MaxBase is the name of this package, and also the name of the program you use to edit locally your databases. But there is more than this! If you have the need to share your databases on a local area network (LAN) or the Internet you can easily use the tools provided in the MaxBase package. The owner of the local DB to be shared on the network will simply have to activate the server, a program which will handle requests from remote users:

OS/2 users can right-click on a database and select [ open as ] - [ share DB on the network ] and answer some questions that will be posed to them; users from other operating systems will have to go to the command line, change to the directory where the database is and type< java RXDBServer /d:[your database] /p:[Port number] and other optional parameters. Valid options are: RXDBServer [/c:cmt] /d:file[.dat] [/l:file] [/p:port] [/q] [/s] [/p:pwd] where: /c:comment => description of the database ['_' are substituted with spaces in <comment>, spaces are not allowed] /d:file[.dat] => uses database [file] /l:file => logs all activities to file [file] /p:port => specifies a port for listening /q => operates in quiet mode /s => operates in safe mode (only read operations allowed) /a:password => grant *A*ccess to requests made with [password] (safe mode). Once you have setup your DB server, remote users can access your database using the freely re-distributable Sportello [the application (similar to MaxBase, but network-oriented) that has the same capabilities as MaxBase, only lacks the functions that allow to manage the db structure and login/logout]. Sportello users can launch plugins too. More information on the files required to distribute the Sportello application are to be found in the .\Client\distrib.txt text file. If you type java Sportello in a command window you will be noticed of the parameters it can accept. Another option is to setup a web page which has an applet in it, and every user that will hit that page will be able to use a scaled-down version of MaxBase (only allows record browsing, with filters and ordering). The SpApp.zip file in your .\client directory contains all the files needed to setup a web page which contains the applet and an example of an HTML page with comments and parameters for the applet. You will still need the server to be running on the same machine of the web server. Take a look at the applet in action: