KGrok Database

Menu Card Search Pref Crypto Query

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.

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The menu bar

The menu bar is a row of menu call buttons at the top of the main menu:

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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).

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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.

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.

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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).

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