OpenOffice Databse Features are Pretty Nice Open Office

[timswim78]

I downlaoded the beta version of OpenOffice 2.0, and it has what seems to be a really nice set of databse features. It let's you connect to and query a variety of databses. Also, you can create databases (which couldn't be done in earlier version) and forms. It needs a little polishing to catch up with Access, but I do not think that any Open Source desktop db can beat it.

 

[kamper]

I'm looking forward to when Apache Derby (formerly IBM Cloudscape) is mature enough and they embed it right in. Not that I have much use for such things, but it'll be sexy

Edit: I see they've already embedded hypersonic Don't know how the two compare, but I bet hs is plenty good

 

[harrkev]

Anyone know whent OO 2.0 is coming out of beta? I am rather hesitant to try a beta release.

BTW: for a noob, how hard is it to learn the new DB feature? The last database that I programmed was dBase III+ (pre-windows)

 

[drag]

Shouldn't be toooooo difficult.

As I understand it is designed to be around the same lines a MS Access so it should be a realy basic relation database design. Although hopefully it would be quite a bit nicer (like being able to interpolate better with SQL databases.) in a technical sense, but I doubt it will come close to Access in terms of GUI interface quality.


In OpenOffice 1.x series they already have database features.. but they are hidden. And I found out it's hidden for good damn reasons. It sucked and was unstable. I tried hooking up a MySQL database thru ODBC connectors into Org and it worked ok. I could build tables and stuff like that, but it was sub-par.

With Org you can use it as a front end for a veriaty of databases, but the default setup is going to be with a relational SQL-style database written in Java called "hsqldb"..

So it's full fledged, or nearly, full-fledged SQL database, were as MS Access is not. (it's not multi-user, it's not networkable, it's not able to run without you using Access.. that sort of thing. But don't get me wrong, as far as the actual application goes and UI goes Access kicks major ass as far as the normal end user goes, just sucks in other ways.)

This MS Access thing is a huge bullet-point style win for MS when you do MS Office vs Org comparisions.

(not the only one, though. MS Office is nicer to use, and it's much faster in terms of load-up time. It's easier to install and you can find classes and lots of books on how to use it and most people who care are familar with it. On the flip side Org's HTML generator/editor stuff is MUCH MUCH nicer then MS Office's. And 'export to PDF' is enabled by default were as with MS Office you have to pay extra for a Acrobat PDF distiller to get similar functionality.)

As far as the 'easiness' goes. I have no idea. You'll just have to try it out.

As far as databases go there are lots and lots of other Free databases that are very high quality. Firebird (open source version of Borland Interbase), PostgreSQL, and MySQL (very popular and fast, but not as feature rich/stable as Postgresql or firebird).

Those (especially MySQL has lots of software for it) have a veriety of software and Org can probably connect to them thru ODBC connectors. You can do that with Access, too, I beleive.

And there are lots of other front ends aviable for them and such and you can connect to them over networks and all those nice features.

So if you want you can brush up on your old DB skills.

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: drag
Shouldn't be toooooo difficult.

As I understand it is designed to be around the same lines a MS Access so it should be a realy basic relation database design. Although hopefully it would be quite a bit nicer (like being able to interpolate better with SQL databases.) in a technical sense, but I doubt it will come close to Access in terms of GUI interface quality.


In OpenOffice 1.x series they already have database features.. but they are hidden. And I found out it's hidden for good damn reasons. It sucked and was unstable. I tried hooking up a MySQL database thru ODBC connectors into Org and it worked ok. I could build tables and stuff like that, but it was sub-par.

With Org you can use it as a front end for a veriaty of databases, but the default setup is going to be with a relational SQL-style database written in Java called "hsqldb"..

So it's full fledged, or nearly, full-fledged SQL database, were as MS Access is not. (it's not multi-user, it's not networkable, it's not able to run without you using Access.. that sort of thing. But don't get me wrong, as far as the actual application goes and UI goes Access kicks major ass as far as the normal end user goes, just sucks in other ways.)

This MS Access thing is a huge bullet-point style win for MS when you do MS Office vs Org comparisions.

(not the only one, though. MS Office is nicer to use, and it's much faster in terms of load-up time. It's easier to install and you can find classes and lots of books on how to use it and most people who care are familar with it. On the flip side Org's HTML generator/editor stuff is MUCH MUCH nicer then MS Office's. And 'export to PDF' is enabled by default were as with MS Office you have to pay extra for a Acrobat PDF distiller to get similar functionality.)

As far as the 'easiness' goes. I have no idea. You'll just have to try it out.

As far as databases go there are lots and lots of other Free databases that are very high quality. Firebird (open source version of Borland Interbase), PostgreSQL, and MySQL (very popular and fast, but not as feature rich/stable as Postgresql or firebird).

Those (especially MySQL has lots of software for it) have a veriety of software and Org can probably connect to them thru ODBC connectors. You can do that with Access, too, I beleive.

And there are lots of other front ends aviable for them and such and you can connect to them over networks and all those nice features.

So if you want you can brush up on your old DB skills.

Drag. You are correct. The db feature is pretty easy to learn. But its GUI is years away from where Access currently is. I have not yet tried connecting to an SQL or other db with it, but I plan to do so sometime soon.