[Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

PortaBase is an application for managing one-table database files. Notable features include:

• String, Integer, Decimal, Boolean, Note (multi-line text), Date, Time, Calculation, Sequence, Image, and Enum column types
• Custom data views (subsets of the columns in any order)
• Filter the displayed rows using sets of conditions
• Sort the rows by any combination of columns, each in ascending or descending order
• Add, delete, rearrange, and rename columns at any time
• View summary statistics for columns (total, average, min, max, etc.)
• Import and export support for CSV and XML, plus export to HTML
• Optional data file encryption
• Simple calculator widget for entering numeric data

I personally use PortaBase as a media collection inventory, shopping list, TODO list, address book, password manager, financial tracker, and photo organizer, among other things.

The feature set is fairly robust for a relatively new Maemo release because PortaBase started its life as an application for the Sharp Zaurus PDAs, and also got ported to Linux and Windows PCs years ago. Development stalled when the Zaurus community fractured into multiple ROMs, with minor differences between them and all using increasingly outdated libraries; maintaining it all just took too much work. But now that Qt 4 is available on Maemo, I've done a major housecleaning of the code and started a series of PortaBase 2.0 pre-release versions for Diablo, Fremantle, Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows. That's still a lot of platforms, but the fact that they're all using Qt 4.5 or higher makes it much easier to manage.

Version 2.1 is available in Diablo extras and Fremantle extras-testing. Version 2.0 is already available in Fremantle extras. If you encounter any problems with the application, please report them so I can fix them in future releases.

Let me know if you have suggestions for improvement, interest in contributing or updating a translation, desire to contribute in some other way, or any other questions or comments.

Currently, there's another option for contributing and providing feedback: I'm running a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of accelerating development of the next batch of major features. If you'd like to contribute, obtain some of the campaign's reward items, and/or vote on which features you'd like to see implemented next, please take a look.

Edits:
2010-05-27 Updated with information about 2.0 rc1, and removed pre-PR1.2 issues.
2010-06-21 Updated with information about the 2.0 final release and extras-testing
2010-08-03 Updated for the promotion to Fremantle extras
2012-09-10 Updated links, added information about the 2.1 release and Kickstarter campaign

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Hey, looks great and thanks for extending your development to Diablo as well :)

One 'bug' I came across was that on the very first page where you can choose to create a new file: if the screen is in fullscreen mode it will flicker back and forth not making it possible to click anything :)

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

pr 1.2 has broken something ;).

when it comes i install it!

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Been playing with this for 30 mins on my N810 and all I can say is...WOW!
Very, very slick user interface - one of the most 'finished' apps I've seen.

My only problem is my lack of skill in how to best put this app to use. I got a LOT that I would want in a structured list but need to spend some time figuring out how.

Thanks for this. It's a great fit for my N810.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Ah, Portabase... brings back a lot of memories from the Zaurus days!

I'll try this out asap... although in the meantime I've ported much of my database stuff to web apps, for exactly the multiple-platform issues that you accurately describe !

Thanks for bringing back Portabase!

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Screen shots please
edit

just spotted these on the web site here for lazy dudes

http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=262332

http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=262328

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

The N900 needed a software like this. Congratulations!

...

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Wahoooo- I was already looking for a PortaBase replacement for Maemo. Fabulous to to go on with that, I already accepted that PB is a ghost project.

Thanks a lot.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

PortaBase 2.0 beta 2 is now out. This one should be pretty stable, I'm just waiting on translations (and ideally PR1.2 so I can do some proper testing on the N900). The only reported issue that I haven't fixed is the "start screen flickering in fullscreen mode" problem mentioned above by silvermountain; I'm running the Diablo Qt libraries from extras and not seeing that, so it might be a problem with the ones in extras-devel.

All the links from the original post are still applicable. Let me know if you run into any problems, want to contribute, or have any other feedback.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

PortaBase 2.0 rc1 is now out. With PR1.2 now available, I finally have PortaBase installed on my own N900; seems to be working fine so far (now that I've fixed the bugs reported during beta testing). I've updated the original post to reflect the current state of affairs. Waiting for feedback so I can either fix more bugs or start promoting to extras-testing and extras...

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Importing MobileDB files did not work with beta2. I can choose a portabase target file, I can choose a pdb file, the file is imported but not stored to disk. Is this fixed in rc1 ?

