Re: [libreoffice-users] Base questions

Hi :)
Sorry!  I hadn't realised this was addressed to me only as a personal,
off-list message.  I was wondering why no-one responded!

This mailing list is set-up so that you have to use "Reply to all" or
"Reply to List" or similar option.  The familiar "Reply to" doesn't work as
it tyakes the message off-list.  It's something we keep on having to
explain to pretty much every new person who starts posting here, or seems
like it!!

Luckily there is nothing personal, inflammatory, embarrassing or anything
so it was easy to see it could be forwarded back to the mailing list.  The
question is a good one imo and it's one i still haven't got a good answer
to - despite it being an obvious question and probably handled quite a few
times already.


I think that if your current database IS working just fine then now is a
good time to create a back-up of it.  By that i simply mean right-click on
the file and do "copy" and then in an empty space in amongst the files,
beside the existing one just do "paste".  Any other copy&paste of the file
would do the same trick.  There are all sorts of fancy back-up options but
at core a back-up is just a copy.

At work i tend to put a sub-folder in all of the main folders i use and
call it "OldVersions-BackUps" and use it/them to dump all such backups and
works-in-progress other than the most recent copy of a file.  That way the
main folder is, hopefully, less cluttered&confusing.  I do tend to rename
back-up files to put the date in reverse order at the end and maybe a v1 at
the end so i can quickly tell which are newer and which are too ancient.


As for how to migrate your existing tables to an external back-end i think
that you can do this inside Base.  I'm not sure if you have to set-up an
external program first and a blank file for it and then in Base (maybe in
the tables area?) do something like "link to external source" and create a
blank table to copy your existing table into?  Hmm, that sounds a bit wrong
somewhere.  Can you right-click on a table and do "Save As .." to a
Postgresql or MySql format??  I'm really hoping there is something easy
like that!

Of course having moved the table you might need to go into Queries and edit
them to pick-up on the new table.  Hopefully Forms and Reports are based on
Queries so that they just keep on reading the same Queries (or new Queries
once they have been renamed to the same as the old ones).

Hopefully the migration should be fairly smooth or help you do a few tweaks
to make the database more flexible ready for when you decide to change
between different back-end in the future.
Good luck!!  Regards from
Tom :)



On 1 August 2014 08:20, Allan Newton <allan@opticaldesign.co.uk> wrote:

> Good Morning,
>
> I note the advice to use an external back end but where do I find
> information on how to do it on Windows systems, we sue Base for membership
> records of a club and committee members using both Windows 7 and Windows 8
> use the data base.
>
> Thanks for any help
>
> __
> Allan Newton
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Davies [mailto:tomcecf@gmail.com]
> Sent: 01 August 2014 00:09
> To: Jean-Francois Nifenecker
> Cc: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Base questions
>
> Hi :)
> All the database experts and many others of us keep on recommending using
> an external back-end such as Postgresql, MySql/MariaDb or anything else.
>
> The devs are working on removing the current warped and ancient version of
> HsqlDb and replacing it with Firebird.
>
> Using the proper version of HsqlDb straight from their website as an
> external back-end apparently works really well in complete contrast to the
> embedded version.
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
>
> On 31 July 2014 20:48, Jean-Francois Nifenecker <
> jean-francois.nifenecker@laposte.net> wrote:
>
> > Le 31/07/2014 21:35, Rob Jasper a  crit :
> > > If the normal Base file is not reliable, why do we have it in the
> > > first
> > place?
> > > Either we (the community) must make it reliable, or we should
> > > abandon it
> > and come with a reliable alternative.
> > > Not reliable is in fact not very acceptable. The documentation
> > > should
> > describe when to use, and when not to use base. Simply generalizing in
> > the FACs is not the right way to go, I think.
> > >
> >
> > Base is a very useful and versatile tool which deserves much attention.
> > So, abandoning it would be a very bad idea, if you ask me. Dunno about
> > the current developments (wrt FireBird embedding) but I do like Base
> > for many uses:
> > -- HSQL embedded mode: demo-ing, modelling, personal DBs, front-end to
> > Calc spreadsheets or even text files
> > -- HSQL file mode: everything else (professional single-user or
> > multi-user DBs). In this situation, Base is a good front-end that
> > could become excellent, if the devs where to focus on that (I've got
> > no information here).
> >
> > The main question is "how to switch from embedded mode to file mode?"
> > which I had a hard time figuring out. Fortunately, the web is you
> > friend ;)
> >
> > --
> > Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux
> >
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