Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #6/amigamamagazinepolishissue1998.iso/www/cucug/amiga/amiinfo/reviews/superbasepro4.txt

Text File | 1997-11-07 | 22KB | 575 lines

Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Michael Hensche)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Superbase Professional 4 (aka, SBase4 Professional)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Date: 15 Apr 1993 03:18:00 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 559
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <1qik58$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Michael Hensche)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: database, relational, ARexx, commercial


PRODUCT NAME

    Superbase Professional 4 ("SBase4 Professional")


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    A powerful Amiga database program.


OVERVIEW OF FEATURES

    At this point, I just pick some highlights off the advertising text
that is printed on the box Sbase4 is being delivered in.  This might give
you a short overview on the functionality of the package.

    Relational Database System with
        VCR-style browse controls
    Database Management Language (DML)
        Form Design
                Graphical form objects (boxes, lines, etc.)
                Logical form objects (calculation, validation,
                radio buttons, checkboxes, relations, etc.)
        Queries can be done by standardized fill-in requestors
        Reportgenerator included
        Text editor included
        im-/export
                ASCII delimited
                dbase
                Lotus 1-2-3
                Excel
                Superplan
        Telecommunications
                Xmodem
                Xmodem-CRC
                WXmodem
        LAN-Support (5-user LAN Extender Packs enable operation over
                Novell-compatible LANs)
        ARexx support
        Clipboard support for record and field data
        Upwardly file-compatible from Superbase Personal,
                Superbase Personal 2, Superbase Professional 3


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    As far as I know, the Copyright is at Precision but the support (and
selling) is at Oxxi. I am not sure.  In the manuals I find the copyright
notice in Precision's name, but on the disks it is in Oxxi's name.

So here are some addresses I took from the manuals or the registration card:

            Precision Software Ltd.
                6 Park Terasse
                        Worcester Park
                        Surrey
                        England KT4 7JZ

                           [phone]


                        Precision Inc.
                        8404 Sterling Street
                        Irving, TX 75063
                        USA
                        [phone]

or:
                        Oxxi Inc.
                        PO Box 90309
                        Long Beach, Ca 90809-0309
                        USA
                        [phone]

                        Oxxi UK Ltd.
                        171 Bath Road
                        Slough
                        Berks. SL1 4AE
                        UK
                        (++44) 0753-551-777


LIST PRICE

    I do not know.  I paid 398,- DM (German Deutschmarks).


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        1 MB RAM required.
        I recommend an accelerated processor (e.g., 68030).

        I also strongly recommend a hard disk; here is how much
        space SBase4 takes up on my drive:

                Total number of files                 149
                Total number of directories             6
                Total number of bytes in files    1847857
                Total number of blocks used          3849

                Total occupied :   1970688 bytes, 1.9MB.

            $VER: AppISizer © Gérard Cornu v0.20 Dec  2 1992 09:59:12 ;-)

    SOFTWARE

        AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher.


COPY PROTECTION

    None.  Installs on a hard drive.  You must type your name and
address the first time you start the program, and they are displayed every
time you run the program after that.


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    Amiga 2000 B, Rev. 6.2
    GVP A3001 accelerator Board, 68030 CPU, 68882 coprocessor
    2MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM (32-Bit)
    AT-Bus Hard drives: Maxtor 200 MB, Quantum 40 MB
    Monitor A2024 (Hedley-Monitor)
    Kickstart 2.04 (37.175) Workbench 2.0

REVIEW

*** My Needs ***

    OK, before I start, I will give you some background information on
why I bought the package and what I do use it for.

    There were some of the usual things people do on a computer which is
more or less senseless like address databases or CD databases which I also
wanted to do.  On the other hand I am trying to realize a little project for
a friend of mine (for his business).  And I always was interested in
databases.

    So I tried Superbase when it first came out.  It was nice, But it
used a dongle. I do not use dongles.  So I did not purchase Superbase.  When
version 4 came out without a dongle and with a nice 2.0 look (and often feel
;), I got it.  And they say: "supports ... A2024 Viking monitor." (I love
software that does this.)

    As a small disclaimer, I will not be able to tell you details on
everything Superbase does or does not.  I am not able to program big
packages.  I am just a "normal" user with a fair knowledge of his Amiga and
with fun and enthusiasm for doing complicated things because I try to
realize them with computers. ;)


*** The Review ***

    Superbase Professional or Sbase4 Professional (they changed the
name) comes in a box that is much too big. They needed much space for
advertising the features.  In the box I find two diskettes and three manuals.
One diskette contains the program itself, and the other diskette comes with
some examples and example data.


