Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Compatibility of LO Base with Access databases

On 08/01/2016 11:35 AM, Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
> On 1 August 2016 at 00:16, Girvin Herr
> <girvin_herr+gherr_lists@fastmail.com> wrote:
> > Ken,
> > One thing about Kexi.  I looked at it a few weeks ago and discovered that
> > Kexi has a capability of reading Access database files to some degree.
> > However, it reads and converts the access database into its own internal
> > database.  Kexi has no capability to interface to and use an external
> > database server (aka "Back End") such as Mariadb or MySQL, as LO Base does.
> Hi,
> If you mean ability to connect without generating any metadata as in
> pure frontends, and being a SQL frontend, then yes. The internal
> database is created on first use, however it still can be the server
> database possibly running on the same server like the original one,
> it's just not the same database.
>
> I recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexi#Features - 2.x supports
> MySQL, PostgreSQL, xBase and MS SQL/Sybase backends (it does so
> without limiting itself to capabilities of ODBC/JDBC).
>
> KEXI 3 would be able to do open databases "in place", just not 3.0.
> Still, it would not be called a db frontend however transmitting
> unchecked/raw SQL strings back and forth; it would be still more a
> different type of software: an integrated app creator / environment,
> so a slightly more high-level tool.
Jaroslaw,
What I found back on July 4th (and today) is this snippet from the Kexi 
FAQ, Q1.2:

http://kexi-project.org/wiki/wikiview/index.php@KexiFAQ.html

"- *Currently you can not "open" (i.e. connect to) databases created 
outside of Kexi. You can only import the tables and data*. "

That tells me that databases other than Kexi can only be imported 
(converted to Kexi format and maintained internal to Kexi, not Kexi 
maintaining the server version).  When Kexi states that they support 
databases like  "MySQL, PostgreSQL, xBase and MS SQL/Sybase", I must 
assume they mean that Kexi can import and convert such databases, not 
connect to their server and maintain the server versions.  There is a 
big difference.

My Kexi research was precipitated by confirming that AOO 4.1.2 had a 
broken Report Builder and it looked like it was not going to be fixed 
anytime soon.  This was a show-stopper for me.  My Slackware 14.1 Linux 
comes with Kexi 2.7.4, so I naturally looked at it.  I was searching for 
another Mariadb client option to see what Kexi could do for me, since I 
was having problems with LO 4.x+.  When I discovered the above FAQ 
statement, it told me I could not use Kexi in my application.  I was not 
going to get "locked in" to another integrated application like MS 
Access.  It could be that at some time in the future Kexi will have the 
connection capability that I require and I may revisit it.

In case you're interested, I ended up using AOO 4.1.2 for documents, 
which doesn't have the problems I am having with LO 4+, and LO 5.0.6 for 
my databases, which has a working Report Builder (Kudos to the devs for 
fixing the lines in reports not WYSIWYG problem).

Girvin





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