Is OpenOffice Base a database application?
Is OpenOffice Base a database application?
Not really, but a HyperSQL (https://www.hsqldb.org/) (HSQLDB) database engine is included with Base. Base can use the HyperSQL engine to act as a database application in much the same way as Microsoft Access uses the Microsoft Jet database engine to act as one, but both are fundamentally database front-ends (https://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/ library/aa141493(office.10).aspx) designed to connect to a variety of types of databases, not just the one they ship with.
As a front-end, Base provides database management tools (DDL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_definition_language) / DML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_manipulation_language) ), as well as stored queries, forms, reports, and macros.
The associated tools include:
- a command-line SQL console
- a visual table designer (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/*Office3_User_Guides/Getting_Started/Creating_database_tables)
- an index manager
- editable table views
- a visual data-relationships designer (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/*Office3_User_Guides/Getting_Started/Defining_relationships) (cardinality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality_(data_modeling)) )
- a decent visual query builder (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/*Office3_User_Guides/Getting_Started/Creating_queries_and_reports)
- a relatively powerful form designer (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/*Office3_User_Guides/Getting_Started/Creating_a_database_form)
- a rudimentary reports designer (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/*Office3_User_Guides/Getting_Started/Creating_reports) [requires JRE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Runtime_Environment) ]
- a macro development environment various extensions (https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/search/node/Base) compliment this list nicely
Not only does Base display the information in databases in various ways, it can provide that information to the other applications in the OpenOffice suite. To provide this function, Base files can be 'registered' in OpenOffice. Simply press the F4 key from any OpenOffice application to access all registered data-sources.
Typical data-source usage includes:
- Writer (mail-merge, forms),
- Calc (pivot tables, graphs, forms),
- Impress (dynamic slide data, graphs),
- Base (stored queries, forms, reports).
