PortaBase

(A portable database)

About PortaBase

PortaBase is a small database program for creating, browsing, and editing custom tables of data. Originally developed for the Sharp Zaurus PDAs, it can now also be run as a Linux/UNIX and Windows PC application. Typical uses are media inventories, reference charts, shopping lists, TODO lists, password management, photo albums, etc. Notable features include:

• String, Integer, Decimal, Boolean, Note (multi-line text), Date, Time, Calculation, Sequence, Image, and Enum column types
• Add, edit, and delete rows of data
• Custom data views (subsets of the columns in any order)
• Filter the displayed rows using sets of conditions
• Sort the rows by any combination of columns, each in ascending or descending order
• Page navigation buttons, with custom number of rows per page
• Add, delete, rearrange, and rename columns at any time
• Specify default values for columns
• View summary statistics for columns (total, average, min, max, etc.)
• Import data from CSV, XML, and MobileDB files
• Export data to CSV and XML files
• Command-line format conversions (to and from XML, to and from CSV, from MobileDB)
• Data file encryption
• Unicode support
• Pick any available font to use throughout the application
• User-specified alternating row background colors
• Simple calculator widget for entering numeric data
• Configurable menubar and toolbar

PortaBase is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

News

• 2004-11-30 Status report and call for help
• 2004-03-28 PortaBase 1.9 released. See the History page for a summary of the changes from 1.8, and the Download page to get it.

To Do

The list of not-yet-implemented features now has its own page.

Bug reports, CVS, mailing list, etc.

See the Sourceforge project page.

Ways to Contribute

There are a variety of tasks that people can undertake to improve PortaBase or its usefulness to people, many of which don't require any programming skills. If you'd like to contribute, a list of suggestions is available here.

PortaBase uses the Metakit embedded database library for data storage, sorting, etc. More information on Metakit can be found on its homepage. Other Zaurus applications can use Metakit by requiring that the libmetakit1 ".ipk" file be installed first (available in the downloads for PortaBase versions 1.5 and earlier). See the PortaBase source code package for build instructions and usage examples.