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Databases Programming GUI KDE Operating Systems Software Windows IT

KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release 57

Posted by timothy from the chipping-away dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Horst Knorr released a new test version of Knoda. With this release Knoda is the first KDE database frontend reading MS Access databases natively and is getting closer to its goal to be a full replacement for MS Access. Knoda is a database-frontend for KDE. Besides tables and queries Knoda comprises forms and reports, which are scriptable via Python."
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KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release More

KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release

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  • Is it just me, the headline made me think "Alien vs Predator?"

  • Finally... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 ( 812236 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:53PM (#12353940) Journal
    I can mess around with Diebold's voting mechanism with open-source tools. I would have done it with Microsoft Access, but I have principles.
    • KNoda doesn't have the same ability to beat an unsuspecting comms link into quivering jelly that MS Access seems to ship with natively.

      AFAICT KNoda does all of the subset selection at the server end. You might have to get your app to schedule a bunch of random large queries to obtain comparable response times. And don't forget to constantly broadcast crap to ports 137-139 as you go.

  • good for small businesses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:59PM (#12353968)
    MSaccess is used to run alot of small businesses (who think that Access is somehow better than Excel). It would be nice to see if Knoda would also support more db like functionality (like transactions maybe) with autocommit turned on so that it seemed to work like access. Also, if you could make this have some transparent SQL layer so it could be a front-end to real databases (mySQL, etc.). But another barrier for some to migrate has been overcome. Good work.
    • Access is better than excel if you need a database. Just not as good as the real thing.

    • Re:good for small businesses (Score:4, Informative)

      by frission ( 676318 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:52PM (#12354318) Homepage
      somehow better than excel? you have not seen how feature rich Access is then. It's an excellent front end to Oracle and other databases (provided that you have the client installed). You can use QBE or write straght SQL and it'll actually work! Exporting reports to Word comes in especially handy, as do email merges, letter merges, etc.

      Good luck doing an update query in Excel...

      • Re:good for small businesses (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cyranoVR ( 518628 ) * <{moc.liamg} {ta} {RVonaryc}> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @11:49PM (#12355160) Homepage Journal
        Good luck doing an update query in Excel...

        ...or constraining user input in Excel

        ...or quickly/easily finding duplicate entries (and I ain't just talkin' about the "Find Duplicates Wizard" as convenient as that is...)

        ...or quickly sorting a list in Excel without screwing the whole thing up (remember to select every column!)

        ...or having more than one person at a time edit an Excel spreadsheet (especially when "the meeting's in 20 minutes!!!")

        ...or having users that use cell colors and font formats to organize their Excel data (ummm...how do you sort blue, orange and yellow?)

        ...or (my personal favorite) getting those &$%@ing page breaks set exactly how you want them.

        When I am Supreme Chancellor, Excel will only be used for financial analysis. Those who mis-use it as a "database" will be whipped in the public square. No, I'm not bitter :\

        • ...or having users that use cell colors and font formats to organize their Excel data (ummm...how do you sort blue, orange and yellow?)

          Oh God, yes. 'I've highlighted the changes in yellow.' Aaaargh!

          The thing to do here is write yourself a function that takes a cell reference as its argument and returns that cell's .Interior.ColorIndex value. Then you can sort by colour. Not ideal, but a handy workaround for when you have to tidy up after some clown.

    • I'm pretty sure it does, doesn't it, I/O is modular and can be mysql or sqlite or now access? Or am I thinking of kexi?

  • Access is evil (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Q-bert][ ( 21619 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:04PM (#12354012)
    It's the single worse assault to databases in the history of the world. I think it's some kind of punishment for people who've committed a sin in some past life to get hired to work on access applications. It's just ungodly bad, perl has nothing against access for being able to write bad code. Ugh, and they are trying to replace it. Destroying it would be a better idea. Erase its existence from the universe.

    • Re:Access is evil (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iendedi ( 687301 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:29PM (#12354168) Journal
      Hopefully, the intent is to migrate Access installed base off of access and into the sane world.
    • I would say this is mostly due to its friendly nature. You get a lot of people writing code that have no business being there. For those of us that know what we are doing Access can be very useful. After you build a good system it's easy for them to be maintained afterwards because it is so friendly.

      There is nothing inherently wrong with Access other than it's easy to use. It can be a quick a powerful tool when wielded correctly. Much like Perl.
      • You get a lot of people writing code that have no business being there.
        Couple of points:

        Cynically, you can stay employed for a good length of time cleaning up the dirty diapers.

        Less cynically, what other tools support such easy exploration by the user? Play, man, play!

