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Cardbox (The Amstrad User) | Cardbox (Amstrad Computer User) | CARDBOX (Amstrad Action) |
Choosing a database is rather like selecting a fine wine - the external packaging looks appealing but the contents can leave a bad taste. If you own a PCW8256 or use CP/M on an Amstrad micro there's a plethora of database software to choose from. This looks at one such package, 'Cardbox' from Caxton Software. Open the box... Cardbox is the electronic equivalent of a desktop card filing system with the advantages of searching for specific information quickly, unlike its manual counterpart. The idea of thinking in 'cardbox' terms appealed to me as databases can often lose the novice in descriptions of 'fields', 'records'and other such necessary jargon. All most users want to do when they purchase a database is to get it up and running as quickly as possible. Learning the finer aspects of database programming is often the result of desperation rather than interest in the capabilities of the software. So how did Cardbox measure up to my critical eye? The program is supplied in a ring binder with 60 pages of documentation and one disc. Caxton recommends the user to make a backup copy of the disc. This is a necessity as Cardbox needs to write to the disc whilst in use. Even at this elementary stage the user may well have a problem. My initial thoughts about copying were to use the Diskcopy utility supplied with the PCW8256. However this proved of no use. I had to resort to using PIP (a CP/M command) in order to copy the files on the disc. All this may not be obvious to the user as the instructions in the entire Cardbox manual are written for micros in general rather than the Amstrad machine. A note explaining how to make backup copies should at least be included. Not a good start.
Having mastered this initial difficulty I set about initialising the software. This process informs the program the type of machine you are using, in order that it can output information in a format understood by the micro. Cardbox comes with two installation programs, TERMDEF and TERMGEN. The latter program allows the user to inform the program of control codes specific to his machine. Fortunately this is not necessary as Caxton supply a file with all the correct data for the PCW8256 or Amstrad micro, as appropriate. Initialising the program requires running the TERMDEF program and then entering the filename for the particular micro (ie PCW8256.DEF). This was a definite thumbs-up to Caxton, as there can be nothing more annoying than struggling to configure a program to your own computer's requirements. With this out of the way I was ready to start Cardbox. Getting going Running Cardbox is merely a matter of typing 'CARDBOX' from CP/M. The first screen you are presented with is the main menu and from here the user can access all functions connected with the database. The screen is split into two parts, where the top half shows the functions available to the user whilst the bottom half shows the functions the user has selected. The menu is further split into 'primary' and 'secondary' functions. Pressing either 'P' or 'S' moves an arrow-down the lines of available functions. The primary functions are Database, Format Definition and Operating System Utilities. The secondary functions indicated change, depending on the primary option chosen. For example, if the Database option is chosen, then the screen shows four secondary choices - Use, Analyse, Create or Repair. Getting to understand the complexities of a database can be a hit or miss affair and Caxton reduce this problem by providing an example file called 'Customer'. The learning process is further helped by the manual which is written with reference to manipulating this file. However it goes beyond a tutorial in that at a later stage the manual can be glanced at quickly for reference. Loading a file, as with all other commands in Cardbox, requires the user to press one (or two) of the keys on the qwerty keyboard. In this case the user presses 4F' for file. Generally there are prompts on the screen to remind the user of commands available at any stage. Once a file is loaded, the screen displays the first record in the file. It is at this stage that you understand where Cardbox derives its name from. The screen shows a filing index card which is the equivalent of one complete record of information. As I'll explain later on, this index card can be designed to the user's own specific requirements. Below the card are shown the commands available with the actual key entries highlighted in capitals (ie ADd, EDit, etc). These options contain the usual elements of database usage in that the user can add new information and edit and delete existing records. The cards (records) can be seen one at a time by going forward or backwards through the cards in the file. At first this is slow because each card is loaded into memory but once loaded the process is quicker. Above the record card at the top of the screen are two lines of information detailing the file being used, the record being displayed, the number of records in that file and the level of use. The 'level'is an important concept to understand as it is at the root of the way a user selects information. The lowest level of use and the level presented initially is level 0. This shows that the user has made no choices as yet. As the user starts to search for a particular piece of information these levels are incremented by 1. Now