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KGrok Database |
Introduction
KGrok is a flatfile palmtop database manager that presents and edits
data using a customizable interface. It appears in the guise of phone
lists, notepads, bug databases, and many other applications. It's very
easy to create new applications using KGrok's desktop companion, grok.
KGrok is the underlying visualization engine that brings the application
to life, and offers common functionality for selection, searching,
querying, grouping, and other facilities used by all applications. It is
very easy to design new applications in a few minutes, without having to
write a new program each time.
Once an application is chosen (either from the command line at startup
or using the App pulldown), KGrok will load its data. Data is organized
in cards. Each card is a data record, such as one adress in an
address manager, or a note in the notepad. (The model is an index card
of a Filofax.) The main menu lists all available cards; tapping on one
of them opens up that card and shows its contents.
The menu bar
The menu bar is a row of menu call buttons at the top of the main menu:
- Arrow: shows or hides the
search panel.
- File - Preferences: allows editing
preferences and configurations.
- File - Backup: creates backups on flash memory cards defined
with the Memory tab in the
preferences. Backup means copying all data to another location
such as a flash memory card to avoid loss, or to make the data
available on another Qtopia PDA with a similar memory card slot.
The Backup dialog will not show memory cards that are not inserted.
- File - Encryption: for enabling
encryption and changing passwords.
- App: loads a new application. Not available if KGrok was
started using a specific application icon in the launcher.
- Section: data cards can be grouped into sections. If a
section other than All is selected, only the cards in
that section are displayed and searched. Choose Edit...
to create, rename, or delete sections.
- Sort: sorts cards by criteria defined by the application.
- Query: performs application-specific queries. Queries select
and display a subset of cards.
- ABC: scrolls the list of cards to the chosen letter.
Searching
If the arrow in the upper left corner points down, press it to show
the search panel. It consists of a status line, a text entry field for
entering search strings and manual queries, and a button row. The status
line shows a yellow padlock if the application data is encrypted (see
encryption).
- Find: scroll the card list to the next card whose sort
column begins with the text in the text entry field above.
- Search: show only the cards that match the text in the text
entry field. The search mode selector determines what constitutes
a match. Search texts that begin with a parenthesis or curly
brace perform a query. (See the query
language guide, this is for experts only.)
- Search mode: controls what the search button does:
- Search all: search all cards in the current section.
- In query: search only those cards selected by a previous
query in the Query pulldown in the menu bar.
- Narrow: search only card already displayed in the list
(effectively a boolean AND).
- Widen: search all cards in the section, and add them to
the list instead of creating a new list (effectively a
boolean OR).
- Widen in q.: like Widen, but considers only cards selected
by a previous query in the Query pulldown in the menu bar.
- Requery: Repeat the previous query in the Query pulldown
in the menu bar. This is a quick way of returning to a full list
after a search.
- New: create a new card.
Card view
When a card is tapped in the listing in the main menu, KGrok switches
to the card view and displays the card. The layout depends on the current
application. The only fixed part of the card menu is the button row at the
bottom. KGrok's fixed button row, like all KGrok's buttons, uses a curved
blue style to distinguish them from application buttons.
- Arrows: move one card backward or forward in the list. The
PDA hardware up/down buttons are equivalent.
- Find: like the Find button in the main menu, skip to the next
card in the list that matches the search string. At the end of the
list, wrap back to the beginning.
- New: like the New button in the main menu, create a new blank
card.
- Section chooser: shows the section the card is in. Press
to move the card to another existing section. (Use the Section
menu bar button to create new sections.)
- Done: switch back to the main menu.
Note that KGrok will save all data in memory back to files whenever a
card was modified, and then either replaced with another in the card menu
or Done was tapped.
Web resources
KGrok was written by Thomas Driemeyer, thomas@bitrot.de. The
homepage of KGrok and the desktop GUI builder (grok) lives on www.bitrot.de. KGrok is freeware,
the source code is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).