theKompany.com releases version 1.0.2 of Rekall RAD DBMS tool for Linux

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theKompany.com is pleased to announce the 1.0.2 release of Rekall, a personal, programmable DBMS system for KDE. Rekall is the only viable alternative to MS Access for Linux. With Rekall you will be able to quickly and easily build database applications using Rekall forms and reports. A full complement of widgets means that applications built in Rekall will be able to have the look and feel of any other application. Rekall applications can be extended in their functionality to perform virtually any task via embedded Python as a scripting language. Ever since the release of dBase many years ago, the idea of a programmable DBMS has become increasingly popular. Major systems have been written in applications like Paradox and MS Access. By focusing on the database, users are able to leverage their business knowledge into working applications. One of the limitations of the aforementioned products is that their native database didn’t scale well or support multiple users very well. Rekall avoids this problem by dispensing with a native database.

Rekall 1.0.2 Changes
====================

The following list summarizes the changes since 1.0.1 (including changes from xbsql-0.7 to xbsql-0.8)

* Much faster display of tables with large numbers of columns

* Much faster display of MySQL tables with large numbers of rows

* Selection (and deletion) of multiple rows in table data and form data view

* Automatic for Python 1.5.2, 2.0 or 2.1 as installed.

* Online help (in progress, more to come)

* Added Enter/Return as equivalent to Tab key

* Support for eight-bit character sets

* Added “group by” and column aliasing to query designer

* Support for insert/update/delete where table does not have a primary key.

* Various other bug fixes

* Indexing fixed for XBase/XBSQL

* Added “group by”, “having” and aggregate functions to XBSQL (note, this is under development, please verify correct operation).

Rekall 1.0.1 Changes
====================

The following list summarizes the changes since 1.0:

* In table design, control returns to first row after the table definition is saved.

* Fixed “sort ascending” spelling

* Support for boolean types added to drivers and to check box control. Note that XBase/XBSQL still has problems.

* Better keyboard navigation. Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down go to first/last record, and Ctrl-Left and Ctrl-Right to
first/last control. Home and End operate within text controls.

* Indexing in table design believed to work now

* More documentation including basic descriptions of control types.

* Default values now work, and can be set to script expressions.

* Tab order dialog behaves more sensibly if controls are not named.

* Entry to query design mode no longer immediately marks the query as changed.

Rekall Components and the Demo Database
=======================================

(1) RPM installation

If you are installing Rekall to run under KDE2, there are four RPMs to install:

korelib-0.8 library loader package
xbase-2-0.0 XBase routines
xbsql-0.8 SQL wrapper for XBase routines
rekall-1.0.2 Rekall itself

Pick the set appropriate to your distribution. These are built against the packages as supplied with the distributions, and use the version of QT2 supplied with the installation.

(2) QT-Only installation

The QT-only version should run on any Linux i386 X-windows system. There is not currently a demo version of this package.

Unpack the rekallqt tarball, then cd into the ‘rekallqt-1.0.2’ directory and execute the command “./install”. This will install rekallQT into the directory /usr/local/rekallqt, with an entry “rekallqt” in /usr/bin. Rekall can then be exucuted using the command “rekallqt”.

If you need to, you can change the install script to install into any directory, however you will need to edit the “rekallqt” script in the installation directory to match.

RekallQT includes its own copy of QT3 (3.0.1), plus the Korelib, XBSQL and XBase components.

The tarball RekallDemo.tgz contains a demonstration database. There are actually three copies of the database, one using MySQL, one PostgreSQL and one XBase/XBSQL.

By purchasing Rekall you are getting the source for the application and free electronic updates to the application. With the next major release of Rekall we will be adding Windows support and Mac OS X support will soon follow, you get all supported platforms for one price regardless of when they are released. Rekall is priced at $79.95 for the physical package and $69.95 for the electronic package.

Rekall can be purchased or demos downloaded from here.

About theKompany.com

theKompany.com is a California-based company with developer teams in North America and Europe. theKompany.com fills a need in the Linux community for mass-marketed, quality Linux software by producing developer tools and desktop applications. theKompany.com’s products are marketed both online and through B&M channels. Visit www.thekompany.com for more information.