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- 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.
-
- Speed and Efficiency
- These are also something of a compromise and hopefully you will find
- QuickFile fast and responsive, while keeping disk and RAM usage
- reasonable. It may not be the fastest in any single area but, overall,
- I think you will find it is up there with the best.
-
- 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, time, 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.
-
-