At $20, GS-Base 9 is very inexpensive and requires virtually no prior database knowledge to use. Furthermore, it uses a number of metaphors and options which should be very familiar to those comfortable with spreadsheets, a fact that makes it useful to a large set of business users who rarely venture away from Excel. Indeed, it shares many of the functions and syntax found in Citadel's inexpensive, but functional, GS-Calc spreadsheet program.
GS-Base offers grid, field, and pivot table views, but not much flexibility beyond that.Creating a database is GS-Base is straightforward; so is creating the tables within that database. The user follows the basic pattern of creating fields and setting their types. Once created, the table structure can be edited, using clear dialog box that displays the fields in a tree structure on the left, and the relevant options and values on the right.
Field types in GS-Base are fairly limited: Text (for short text, like names or addresses), Number, Date, and File/Image. Numbers can be formatted as currency, integer, and so on, but you can't directly specify that a field can only be an integer. You can, however, enter a formula into the field that will perform a conversion on entered data, such as rounding down entered values. Or, you're supposed to be able to; I was unable to get the formula to return anything but an error.
This really is the heart of all of my issues with GS-Base; there are too many small bugs that keep popping up and undermining what could be a very useful tool.
GS-Base allows you to specify formulas for fields, rather than having them contain entered values, and this is where a lot of the program's functionality lies. You can use formulas use to create references to other tables, for example look up an item's price and availability by referencing the item's name. The formula syntax of GS-Base is very similar to that of most spreadsheet programs: Few database developers would establish a relationship via "VLookup". In Version 9 of GS-Base, an auto-increment feature, which is virtually essential to make this style of relationship practical, has been... sort of... added. You can set a field to autoincrement, and then hit Ctrl-T after you enter a row to set the field value appropriately. While this is easier than manually entering a unique ID, it's still inferior to the expected behavior of an autoincrement field filling the data in automatically.
The most useful feature of GS-Base is the built-in pivot table feature. This allows for rapid totals and sub-totals of information, with the ability to easily switch how information is categorized and broken down. That this feature is so prominent further cements the concept that this is "The database for spreadsheet users."
GS-Base shows all data in a single window which can be subdivided in many ways, but which always fills the main program window. It is not possible to look at two tables concurrently on the same screen. You can see the "Table View" and the "Field View" for the same table concurrently, but can't swap them from left to right, or decide which should be on the top or the bottom. On the plus side, the memo field display does allow formatting of text, including changing font and size.
GS-Base has a lot of raw potential and fills a niche as an extremely low cost product that still offers the ability to do relational tables and meaningful analysis of data via the built-in pivot functionality. The wealth of formulas available for data fields, including aggregate formulas, could make this ideal for many small business, personal, and academic uses--if only there were fewer small frustrations.
--Ian Harac
GS-Base is an easy-to-use and portable database that will help you to transform your data into tables and quickly look up any information you need. Using this simple all-in-one solution you can save your time when printing forms, letters and labels or when sending personalized e-mail messages with customized attachments. Main features include: * Over 12 million records and 2047 fields in one table; any number of tables in one file. * Managing any type of data: numbers, plain text fields, long formatted text documents, images and any files. * Around 300 standard built-in formulas that can be used to automatically calculate field values, create filtering expressions or to create links between tables. * Pivot tables. * Extensive searching capabilities - searching for duplicate records or field values, full-text searches etc.; multiple sort keys. * Standard editing and formatting tools and options; Excel-compatible formula syntax, predefined numeric styles and user-defined styles. * Merging and Unmerging records: easy batch record updates based on other tables. * Printing tables, forms and labels; page templates. * Sending personalized e-mail messages with customized attachments. * Password protection and encryption, AutoSave and AutoClose. * Clean installation (no registry entries are required). * Saving tables as PDF. * Importing, exporting and editing text, dBase III-IV, Clipper, FoxPro 2.x and Excel 2003 XML files.
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