    • Re:Access is evil (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:59PM (#12354367)
      So this "Access of Evil" the prez has ranted about all this time was just some database?

      Sheesh.

    • Re:Access is evil (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <{slashdot} {at} {monkelectric.com}> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @11:17PM (#12354919)
      You my friend, are 100% correct. True story, I consult for a company who needed a fairly complex suite of applications written that essentially runs their entire business. I said, "this is a web application". They said, "we want it done in access." I needed the money bad, so I did it in access.

      Coding in access i pretty easy, except all the bugs. I literally spent more time working around bugs in Access then writing the application.

      The worst one was in a form which had a list of strings that needed to be refreshed based on the contents of another box. You call the requery method to refresh this, and you have to requery whenver the record changes -- which is an eventcalled "oncurrent". Well, somehow, requerying a specific textbox was causing the ENTIRE form to generate an "oncurrent". Which created a race condition -- the oncurrent event handler requeried which created another oncurrent event.

      I found a workaround after a LOT of suffering, but... Access is just unusable.

      • Scary, this is exactly what I would have posted, with the possible exception of the example. There were just so many horrid bugs to work around. I actually heard my boss make the comment that programmers are only worth a third of the time they bill for. I corrected her saying that we were only worth a quarter of the time we billed for and the joy of having an app done in access was worth the other three quarters. I think my most annoying bug in terms of shear stupidity was "if (bVar)" as apposed to "if
        • Ouch, thats bad (the if statement thing). I've also seen access incorrectly evaluate double conditionals, ie "if (x is smaller than 10) and (x is greater than 5)". (I can't use th greater/smaller than symbols because slashdot will strip them).

          It's hard to imagine how some of these bugs could occur. Having worked with access enough, my *guess* is that the access's own internal code and your own code are all sharing the same namespace and instances of the API and the numerous bugs in Access compound the n

          • ie "if (x is smaller than 10) and (x is greater than 5)". (I can't use th greater/smaller than symbols because slashdot will strip them).

            "if ( x < 10 ) and ( x > 5 )" HTML codes are your friend. &lt; and &gt; will give you less than and greater than, respectively :)
    • It's just ungodly bad, perl has nothing against access for being able to write bad code.

      Access is like a box of crayons vs. the set of oil paints (Oracle, et. al)

      The Artist is certainly limited by the crayons but can still use them to create a masterpiece...

      Meanwhile, the Amateur will create a sloppy, haphazard mess no matter what the medium.
    • single worse assault to databases in the history of the world

      No, I think that award should go to FoxPro. No offense, I hate using Access, too, but for single-person databases, or very small groups (Access has its place, it's just that it's place isn't very big.

  • Actually, it's good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:26PM (#12354146) Homepage Journal
    Yes, I know it's only a front-end for a MS product. Yes, Access has issues. In fact, yes, yes, ok ...

    However, consider how many Access users and programmers now have a much easier entry point into the GNU, KDE, Linux, Open source, Python and Xbase worlds.

    A rich and diverse tool set would include a pair of pliers.
  • ...support VBA like all other great modern desktop applications? /just askin'

  • Access is great for data conversion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FriedTurkey ( 761642 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:47PM (#12354289)
    MS Access isn't total crap. It is great for data conversion. It's a lot easier to fix a bunch of spreadsheets in Access and move it to a real database like Oracle or DB2. Moving between database types through ODBC is easy and you can clean out rows with a touch of the delete key. There are expensive tools that do the job but why get them when Access does it. Nothing is more painful than dumping to text files and using a tool like Oracle SQL*Loader.

    Having said all that I would never use MS Access for a real application. :-)

    • My Story (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cyranoVR ( 518628 ) *
      I have to agree, with an addendum. A large part of my current job has been migrating cobbled-together Excel spreadsheets into Access applications. I'm by no means an Access evangelist but it gets the job done - and for a lot of teams, Access is all they'll ever need.

      What bugs me is the knee-jerk reaction everybody has when I tell them I developed $APPLICATION in Access. "Why don't you get a *real* database?" Ummm...huh?

      Explanatory Anecdote: My employer's Asset Management department (five people) was m
      • Amazing isn't it. Whatever happened to 'the right tools for the job'.
      • It'll be just another part of the KDE-on-native-MS-Windows port [sourceforge.net]. I look forward with incipient hilarity for Microsoft's first MS-Access-on-native-Linux port.
      • That's great if it MS Access works for your group. In my experience the greatest disadvantage is that it is a file in a directory. I have made changes to a form in MS Access and the next day it was gone. Turns out that somebody messed up the data so they copied a an old version back to the shared directory. A SQL Server database can provide backup mechanisms and keep somebody from making a "offline" version with them on a trip and then copying the file back. I have changed a MS Access database to use S
        • I have changed a MS Access database to use SQL Server tables keeping the MS forms. It was super easy to do and it works well for the group.