*** Installation ***

    To install the program, you double-click the "Install" icon and see
the "SBase4 Install" program. It is not the Commodore-Installer, but it is
more than just an install script.  After a short text you can choose whether
to install the program, the example files, or just part of it, by clicking on
corresponding gadgets (a small hook shows your choice, default is to install
all).  You can enter the desired path in a string gadget.  The last gadget
gives you the choice to register the copy.  I decided to register, so I then
was prompted to enter name, organization, and serial number, which I did.
(The entries have to bee at least 5 characters long, which you find out by
typing less. ;))

    Now all the files are copied to the desired directory.  After
completion, in the WBstartup drawer I found a short XIcon script that does
the "SBase4:"  assign.  This opens a small CLI window on every startup, so I
decided to do the Assign in my s:User-Startup and delete the script in
WBstartup. This has to be done manually.  A novice user might not understand
why this window comes up on every startup.

    In my new drawer I find three icons:  "Sbase4Pro", "SBFD4" and
"readme.txt."  Within this Readme file, they discuss things about new DML
commands which are not in the manual (quite a lot, I think), compatibility
with "Superbase 4 Windows", changes to the manual, and so on.

    But finally, let's see the program.  Double-click, wait a second,
and there it is.  Gives the copyright notice... and does really look nice.
I play around in the menus, start the Forms editor and ... have a GURU.  Not
that nice.

    To make the story short, it seems as if the A2024 support ends in
being able to recognize it and still position requestors in the middle of
the screen.  I tried out different things, but did not succeed.  To work
around this, I looked up the manual to find out how to start SBase4 on a
custom interlaced screen, but found nothing.  At that moment, it seemed as if
I could start SBase4 in just two ways: WB and custom.  But custom still means
Workbench size.  There is no ScreenMode requester; I later found out that
there is a Settings menu to customize the system, but there is still just a
gadget to choose between use of the Workbench or a Custom screen.  So I now
have to switch down HiRes-Interlaced before starting Superbase if I want to
use the program without a crash.  If I do so, I have no problems.


*** The Workspace ***

    The workspace is presented as two windows:  a small, screen-wide one
at the bottom of the screen with VCR-style gadgets, and a large one that
occupies the rest of the screen.  The gadgets give quick access to browse
your data: jump to beginning, jump to end of file, forward/backward one
entry, quick back/forward pause, and stop.  There are two gadgets you might
not find on a VCR: a question mark and a camera.

    Let us say, you have an address database indexed by name, along with
an external file which might be a digitized picture of the person.  With the
"?" you have direct access to the index (you are prompted for a name), and
with the camera you have access to the picture belonging to the current set
of data.


*** Creating a File ***

    To create a file, you select "New->File" in the "Project" menu.  A
window pops up and asks for the name, which you enter.  A second window asks
for passwords for reading and deletion of this file.  Finally, a third window
appears that lets you create the different fields and their types (text,
numeric, date/time, external, required, read only, validated, calculation,
constant, virtual).  Depending on the selected type, you then give details
like field length, date format, kind of calculation, etc.

    The types "external" and "virtual" might need a short explanation.
"External" requires a full path to a text, image, or sound file.  An
external text file might overcome some limitations of Superbase.  Text
fields in Superbase can have a maximum length of 4000 characters, and a text
file just has to fit in your memory to be displayed when clicking on the
before-mentioned camera gadget.  ASCII and Superbase-Texteditor-format is
supported.  An external image file (which will be displayed by clicking the
camera) can be IFF (ILBM, Dynamic Hi-res, Dynamic-HAM), GIF and PCX.  An
external sound file will be played by clicking the camera if it is either
IFF (8SVX) or plain sampled.

    To explain the "virtual" field, I will just cite the manual:
"Virtual fields provide a way of saving disk space. Any field which is
defined as virtual must have a Constant or Calculation formula attached to
it. When you save a record, Superbase calculates the value of the virtual
field, and if it is a key field, creates an index pointer for the record on
the basis of its derived value."  This value is not stored within Superbase
but recalculated every time it is required.

    When done with your file definition (which can be changed whenever
you want, if you recognize (say) that you have forgotten to define the "date
of birth" field), Superbase shows the fields as a list and you can start with
the data entry.  Or you might create a form, which is much nicer since you
can group fields logically, for example.  Therefore the FormsEditor will be
opened by selecting "modify->form" in the "Project" menu.


*** The Forms Editor ***

    This comes as extra program that opens its own screen, the same size
as the Workbench, with two windows similar to Superbase itself.  There's a
small, screen-wide window at the bottom displaying the tools, and the edit
window taking over the remaining space (which is, of course, the bigger
part ;)).

