[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when the Zaurus community fractured into multiple ROMs, with minor differences between them and all using increasingly outdated libraries; maintaining it all just took too much work.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...