Besides this great thing to work with.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Yes, this is fixed in rc1. There was a regression in beta2 which prevented any new files from being created, but didn't interfere with editing existing files; I guess most people had already created their files with earlier versions of PortaBase, because nobody reported the bug for almost a week.

I did just notice there's a bug in updating the list of recently used files when importing an XML or MobileDB file in rc1; just fixed it, but it's pretty easy to work around in the meantime (just open the newly created file using the "Open" button or menu item next time, it'll then get correctly added to the recently used files list).

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

PortaBase 2.0 has been released. No bugs were reported against the release candidate, but I did fix a couple that I found on my own (including the one I mentioned above involving the recent files list after importing a file). This release has been promoted to extras-testing for Fremantle, which should make it a little easier for people to try out. I also tried to promote it to Diablo extras, but that doesn't seem to be working at the moment; I'll try again tomorrow.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Ok I have some problems, I can't completely install portabase, it keeps saying that Portabase cannot be installed. When I check for updates , there is an 0 kb update available??? Which cannot be installed.
I tried to deinstall and reinstall, but it keeps saying that it cannot be installed. The program is there however, and I can use it...
Even purging the program from Xterm didn't help...

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

It looks like there was a problem managing the link to the executable from /usr/bin. Hadn't been a problem through multiple installs and uninstalls in extras-devel, so either extras-testing or PR1.2 changed something. Anyway, I just uploaded fixed packages to both extras-devel and extras-testing and confirmed that they install and uninstall cleanly on my N900.

Promotion to Diablo extras seems to be working this morning, so PortaBase should also appear there shortly. I'll check that on my N810 once it appears in the repository, but I'm not expecting any problems there (it isn't optified, and hence doesn't need to manage a link in /usr/bin like the N900 version does).

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

The only issue I encountered actually in all versions: The alternating table colors can´t be changed which leaves me with a white row with white text every second row because of the standard theme which expects a dark background.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

After updating to PR1.2 I was able to try out Portabase on my N900 at last, and I must say it is a beautiful piece of work ! The integration with the Maemo5 look 'n feel is totally impressive, even more so than the old Qtopia versions for the Zaurus.

Thanks a lot for this nice and useful piece of kit !

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I have a problem with importing an XML.

I created a simple table with 5 fields and exported it to have a temlate XML file so that i can create a file from my csv file.

I get the error:

error at line 131, column 20
Invalid gfilter: _simple

I get the same error when importing the xml that portabase created for me.

Edit: when i change the _simple to _allrows, the import works.

Application is handy!

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I actually spent a fair amount of time fiddling around with the row colors and looking through the Qt code that controls this. As far as I can tell, Qt 4.6.2 on Maemo 5 completely delegates rendering of the row background colors to the current GTK+ theme; I don't see any way to easily override it, even using the stylesheet mechanism that works in most other cases. The default theme on the N900 uses black for both normal and alternating row backgrounds, so there's basically no alternating row effect (I'm guessing this was done to save power by reducing the overall screen brightness). If you're getting white as the alternating row color, then I think you've done something to change the default theme. For the time being, the only way to fix this is to use appropriate theme settings. For the next release, I'll try adding a preference to enable or disable alternate row colors; that would let people with appropriate themes use them, but allow the second color to be disabled in cases like yours where it doesn't look right.

I think I can control the text color for the rows, but there's no way to easily link it to the "alternating" status of each row; to apply it, I'd basically have to manually change the text color of each cell every time a change is made to the data table (which would hurt performance a little). I suppose a single custom text color applied to all rows would be easier, though.

Found and fixed the bug (an incorrect validation order leads to any filters other than "_allrows" being rejected on import); I think that bug existed even way back in PortaBase 1.9. I'm inclined to save that bugfix for PortaBase 2.1; it doesn't show up in typical usage, it's been around for 6+ years, there's a workaround, and it affects all platforms so I'd need to do a full new set of installers for it. If some more critical bugs get reported, I'll put out a 2.0.1 bugfix release.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

No worries. i could import the file fine after changing it. some other minor things you might look at:

- I use comma as decimal seperator (regional settings) so i have to type that to create a valid decimal. The default string uses a point. The import function uses a point too (but I don't mind that).

- A small glitch in this screen on the filetype button:

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Ah, looks like I forgot to change the default value string in the column editor when I implemented locale-aware number separators. I'll fix that in the next release; again, you've already found the workaround in the meantime (edit that value before clicking "Done").

XML import is going to stay that way, because it needs to be a well-defined specification of the database content, with no guesswork going on. I plan to improve CSV import and export in the next release with some more options, number formatting being one of them.