if that sounds slightly confusing, it isn't as bad as it seems. In fact it makes understanding how you search for information a lot easier. Here's how it works. Imagine that you have a cardbox full of index cards but you only want to select the cards which have the indexed word 'toys'on them and only those which are based in London. Finding these cards could be a slow process and you might sort them by first reducing the level of cards to those which show the town as London and then further reducing the cards to those that contain the word 'toys'. In effect this is the process that Cardbox carries out. Firstly the user would choose the SE option and type '/toys'. This tells the program to search for only those cards that contain the word 'toys'within any of the fields. On finding these cards - and it's fairly quick -- the program displays the first card in that set of records. The display at the top of the machine informs the user that the card shown is 1 of, say, 22 such records. This is then the first level of the search. The user then needs to narrow the search down to only those cards within 'London'. A similar process is used except this time the user informs Cardbox that the selection should be on only one field, in this case that relating to 'Town'. 'SE' is typed again but this time specifying 'TO/London'. This is then level 2 and the display might then show 'Record 1 of 8'. This in essence is how records are found. It's possible not only to 'SElect' cards with certain information but also to 'EXclude' information. Further still Cardbox can go back and 'INclude' information previously not defined. Cardbox will also undo a previous selection or undo them all. In principle I like the thinking behind Cardbox. It's easy to understand and takes a relatively short time to use. But it does have its own perculiar way of utilising commands. The selection process previously described is easy but it does rely on the user remembering the name assigned to a particular field (ie TO for Town). This is not too much of a hassle so long as you remember to use sensible two-character codes when defining fields. Setting up Defining fields is an interesting experience as it involves first designing the layout of the record (index card) and then assigning the field names to each field. This part of the program, more than any other, impressed me as it became obvious that designing a record is a visual matter. Obviously the user must have an idea of what information he wishes to store and how it should appear to him on the screen. Cardbox allows the user to 'draw' the index card and all its boxed sections (ie fields). The drawing part of the program uses the keys S, D, E, X for left, right, up and down respectively. It takes a little getting used to but I found that I could design a card very quickly. My only concern was that where a field demands a certain number of characters, the user is reduced to scrutinising the screen carefully in order to count characters. This is made more difficult as you need to remember the screen description that will take up part of the space. However, given the overall simplicity of the idea, the end result can be very satisfactory. There is also a facility to analyse the database a user has created in order to correct entries in design. The program does have its limitations like all database packages. Each record holds up to 1.404 characters. But if you're intending to use this system it would not be a problem, as it is intended, as the name suggests, to hold index card information. There is a maximum of 26 fields per record. I managed to use this entire figure in my first application. You would do well to consider the nature of your information before using Cardbox. That piece of advice applies of course for any database package. There is no limitation on the number of indexed words (ie keywords used in a search) within a record or field. Each indexed word can be up to a maximum of 32 characters plus hyphens. The theoretical maximum number of records that can be stored is 65.500 but this would depend on your external storage capacity. On the PCW8256 a second disc drive would be almost a necessity for applications using more than a couple of hundred records. Output to printer is naturally one of the options as well as dumping information into 'Wordstar' format. This option is especially appealing considering the popularity of the Wordstar program and its availability on CP/M. Conclusion Annoying features were few in number and were in general due to the documentation making reference to usage on non-Amstrad machines. The most notable was reference to pressing the Esc key, which the PCW8256 doesn't have. Common sense suggested using the EXIT key and this solved the problem. There were other similar situations but these were overcome in a similar fashion. Overall I was pleased with Cardbox. The reference manual with the exceptions noted was usable though by no means the last word in documentation. As a database it came out well in terms of ease of use and understanding of how data is stored. This can often cause problems and the presentation is good. However Cardbox is no heavyweight in the database market but then again it doesn't claim to be. Caxton call it a 'simple electronic card indexing system' and that's what it is. If your business demands a simple card index as a record keeping system, you could do a lot worse. A definite thumbs-up to Caxton Software! ACU #8603 |
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