    The FormsEditor gives your creativity a wide range of possibilities.
You can draw on your page, set boxes, lines, circles etc., place your fields
wherever you want, change fonts and styles, etc.  Your work is aided by
tools like grid, snap to grid, crosshair, numerical display of mouse
position, and box, circle and line tools.

    The above-mentioned features will suffice for simple forms that make
your records look nice, but that is not all.  The FormsEditor offers many
powerful tools for creating applications with or without using the DML
(Database Management Language).

    In a form, different files can be linked (for example, your address
database with index-on-name and your "something special on the person" file
with index-on-name).  To do this, you define a field to do the linking and
will then have the persons address and the special notes displayed with that
form.  Since the facilities of the FormsEditor are much too complex to
explain them here, I will add a short list to point out some more highlights:

    - Forms can be created for screen or for printer output.
    - Forms may consist of more than one page.
    - Forms may display external fields (as mentioned above).
    - Forms offer "Transaction lines" (I will cite the manual on
      this later).
    - Forms let you define data entry order.
    - Forms offer fields of the type calculation, validation, pushbutton,
      checkbox.
    - You may interface to a DML program subroutine.
    - You may generate complete "Report"-Forms (coming to that later).

Since one might not know, what "Transaction lines" are, I will again cite
the manual:

  "Consider an example of a database application for cataloguing a book
  collection. It uses two files, Authors and Books. The Authors file stores
  the name and other details of all the authors represented in the collection,
  using one record for each author.  The records in the Books file store the
  details of each book (...). In addition, the records in both files contain
  an alphanumeric code (the Author_Code field) which links the books to their
  authors. (...)
  It makes it easy to design a form which displays the authors and a list of
  their books on screen at the same time. The data would be structured as
  follows:

        Author's name, Author code
        Title, Subject, Publisher
        Title, Subject, Publisher
        Title, Subject, Publisher

  Every time you selected another record in the Authors file, Superbase would
  read in the next author in alphabetical order followed by a variable number
  of lines, one for each of the author's books."


*** Report Forms ***

    A "Report Form" consists of some "action groups" of which you define
the look and the corresponding actions. These are:

    HEADING
    BEFORE REPORT
    BEFORE GROUP
    SELECT
    AFTER GROUP
    AFTER REPORT

When finished with your report, Superbase generates a DML program of your
report form.

    Let us go back to where we started before inserting the "Forms
Editor".  We just created a file.  For some purposes, it might not be
necessary to create report forms.  If you just want to extract some
specific data, you can work with "Queries."


*** Queries ***

    Queries generate a list of selected data, one line for each record.
To create a "query", you select "query->edit" in the "Process" menu.  A
requester pops up that asks for

    - The title of your list (with or without date and page-number).
    - The fields you would like to be printed.
    - A "report" line where you can group, summarize or count selected
      fields.
    - The filter, that includes or excludes data.
    - The order (ascending, descending) of your output.
    - Where to direct the output (screen, file, printer, "Say" program)

Queries can be saved, loaded and edited.


*** The Process Menu ***

    In this menu you find the above mentioned Queries; you also find
import and export modules/filters, split file, mail merge and label
functions, and, last but not least, the "reorganize" menu item one might
choose after weeks of extensive creation and deletion of data.

    The functions all pop up their own requestors that show the fields
of your record (if a file is open).  They let you choose which of fields
should be selected to be printed on a label or used for a mail merge list.


*** DML (Database Management Language) ***

    The DML is another feature I cannot cover completely in this article.

    I have written some small programs to get certain results from my
data and I have started the project I mentioned in my introduction.  But I
did not get into it deeply enough to be able to find bugs or things that just
bother me.  And, I don't program in other languages, so I cannot compare the
functionality to these.  Nor can I decide whether important structures - or
what ever it might be - are missing.

    The language is a little BASIC-like with lots of functions for easy
file manipulation.  It is a proprietary language, not compatible with
standardized SQL (Structured Query Language, which is used (or should be) in
UNIX database systems I had to cope with in business), though there are
similarities.  And it is not compatible with the DBase language (some people
asked and this information is from others who answered).

    Menus or requestors can be created with little code, and structured
programming is possible with various functions.  Powerful commands enable
you to create, insert, delete records, formatted output to file, printer or
serial interface, link files, etc.

    All gadgets like radio buttons, checkboxes etc. I mentioned in the
"Forms Editor" section can be accessed via DML.


