QuickFile 3.00 Description

There are now many low cost data bases available for the Amiga. Why should
anyone choose to use QuickFile over one of the others?	This is an attempt
to explain its features and give a brief comparison to other data base
programs.

Significant features are:

Ease of Use
    I have tried to make QuickFile easy to use, although there has to be
    some trade-off between power and ease of use. Apart from text entry,
    all operations are done by pointing and clicking, using menus, buttons
    and selection from lists.

Speed and Efficiency
    These are also something of a compromise and hopefully you will find
    QuickFile fast and responsive, while keeping disk and RAM usage
    reasonable. It may not be the fastest in any single area but, overall,
    I think you will find it is up there with the best.

Capacity.
    Many low cost data bases work well on the typical sample file, but
    rapidly slow down, or run out of memory when you throw a larger
    file at them.  QuickFile can cope with a respectable number of records
    on a 1 meg system. One user sent me a copy of his data base containing
    6700 records. Even on my 1 meg floppy based system, you could find any
    record in under 1 second.

Random Access with buffering
    Most cheap data bases are either random access (disk based) or
    sequential (memory based). QuickFile combines these. It is random
    access, but holds as much of the file as it can in memory. This makes
    access much faster, and reduces wear and tear on your disks and drives.
    It also allows files to be larger than available ram. You can control
    how much memory it uses.

Multiple indexes.
    Your records are automatically kept in sequence. You can have any
    number of indexes if you want to see your records in different
    sequences. Each index can be based on any number of fields in
    ascending or descending sequence. You can prevent or allow duplicate
    index entries.

Multiple Views
    QuickFile provides both Form and List displays. You can use the default
    view (format), or define and save any number of your own views for a
    file. For example you can have one view that shows all fields to enter,
    display and alter records, another to list only names and phone
    numbers, and yet another for a mailing label format.

    A view includes field positions and lengths, report details, window
    position and size.

Field Formats
    Field types include character, integer, number (float), calculation,
    date, time, cycle, image, and external. Any of these field types can be
    used in an index.

    You can add, delete, or change fields at any time. You can even change
    the type of an existing field, provided the actual content is
    compatible with the new format.

Searching
    QuickFile has powerful search facilities. You can combine conditions to
    find, for example, all males with a  postcode 4001 born between 1960
    and 1965, with a name that sounds like Smith.

Sorting
    Fast sorting over multiple fields in one pass. The sort can be
    restricted to a portion of large fields to reduce memory requirements.

Printing
    Includes form and list reports, and multi-column labels. A page heading
    with page number, date and a user specified report title is optional.
    Pica, Elite and Condensed print can be used. Control breaks and
    totalling are supported.

Import/Export
    Allows records to be moved between applications to easily load large
    numbers of records.

    Creates text files in a number of formats including mailmerge files for
    WordWorth, Final Copy, InterWord and Kindwords 3. Export can also
    create files for loading into spreadsheets or other databases.

ARexx Port
    Provides macros (run from within program) and external commands (run
    from another program). This doesn't make it a programmable database
    but it does allow you to extend the functionality and talk to other
    applications.

In writing QuickFile, I have attempted to provide enough functionality to
make it usable for real work, while keeping resource requirements as low
as possible. Ease of use has also been a primary objective.

It certainly has its limitations;  some of the more obvious being:

    You cannot link different files together.

    It uses separate files for definition, data, indexes and views. This
    can get a bit confusing if you have a number of data bases in the same
    directory.