth, Final Copy, InterWord and Kindwords 3. Export can also create files for loading into spreadsheets or other databases. ARexx Port Provides macros (run from within program) and external commands (run from another program). This doesn't make it a programmable database but it does allow you to extend the functionality and talk to other applications. In writing QuickFile, I have attempted to provide enough functionality to make it usable for real work, while keeping resource requirements as low as possible. Ease of use has also been a primary objective. It certainly has its limitations; some of the more obvious being: You cannot link different files together. It uses separate files for definition, data, indexes and views. This can get a bit confusing if you have a number of data bases in the same directory. Below is a summary of database programs I have looked at. Some of these are very good, but they all have their shortcomings. HyperBase. Awkward interface and easy to crash. Pretty well unusable. DataEasy. Easy to use and it seems quite solid. Probably the best of the ones I looked at originally but rather slow. Sorting is extremely slow. Has a primitive unformatted list display. Reasonable capacity on 1 meg. Only character data type. bBaseII. Good looking and fast sorting but limited in capacity and no list style display or reports. Only character data type and only 9 fields. bBaseIII (3.01) Good looking, easy to use and a good range of features. List style display is unformatted only. Has a range of reporting options. Only has character string fields but now provides 16 fields plus notes. Limited capacity and uses a fixed amount of memory whether you have 5 or 500 records. High memory requirements - it uses over 1 meg on my system for the small sample databases. AmiBase 3.76 Very primitive database. Doesn't seem to work under WB2. AmiBase Pro II More advanced version of AmiBase 3.76. I haven't actually looked at it, as the disk I got was corrupted. It has a number of good features but seems to be a fairly crude implementation. It is memory resident so is probably better than Pro III. AmiBase Pro III. This is a licenceware program and is what inspired me to write QuickFile. Random access with no buffering, disk sorts (s..l..o..w), no field editing (you have to retype the whole field), one data base per disk. Reasonable searching (although slow), but poor printing. ProData 1.18 Powerful but with dated interface and fiddly to use. Far too much disk access to use with floppies. Does a ridiculous amount of i/o when filtering, and even when turning off filtering - it seems to set a flag in each record on disk. Interestingly it has no sort - you have to set up an index for each sequence you want. If you add an index, it rebuilds ALL indexes - slowly. Files are not limited by amount of ram. InfoFile Good basic program. Can do most things but the interface is a bit dated. Poor memory management. You have to specify how much memory to use before you open the file and it allocates it in a single chunk. Unless you have just booted your system (or have lots of memory), memory will be fragmented and it may not find enough for a large file. File size is limited to available ram. It does have calculated fields, sounds, and pictures and a list display. AmigaBase Powerful, but freely distributed version has limited docs. Looks comprehensive but seems to need programming. Hierarchical structure is interesting (shades of IMS/DB). Impressive but rather intimidating. DataBench Quite powerful but has a limited list display and high memory requirements. File size is limited to what will fit in ram. I managed about 280 records on my 1 meg. It reduced free memory by 1K for each two 115 byte records I added. It also loses your changes if you don't press RETURN on a string gadget - one of my pet hates. Good range of field types, including calculation but you have to specify the formula in each record!!! List display is rudimentary and is limited to 15 characters per field. Can relate files, but this is disabled in freely distributed version which also lacks documentation, but is reasonably easy to use. Flexer This is a good looking program with good features. Screen refresh is a bit slow and capacity may be a bit limited with 1 meg. File size is limited by ram. One major problem - I couldn't find any facility for printing. Good sort and search. No calculation or pictures. Supposedly written in AMOS but it doesn't show - now that's impressive. WBase Limited to 150 records, very basic editing. SuperBase Personal 2 By far the most powerful of those I have tried. Has indexes, cross file look-ups and validation, queries with control breaks and summaries etc. In fact just about everything you need. But the LIST display is downright poor - you only get one line at a time unless you choose CONTINUOUS. If you change direction it shows the same record twice (or more times). You can't select a record for detail display from the list. Annoying redraws of borders for toolbar and main window each time you swap between them - and those 'For your info' requesters that keep popping up!!! Powerful query facility and cross file lookups and reasonably easy to use if you know what you are doing. DDBase A good looking program but the interface is a bit awkward. eg To define a field you get a series of requesters instead of a single requester. No list display although you can list records to the screen. Sort is over single field only. It has grouping and totalling but grouping is horrendously slow - it seems to read the whole file for each group. Nice gadget and box options. db 2.8 Simple to use basic database that is more powerful than you might first think. Fast searching and sorting. It does have Localisation and clipboard support but lacks some basic bits such as printing and field types, and files must be defined using a text editor. Limited ARexx port. It now has a limited but useful list display. AFile Simple random access data base that lets you use an image as a backdrop. Being disk based without indexing, it would be painful on floppies. Its outstanding feature is its ARexx interface which should make it quite flexible and extendible. Otherwise quite basic in features and interface. Generally quite fast but tends to be disk intensive. Uses fixed length records. Datastore 1.0 (Demo from Amiga Format cover disk) Just a simple memory resident flat file database that can display pretty forms. Easy to use but main form display and editing are poor. Sluggish feel and sorting is a bit slow on large files. No list display. Needs plenty of memory for larger files - it is a large program. Cannot print forms or labels, only lists. Good range of field types and fields are not limited to one line. Good image support. I could only get it to use Topaz 8 for data fields. The demo had plenty of minor bugs. Disappointing after the hype the mags gave it. PowerBase 3.4 It has a good list of features but is written in AMOS and it shows in the non-standard interface and multi-tasking problems. I lost the PowerBase screen a couple of times and couldn't get it back. It lets you change field lengths but trashes your file because it doesn't adjust existing records.