Query

users
#1

** Forwarding message from "Cliff Scott" <cfly@intergate.com> on Mon, 20 Jan 2014 22:24:49 -0600
This was sent to me and should have been sent to the list.

** Reply to message from Alex Thurgood <alex.thurgood@gmail.com> on Mon, 20
Jan 2014 09:19:13 +0100

Tom,

> Can Base directly connect to a Lotus Approach database and use it as
> the back-end?

No. Never has and probably never will.

>
> @Ernest, Have you still got access to the old Windows and thus the
> Lotus Approach directly or was this an upgrade (or a machine exchange
> or some sort)? I take it you exported the data as a ".csv" file and
> that is what is looking like a flat spreadsheet?

Lotus Approach saves its databases as an APR file extension, but the
actual data is stored as a group of DBF tables. Any binary (e.g. image)
data or extended character data (Memo fields, etc) are stored in a
separate DBT file which is referenced in some way by the APR file and
thus appears in the DBF file that contains the binary field.

It was/is for its time a brilliant piece of kit that held its own with
Access and FMPro. It had an accessible UI and form builder, had a fairly
competent SQL parser, and could even be scripted with Lotus Smartscript.
In fact, from the user perspective, it was "intuitive", everything which
LO Base is not. I fully understand why people have stuck with it.
However, it was essentially, single OS (well it did run on OS/2 as well
for a while in Windows compatibility mode), as the software was provided
for the Windows platform only.

Alex,

Slight correction, Approach was written for OS/2 Warp4 as well as Windoz. I
am using ver 1.6 on eCS running in VBox on my Mac. As you say it is very
intuitive and easy to make queries. I would change over to Base if it was
straight forward, but there's no way Base would be anywhere near as easy to
use so I'm sticking to eCS.

Cliff