I noticed this a while ago, seems to be a Qt bug. It's already been reported.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Can anyone offer any help please?.....

I'm trying to install PortaBase on my N900. Clicking on the install file in file manager results in the following error:

"Unable to download Portabase Application package not found"

Any offers?

Thanks

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

First of all, please let me know if any of these assumptions are incorrect:

• You're running the PR1.2 firmware
• You haven't enabled the extras-testing or extras-devel repositories in the application manager
• You downloaded the portabase .deb file to the N900
• You tried to install the file by opening it with the file manager

If the above is all correct, you're using an uncommon method of installing software on the N900, but it should work (just tested it on my N900). Make sure that you've downloaded a .deb file with "armel" in the name and not "i386"; you should have downloaded this file.

If it still isn't working, then either your downloaded file is corrupt (the browser saved it as text, etc.) or something else odd is going on. You can try installing it from the command line, if you're comfortable with that, or you can enable extras-testing and install it directly from the application manager.

Are other people also having trouble installing PortaBase? It only has one vote in extras-testing so far, which is going to make it difficult to promote to extras...

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Many thanks.....all working now (seems I was using the wrong install file!)

Nice App too!

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

A working version of PortaBase has been in extras-testing for the requisite 10 days, but it still doesn't have enough votes to promote it to extras. If there's anybody using PortaBase from extras-testing who hasn't voted on it yet, could you please either do so or report any problems you've encountered so I can fix them? I'm aware of a few minor bugs in the current code, but nothing so far that seems like a show-stopper for a stable release (the worst one is a seemingly-rare crash that was just reported today and I haven't been able to reproduce yet). I'd like to either promote the existing version or gather enough bug reports that it's worth doing a bug-fix release.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

invite accepted, vote casted

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

whats the url for voting again? :)

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

The "package karma" voting links are on the web page for the latest version of a package in extras-testing, which for PortaBase is currently here. For reference, here's more information about extras-testing and the QA process.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

PortaBase finally hit the required number of votes in extras-testing and has been promoted to extras. You can get it from the Fremantle download page, or install it directly from the package manager.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Congratulations. I'm not using the app daily but i'm glad that you made it. It's one of those apps that i had on my palm and wanted for my N900. I can recommend it to anyone.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I've run into a problem already. I'm using v2.0 but despite the description insisting that CSV, XML and DB files can be imported, there is no CSV option. I ignored that and copied over an XML file which I'd just saved from an Open Office spreadsheet. I can't persuade PortaBase to navigate to other locations to find that file though. Is that just me?

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I've now managed to import a CSV file. It's not made clear that you need to define all the fields first before you are allowed to import anything. I was trying to import a file before doing that as the first screen implies.

Another issue is that it doesn't like file extensions. That was another cause for frustration.

I'd like to define one of the fields as a percentage field but I don't seem to be able to do that. I thought if I defined it as decimal with a default of 0.0% it would accept it, but no.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I was writing a post to explain the CSV import, then saw that you already figured it out. I realize this process is rather awkward, so one of my goals for 2.1 is to be able to define a new PortaBase file with schema after selecting a CSV file to import. It's a point that regularly trips up new users, but existing users (like me) who have already imported their data from other sources almost never have to deal with. I did at least try to detail the process in the help file.

PortaBase currently looks for *.csv files when importing from CSV. This was important back in the early Zaurus days when filtering by extension was the only way to avoid listing every single file in the filesystem regardless of folder, but may be obsolete now. Should I remove the filter, so files with no extension or extensions like .txt are easier to select?

Looking at the XML import again for the first time in a while, I guess it's a little unintuitive also. You first get a dialog asking which type of file to import, then a second dialog asking where to create the new file. Only after this do you get a dialog for finding the XML file to import; I should probably swap those two steps in the next release. Note that the XML files handled by PortaBase are in a very specific format (documented here).

Let me know if you have any other suggestions on improving the import process, it's a point I do want to focus on for version 2.1.

You should be able to enter percentage values in a decimal field and have them used correctly in calculations, but that doesn't make it a "percentage field" per se. Were you just looking for something that would automatically add the percentage sign, or something else?

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Not sure whether it is already in but defining the separator sign for CSV files would be extremely helpful. I always struggle with that having various CSVs with either colon or comma.

Oliver

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

With regard to your point about XML import, when the program asked for a save location, I thought it had gone wrong as it hadn't asked for an import file so I bombed out of it then.