DOCUMENTATION

    SBase4 comes with three manuals:

o    "Database And Text Editor," with an introduction (Menus, Workspace,
    Opening Files, Using Forms, Exiting From Superbase), detailed
    explanation of all functions and five appendices (Error Messages,
    Functions, Reserved Words, ASCII Values, Superbase 4 File Types),
    and, last but not least, the index.

o    "Form Designer And Programming Language," with an introduction and a
    description of all functions.

o    "Applications Guide," with a description of the demo/example
    programs/files coming with Sbase4 and some kind "question and
    answer" part which gives answers and examples to problems that might
    be typical.

    All manuals are spiral-bound for easy handling.  The "Form Designer
And Programming Language" manual has the logo of "OXXI Inc." printed on it
and is laser printer quality except for the screenshots.  (Take a photo,
copy it, copy the copy, and this is what the screenshots look like.  The text
is OK.)  The two other manuals have high-quality, two-color printing with
black/blue screenshots.

    As far as I am concerned, all my questions (except installation --
more on this later) are covered in detail.  The manuals all start with a
more or less short but complete overall description.  The details are then
covered in either alphabetical or thematical order as a reference.  The part
one is trying to look up can be found easily by using the index in each
manual.

    There is no tutorial that leads the user to a complete address
database, for example. But there is an 11-lesson chapter explaining basical
handling and understanding of what to do for what reason.  The lessons are:
"1. Defining a File", "2. Entering Data", "3. Editing a Record," and so on,
up to "11. Querying the Database"

    One nice thing is a "Where To Go Now" section after the introduction
of the general usage of Sbase4.  It leads the reader either to the lessons,
the programming language, or whatever he/she wants to do first.

    I think both beginners and experts will find what they are looking
for.  But as I already said, it is useful to know how your Amiga works before
reading the manuals.

    One thing I miss is a detailed description of the Icon Tooltypes,
starting parameters, or options at the beginning of the manuals; there is no
"Installation" chapter. They just tell you to insert the disk and
double-click the icon.  Let me cite this section:

    "Loading Superbase

    The procedure for loading Superbase is:

    1. Insert a Workbench disk in drive 0 and start up the Amiga.

    2. When the FastHD disc icon is displayed double-click on it.

    3. When the available tools are displayed double-click on the
       Superbase icon.

    4. When you are given a choice between Superbase (SBPRO4) and its
       Forms Designer (SBFD4) double-click on the Superbase icon."

That's it, folks :(

Somewhere in the manual you will then find a chapter about "Customizing Your
System".  This is the chapter where you learn about the configuration file
"S:SUPERBASE.INI" to define everything (that can be defined ;)).


LIKES AND DISLIKES


    I like the program because it suits my needs. (Okay, I don't think I
need a _relational_ database system. ;)) I like the way most things can be
done more ore less without consulting the manual.  Menus and standard
operations are logically put together.  I like the "forms editor" that
allows everything I need to create good looking and easy-to-handle front
ends.

    This version of Superbase is derived from the MS-DOS version, not
the original Amiga version.  Thus, requesters do not always conform to the
Commodore Amiga Style Guide; they have questions marks or exclamation points
in stop-sign-shaped fields, which makes them look like MS-Windows (and I do
not like Windows).

    I do not like that the file requestor tries to look like the
ASL-requestor (does not always succeed ;) but IS not ASL (so it cannot be
substituted by PD-ones I like more).  To summarize these dislikes:
Superbase is *compatible* with Workbench 2.0 but does not take advantage of
its features.

    Finally, I do not like the program editor.  I would like to use my
favourite text-editor instead, since I know its commands and so on.


*** Suggestions to improve the product? ***

    Have a look at my dislikes and you have my suggestions.  I believe
it would be a good idea to add a ScreenMode requestor as well as all other
2.x requestors that are there to configure/handle software.  And fix the
A2024 problem.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    I have not seen similar products on my Amiga.


BUGS

    Again: problems with the A2024 High Resolution mode.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    I did not yet contact them.


WARRANTY

    You can contact a hotline for half a year after registering.


CONCLUSIONS

    I believe that this is a good product, regardless of its price.
Novice users can easily create simple databases, and expert users will be
able to realize complex projects (I have seen one or two on the
Amiga-Affair).

I'd give this product 4 stars out of 5.  ****


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    Copyright 1993 Michael Hensche.  All rights reserved.


ANY QUESTIONS?

    If there are questions you think I might be able to answer, do not
hesitate to ask them.

        Michael Hensche
        In der Lohrenbeck 30 b
        W-5600 Wuppertal 1
        Germany

        Internet: [e-mail]
        Z-Net: [e-mail]

Have fun ;-)

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:    [e-mail]
   Request information:    [e-mail]
   Moderator mail:    [e-mail]