cosc11d9@jetson.uh.edu (08/18/90)
Anyone heard anything about FormBase from Xerox Desktop Software or Superbase from Precision Software. I am interested in cost, availablity, ease of use, and any experience with the products. We are considering writing an application that will help manage data obtained in a laboratory. One major consideration is whether a field can be related to a file? It is also important to be able to see whats in the file irrelevant of its format (i.e. TIFF, EPS, or encoded binary). Other standard database functions are also desired. Please post replies to this newsgroup. Thanks.
nlane@garnet.berkeley.edu (08/22/90)
In article <6797.26cbe0ab@jetson.uh.edu> cosc11d9@jetson.uh.edu writes: >Anyone heard anything about FormBase from Xerox Desktop Software or >Superbase from Precision Software. > >I am interested in cost, availablity, ease of use, and any experience with >the products. > >We are considering writing an application that will help manage data obtained >in a laboratory. One major consideration is whether a field can be related >to a file? It is also important to be able to see whats in the file irrelevant >of its format (i.e. TIFF, EPS, or encoded binary). Other standard database >functions are also desired. > >Please post replies to this newsgroup. Thanks. FormBase is not a Database - just a form creation program for things like pur- chase orders and invoices. SuperBase 4 is a fully relational database program that includes it's own language (unfortunately based on BASIC). Version 1.2 supports the following formats (graphics): .WMF Windows Metafiles .EPS Encapsulated postscript .PCX windows paint .TIF desktop publishing packages .BMP windows bitmap The picture files are stored in the regular files, i.e., they are not encoded into the database itself. They are references by an "External File" field - that file can be a large text file, picture file or anything else - though I don't know about viewing the *byte* contents of the files. It is a *very* complete package and has grown since version 1.0 quite a bit. The package now even allows access to DDE and DLLs - demo programs are provided for those functions. If anyone would like more information, please e-mail. **** My opinions are my own and I have no vested interest in Precision Software besides being a satisfied customer wishing to spread the word **** -Nathan Lane nlane@garnet.berkeley.edu