          You definitely make a very good point. It's something I've thought about from time to time. We have the same issues with our ACT! database, which also runs off local files.

          On the other hand, the file-based architecture of Access can be one of its strengths. Deployment, backups, and upgrades consist of simply copy-paste. Consider what time and effort like operations w
        • i seem to remember reading that ms provide an upsizing wizard to move the backend data to sql server whilst keeping the front end in access

          is this still the case?
          • Not sure about a wizard. You just recreate the tables in SQL Server and then create link tables in MS Access. I believe you can rename the link tables to be the same as the old Access tables and everything will work fine.
  • Now crappy programmers who use Linux can write truely awful applications just like their Windows brothers.

    Can't wait to see all the wonderful new stuff written in PHP apps that use Knoda that are ment to replace the VB6 that use Access.
  • "getting closer to its goal to be a full replacement for MS Access."

    Hmmm. A little late on the draw. Somebody is finally getting close enough to replace MS-Access, that has been around for a long time, and that Microsoft appears to be shifting the focus away from. Nice afterthought indeed.

    Microsoft's latest SQL Server Express [microsoft.com] offering is the focus.

    Knoda seems novel, but why not stack some reporting software on MySql or something similar?

    • Microsoft's latest SQL Server Express offering is the focus.

      Read the spec sheets - SQL Server Express is a straight database with no frontend. Microsoft is pushing it as the database to use with Visual Studio, which provides the frontend reporting and app development tools.

      Since Access is part of Office, are most small businesses going to buy a copy of Visual Studio after they've already paid for Access? Obviously, they shouldn't. For them, Access will do the job.

      Of coures, I think what you're getting
      • You are on the right track - Office is the front end for SQL Server, but Excel will be the front end tool, not Access. If you need reports, they want you to buy MS Reporting Services. If you want apps, use Visual Studio. Access is no longer part of the plan.

        Access was Microsoft's gateway drug. Now that most of the world is hooked, it has served its purpose. Microsoft will keep Access around for the die hard fans and the newbies, but it will never see any real updates.
      • Some small businesses may choose to replace Access with cheap copis of Microsoft's Express products [microsoft.com] that Microsoft plans to offer for $49 a pop -- noted in the FAQ section.

        The Visual Web Developer Express product claims "integrated access to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express". This might be just enough to get a business up and running, and off the MS Access candy.
        It appears as though Microsoft may be trying to push Access out of the way with cheap offerings such as this. Also, SQL Server Reporting servic

    • Microsoft doesn't see any future value in Access. But, just as MSIE was caught napping by Moz/FF, there is an opportunity... for the Mac.

      There is no Access on the Mac, and that is holding back many Windows/Office people back. Make this tool work on the Mac, interoperable with Excel on the Mac, and preferably get Apple to endorse or co-brand the tool. Then you've got yourself a viable transition for millions of users.

  • Rekall is not bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by auferstehung ( 150494 ) <moc.liamg ieb gnuhetsrefua.dnu.dot> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @11:18PM (#12354925)
    Rekall [thekompany.com] is not a bad database frontend with Access like style, but that can be used with a range of database backends (mysql, postgresql, etc). Like other Kompany products its is even dual licensed under the GPL. See RekallRevealed.Org [rekallrevealed.org]
    • Rekall holds much promise - but I've tried it several times over the past few years under various distro's and found it to be unstable to the point of completely unusable.

    • It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says.

      The license section on the about page says that Rekall is licensed under the GPL but also includes:

      "The original authors of rekall (Mike Richardson and John Dean), and theKompany.com retain the right to use the Rekall codebase commercially, that is, to use code from rekall in other, non-GPL'd products."

      There is no such right or power as what they

      • "It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says."

        No; it is not that way.

        What they are saying makes sense and is no more than what other people (name Troll Tech with Qt or MySQL AB with MySQL) is already doing: double licensing.

        You can get Rekall from theKompany as a GPLed product or you can get it under a "commercial" license.

        Of course, if you get Rekall under the GPL, you can modify it and redist
        • Ah, then they should be more clear about that. The way they have worded this is very poor.

          They should also use the word "proprietary" because "commercial" does not mean what they think it means. The GNU GPL is a commercial license because GPL-covered works are distributed as part of a business, just ask Red Hat or IBM.
  • It is one thing that KDE programs all start with K. But this guy putting a K in front of his real name just to show everyone he's a KDE programmer? come on!!!

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