| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ FLEXIFILE/FLEXIWRITE ★ |
FLEXIFILE/FLEXIWRITE (Amstrad Action) | FLEXIFILE/FLEXIWRITE (Popular Computing Weekly) |
The program is heavily menu-based. Everything you do within :t involves trips down a tree of different menus, each leading to the next level down. This can be quite confusing to start with, though it does prevent you having to learn Control sequences, as with WordStar, for instance. Setting up a new database requires you to set up your passwords and maths constants before defining your field types, lengths and code names Each code name defines a field to the program and must be lour letters long, with at least two capitals. The field description car. be much longer, and it is this description which appears on the record card. The simple, six-field, instructional database described in the manual produces a file description (stored on your data disc) which is over 19K long. That s before you add any data! The manual is a topsy-turvy affair, where interesting bits c: information, such as how to get the keys to respond are left till after the tutorial section which uses them. it's printed in blue on blue. to stop photocopying but is patchy with very small print. You can't sort a Flexible database although the manual claims this is unnecessary as new entries are always put into then correct place according to any number of 'key' fields. Unfortunately, this process is never explained. You can select certain records from a Flexible database to form n 'selection' (subset). The manual goes into a confusing description of quarters'and lines'which does little to explain how you create a selection. Flexible can't really be recommended, and, due to operational problems with the 6128 version (attributed by Saxon to a hardware problem) this version may well be dropped. Although the database is quite powerful, it is not easy to use and for any but the experienced database user. could prove a considerable headache. AMSTRAD ACTION #6 |
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