KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release

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."

Comments

Bang goes some karma but...

[Eyeball97]

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

Finally...

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

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.

good for small businesses

[sfcat]

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.

Re:good for small businesses

[frission]

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

[cyranoVR]

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 :\

Access is evil

[Q-bert][]

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

[iendedi]

Hopefully, the intent is to migrate Access installed base off of access and into the sane world.

Re:Access is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

So this "Access of Evil" the prez has ranted about all this time was just some database?

Sheesh.

Re:Access is evil

[Monkelectric]

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.

Re:wow, shoot low why don't you

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Y'know, if you want to use an actual relational database with arbitrary constraints, updateable views, efficient joins, you can, you know, use PostgreSQL?

Sure, it might not have everything Oracle has, but if it did, it'd just be Yet Another Oracle Clone, and we don't want that now do we, y'know?

Actually, it's good

[2TecTom]

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.

Re:Actually, it's good

[qurk]

And duct tape :) Have you seen the new transparent duct tape 3M is offering? :)

Access is great for data conversion

[FriedTurkey]

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. :-)

Rekall is not bad

[auferstehung]

Rekall 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

My Story

[cyranoVR]

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 mis-using Excel to put together its quarterly Asset Portfolio Report. Besides the fact that only one person work on the file at a time (a real annoyance), they constantly had problems with sorting, formatting, page layout, etc. etc. You get the idea. They were spending more time managing the report then doing analysis.

So, I moved the whole thing to Access - and it wasn't a straight import job, either. Planned out a database schema and normalized the data, recreated the Excel workbook format as an Access report, and finally built a forms interface. Put it on the network, and soon the Asset Management department was humming along updating their data. A report that used to take two weeks now takes 15 minutes.

Finally, the moment of truth arrives: we show our new Asset Management application to our outside consultant. We spend 20 minutes or so demonstrating the forms interface and some reports, receiving a lot of "oohs" and "aahs." Then comes question and answer time. What're the first words out of the consultant's mouth?

"Have you thought about moving this to a real database, like SQL?"

(Yes, he really said just "SQL" - I immediately knew he meant SQL Server. Still, WTF?)

Why oh why would we want to move to SQL Server? Only five people use the database, and usually only two at a time. No need for clustering or advanced analysis. It's secure enough inside our password protected network drive. It's not an enterprise application! Fortunately, our CEO knew better and brushed off this suggestion.

Still, I feel for those business that have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on systems they didn't need because some consultant thought they should use a "real" database.

All that said, somebody pleeeease port Knoda to Windoze? :)

Re:Party's over before it starts.

[cyranoVR]

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 at is that SQL Server Express will soon replace the Jet Database Engine. However, the MS Access product and interface itself is here to stay.

Re:Party's over before it starts.

[UNFAIRMAN]

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.