As for the percentage stuff, I was indeed wanting the program to display my 5 digit (including decimal point) field and then to display a percentage sign following.

In order to examine the XML file format, I had previously entered one row of data and then exported that. I figured that I could perhaps hack my data to fit that format. All that was before RTFM'ing ;-)

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

[QUOTE=tone I can't persuade PortaBase to navigate to other locations to find that file though. Is that just me?[/QUOTE]

I have the same problem. Portabase default file manger is N900 standard file manager and you can not change to another file manager like i.e Filebox which I use . The standard one is locked on N900.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

First of all I want to thank you for this application. I have used it for a couple of months on a daily basic. It is a budget and expense file to control my money spending.

Since I have my N900 with me all the time, I enter every amount. I take csv backup (Export) from time to time and at month end I transfer the records to my PC running Linux (Mepis) and use database feature in Open office to sort, filter and subtotals to analyze my data.

I have registered one problem before today. I open Portabase and my file. Suddenly I am told that the file do not exists. After a while I have the file back after I reboot. I don't know what happen only that it was during the monthly transfer to the PC.

Today it happen again, “Massstorage mode” opened on PC filemanager I then use “opened with” and Open office spreadsheet. I saved it as a open office to N900!!!
Normally I transfer the csv file to PC first and then open the copied file in Open office.

I read somewhere in this tread that Portabase don't like file extension besides csv, XML. This may be another example.

So I try the old trix with reboot, no luck. Then a boot with battery out, no luck. I look in Filebox shows a locked file (.~lock.BudExp311010.csv#) and the original same file is also shown. I try to open in N900 my original file but the file-manager show only a very limited sub directories and files under N900 directory and my file is not shown. I try to make a new file in Portabase with the same name. Portabase tells me the file already exist.

The strange ting for me is that the file I am after show up in file-manager when I load it outside Portabase.

Anyone have a tip on how to solve the problem, it will be appreciated.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

Let me see if I understand what happens.

if you save a file in Portabase with open office spreadsheet format it lock portabase and save a file as: (.~lock.BudExp311010.csv#).

As I mentioned in my previous post, Portabase open file manager with a very limited content. In folder N900 it shows one file with my file name (BudExp dated the day the problem occured).

My action to solve the is:
I delete the lock file (see above)
I click the one file name.
result: EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL. Even all the filtering I have made is there.

So now I wonder is this Portabase' way to solve the problem, creating a lock file and another file to rescue the portabase file? if this is the case it should be mentioned in the help file.

It would be very nice if jmbowman could comment on this.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

I'm pretty sure the lock files are being generated by OpenOffice, not PortaBase; see these discussions, for example. My guess at what's happening is this:

• A lock file is created when you open the CSV file in OpenOffice.
• You disconnect the N900 before closing OpenOffice (which is when the lock file would have been deleted). I've also seen mention of bugs in OpenOffice where lock files aren't cleaned up properly when created on remote file systems; the N900 in mass storage mode may run afoul of this.
• You try to open the file in PortaBase, but the existence of the lock file prevents the CSV file from being listed (since the operating system says that applications other than OpenOffice aren't allowed to read the file, the open file dialog doesn't bother to show it; trying to load data from it would fail anyway).
• If you try to create the file again with the same name, the operating system won't let you (because although the operating system thinks you aren't allowed to open the file, it does realize that it's there and won't allow another file of the same name to be created there).

The easiest solution is to make sure you exit OpenOffice before you disconnect the N900; that should remove the lock file. If OpenOffice crashes or there's some bug that results in failure to delete the lock file on exit, you may need to delete it manually (but it's a hidden file, so you'd need to do it from a tool like Filebox or the terminal). You might be able to configure OpenOffice to not create lock files, although that would defeat the original purpose of the feature (making it possible that somebody else with access to the file might make conflicting edits at the same time you're working on it; probably not a problem if it's on your personal computer).

Sorry for the delay in replying to this; I was confused by the issue at first since PortaBase doesn't create lock files and I don't edit files in OpenOffice very often.

Re: [Announce] PortaBase - A portable database application
 

OK thanks for the clarification.

So what about the csv file created on the day it happen. Did Portabase make this file because I didn't. The file is 15 kb and the accumulated real file size which I have saved as a backup is 7Kb. Secondly the file that was lost was only one months data. The restored file was 3 months of data.
Is it possible that no data was restored and the file was only hidden by Portabase.