Re: OOo database support (was: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Bristol City Council goes open source)

[Lee Braiden]

On Tuesday 19 Oct 2004 00:06, Ian Lynch wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 23:29, Robin Green wrote:
> > I wasn't aware that OOo had such a mechanism - thanks for pointing it
> > out!
> >
> Because there has been a lot of demand for an Access style database, OOo
> 2.0 due outin March will have such an app which is a java based app.

I didn't know it was Java.  I know parts of it are -- the internal database 
engine they are currently using is a java engine, since they couldn't find 
anything else that would be ready in time for 2.0.  I think others are 
working on getting sql-lite in now; possibly because they dislike the java 
engine idea ;)  Also, if I recall correctly, new engines will be fairly 
pluggable, so you may see a release quite soon after, including more database 
engines.

Anyway, you can download an OOo 2.0 beta (I think it's still called "OOo 1.9 
beta" or something like that, and see what's happening with it.  I found it a 
little awkward and confusing to get started with, but it's easy to find now, 
at least -- New database is right there in the file menu beside New document 
etc.

They've gone for a very simple implementation: the reports are just normal 
word processor documents, with fields embedded.  I think that's the logical 
way, of course; much better approach than Access's use of two completely 
different layout systems for the word processor and database reports.  So 
essentially, mail merges and reports are the same thing in OOo, as I 
understand it.

But the problem is that, last time I checked, the writer document you're 
thrown into for reports looks SO much like a writer document, you're not sure 
what you're supposed to be doing with the report.  It could probably be 
solved with removing some of the toolbars and adding really obvious report 
toolbars.  But in the mean time, I think, for that alone, it won't compare 
favorably with Access just yet :(

Maybe they've done more on this recently; not sure.

-- 
Lee Braiden