Inexpensive EasyTables Database Program: Good Concept, Poor Execution

Many people need to keep track of structured information in a simple, straightforward, way. Database programs often skew towards the higher end of cost and complexity, or towards unstructured, free-text tools which have benefits, but also drawbacks. EasyTables ($35, 14-day free trial) is a program that attempts to fill a niche for users with no database or coding experience that still need to track, sort, and search their data. Unfortunately, showstopper bugs and an unresponsive development team make this database program an unreliable choice.

EasyTables allows the user to create simple flat-file databases with minimal hassle.EasyTables 2.4.5 resides, after installation, in the taskbar, and this makes it convenient to create or review tables of various sorts. The user can create as many tables as he/she wishes, and access them from a right-click on the icon in the taskbar. Thus, it's easy to quickly bring up a contacts table, a to-do list, or a simple inventory.

Creating tables is equally simple; a straightforward interface allows you to add columns and set their type (text, integer, date, currency, and so on). Once this is done, you can then begin adding in data, either manually, or by importing it from a CSV. Columns can be deleted or edited later, though users should be careful about doing so; once a column is deleted, that data is gone, even if the column is later recreated.

When being used, EasyTables presents a basic grid of data. Columns can be dragged around to reorder them, and clicking a column will sort by it. Filters can be created by clicking a value in a cell, or by bringing up a filter dialog to set multiple conditions at once. Data can be entered in the grid, or by a simple form which is auto-generated. Text font, color, and size can be set on a field-by-field basis.

Unfortunately, EasyTables has serious bugs, including some that locked me out of my database, though I was able to make a copy of it and re-access the data. Setting a filter on an integer field by using the "add to filter" button caused a crash error that re-occurred whenever I tried to reopen that database. Automatic fields, such as Creation Date, sometimes came up blank and sometimes not. While not a bug per se, there is no way to delete an entry from the drop-down type fields, so if you made a mistake in typing, the erroneous entry will remain to clutter the field.

Further, EasyTables is poorly documented. There is a .CHM file which contains very basic information, but doesn't document all features, such as the "Expression" field type (which would seem to be very useful). There is a FAQ, which is written in somewhat broken English and which mostly just repeats the documentation. As of this writing, NiceKit has not replied to email queries.

With a list price of $35, EasyTables is pushing the limit of price for functionality if everything worked perfectly. Given the issues and the seeming lack of recent updates (the program is copyright 2010), I have to put this firmly in the "not recommended" column, which is a shame, as its features and functionality would make it an excellent choice if it had fewer bugs and a slightly lower price point. Filemaker Pro, once the leading personal database, is currently targeted at businesses more than single users. Microsoft Access offers a lot of functionality, but can be more than is needed for a single, flat-file, type database. GS-Base, which has some flaws but also has a rapid turnaround on bug fixes and updates, is a good candidate to consider for low-end tasks on a small budget.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of this software.

--Ian Harac

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Tomboy: Powerful, and Free, Database for Notes

Take the intuitive simplicity of jotting down a quick note in Notepad, combine it with the ever-present nature of Stickies, and add easy linking between topics that's even more instant than TiddlyWiki. You've got Tomboy: A free application that makes managing your knowledge easy and fast.

Tomboy did not start its life as a Windows application: It is a part of the open source Gnome project, which is a desktop environment for Linux. To use it, you first need to install something called GTK# for .NET, a toolkit used to create cross-platform graphical user interfaces. This is a separate download, but the Tomboy installer links to it.

Tomboy stays out of the way while providing powerful search, formatting, and linking features. Once you have Tomboy installed, it looks like a native Windows application. If you are used to the tiny-looking notes that Stickies creates, you may be surprised to discover that in Tomboy, each note is a free-floating window that looks like a full application, complete with all the Windows chrome (minimize/restore/close buttons, toolbar, and so on). This also means that all notes are visible as individual windows when you hit Alt-Tab to switch applications, so you may not want to have many Tomboy notes open on your screen at any one time. Of course, you can always paste several notes into one big note, in which case you will have just one window.

Getting started with Tomboy couldn't be easier: Just start typing. Your text is automatically saved as you type; don't try to hit Ctrl-S to save your note. Counterintuitively (at least for Windows users), Ctrl-S triggers strikethrough formatting, so you'll need to wean yourself off any obsessive saving habit you may have unless you want all of your text to look like it's up for deletion. Hotkeys are one of the few areas where Tomboy doesn't integrate so smoothly with Windows: You can specify system-wide hotkeys, but you do this by typing out their name (you literally have to spell it out, "+F3," angle brackets and all) rather than by hitting the keys you want to use like on most other hotkey-aware applications.

One of the most powerful features in Tomboy is inter-note linking. This is something Stickies can't do, and it turns Tomboy into a powerful knowledge management system a bit like TiddlyWiki. Often, you don't even have to think about creating links: Just type the name of an existing note and it automatically turns into a link, with no double square brackets or any other formatting. If you ever rename the note you linked to, Tomboy will offer to rename all links to it, so there are never any broken links. It is also easy to create new notes by linking to them: Select some text and press Ctrl-L. The text you selected becomes a link, and you find yourself within the new note, ready to write. Tomboy stays true to the Wiki format by optionally supporting CamelCase: It can turn words melded together LikeThis into links.

Once you no longer need a note, just close its window and Tomboy will store it for future reference. If you ever need it again, you can click the Search button on any other note (or press Ctrl-Shift-F) and open the Search All Notes window. Type any fragment of text into the search box, and Tomboy searches all notes (both open and closed), as fast as you can type.

Apart from its clunky two-part installation process on Windows and slightly quirky hotkeys, Tomboy is very easy to get started with. Instead of reading lengthy explanations and tutorials, you just suddenly find yourself writing whatever it is you wanted to write, while Tomboy stays out of the way.

--Erez Zukerman

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Database System GS-Base Is Easy as a Spreadsheet--And the Price is a Steal

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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