Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

It`s time to build a small database to keep track of various things that just don`t fit into pre-made templates. Long ago I used to use Q&A, a superb flat-file database, easy to program, and easy to use. It`s gone, not supported, and been replaced by Lantica`s "Sesame."

I tried Sesame, and it sucks. I looked at FileMaker Pro, but that has no programming language, from what I`ve read, for calculating fields on a custom basis? Then I looked at InfoDex, but that blew up when I tried a simple "when`s my next birthday" calculation.

This doesn`t have to be Access, and I don`t want to use Visual Basic progarmming...just a simple way to put basic calculated fields into a form. So for how much tax on an item, total price if quantity is 3, and that kind of thing. Not application development.

I`ve read that Lotus Approach (now v. 9.8.1) is a possible answer. It comes in SmartSuite, which is IBM`s version of Microsoft Works. Does anyone have any experience with this program, or some other suggestions? I`d sure be pleased to hear your comments.

Craig,

PCTA still supports Q&A, as do a handful of private consultants, if you want to continue using it. You should be okay for a while longer. I don`t think Vista will be too happy with it, but if you don`t have plans to upgrade that doesn`t really matter. Here are some websites with Q&A resources:
PCTA - http://www.pcta-usa.com
Q&A Users Group - http://www.qaug.com
John Dow`s Utilities - http://www.johntdow.com

A number of ex-Q&Aers seem to like Alpha Five, if you want to give them a try.

As to Sesame, I`m Lantica`s Technical Coordinator. I`m sorry you found Sesame not to your liking. If you had trouble with anything in particular we are happy to answer questions or help you out in any way we can. We make ourselves available via email, telephone and Forum. If you want to see exactly how Sesame accomplishes the particular tasks you need to do, you can schedule a one-on-one session where you get online with us via Citrix GoToMeeting and ask whatever questions you want. You can see our screens and we can go right to whatever is of interest or concern to you.

Let me know if I can help you out with Sesame or point you at anything specific with regard to keeping Q&A going.

--
Erika Yoxall


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Erika Yoxall Technical Coordinator Lantica Software, LLC

Hi Erika, :-)
I must say I`m somewhat shocked at the wide reach of StartupNation that you`d pick up on this particular post, and then so graciously respond. Thank you very much!

I probably shouldn`t have said Sesame "sucks," but I was frustrated when I finally ran it. I can see it`s not that bad. What bothered me was that I came out of Q&A which was so simple, I guess I expected Sesame to be almost exactly as easy.

I`m aware of many of the Q&A support areas, and even have the "slowdown" patch so the old database can run on fast chips. I`ve thought about just staying with it, as it runs on my current systems. But I have to admit was really excited to watch the Sesame development, and talked myself into the pleasures of having a Windows-based "clone."

I`m going to do some research on Alpha Five, having forgot about that one, and also give Approach a shot. I dunno...I might even go back and re-try Sesame, when I get over my "huff." :-D

Thanks again for your response, and I`d like to emphasize that the fact Lantica is out there, trying to keep a line of continuity going for Q&A users gets "boo-koo" points in my book!

Hi Craig,

The Sesame developers (including me) make it a point  to be as aware as we can of how people (especially Q&Aers) are finding Sesame. If they like us, we`re happy. If they don`t, we want to know why and how we can make it better.

Something to keep in mind as you evaluate your alternatives is that you are going to have give any package you try the benefit of the doubt for awhile. Q&A had (continues to have) a very long life for a software product. Most Q&Aers have been using Q&A for 10-20 years. After such a long time, it just seems right. You forget the difficulties you experienced when you first got it and were trying to remember that "/" means "not". Let alone what "3,AS,CS,H(20:Prod!Date),F(D5)" does in a report.

It also gets into your hands. We find that when we ask Q&Aers how they did something in Q&A, they  leave out most of the keystrokes. They just do it without thinking because they`ve done it so many times.

The industry term for the perception that the software you are used to is right and everything else is wrong is "baby duck syndrome". No software you try is going to be able to match the ease-of-use that comes from 15 years of practice. You`ll have a much better chance of finding a package you`ll be happy with if you approach it as a fun new opportunity as opposed to "replacing Q&A". You will probably never replace Q&A in your affections.

Again, we`re here to help if you want us. Sesame is not a "clone" of Q&A. It is a new program written entirely from scratch. However, it was written by Q&Aers for Q&Aers. Because of that, it shares much of the same terminology, keystrokes, commands and conventions. Once Q&Aers discover that F10 still goes to the next record, F7 still searches, the Retrieve Spec syntax is still the same, the Q&A programming commands still work, you can still make a new field by typing the name on the form followed by a colon, and so on, they seem to like us quite a bit.

--
Erika Yoxall


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Erika Yoxall Technical Coordinator Lantica Software, LLC

Hi Erika, :-)
Having worked with lots of software, and continued in often learning new packages, I`m aware of your point. And yes, the search or report queries do seem obscure, at first glance. But only at first glance.

What bothered me most about the Sesame interace is how confusing it is compared to the Q&A....tiered...format, I guess I`d call it. I remember the first week I set down to really learn Q&A. Two things were fundamental to my pursuing it.

The first is that when I looked at the main screen, "Create" and "Use" were separate. When I chose "Create," I no longer saw anything having to do with "Use." Conversely, when I chose to search, or program, or modify, or whatever, I only saw that single database, and the menus were only related to my task at that moment.

Sesame has all this going on in the left pane, vaguely like the Explorer or Registry "hives," and it made zero sense to me on first glance.

The second is that the F1 context help in Q&A is perhaps the most masterfully written I`ve ever seen, including all software I`ve ever used since. As a technical writer, that instant context help is still my model for perfection.

Sesame is so busy with modules, layers, windows, and so forth, it took me an hour just to understand what the heck I was even looking at! Then, when I tried to build a simple 3-field database, I got completely lost with window popping up as tabs. It took part of that hour just to figure out how to get back to the starting point.

The Help system is bizarre. Maybe it`s that I chose the trial version, but I had to open PDF files, wander through them, and read unhelpful text when all I wanted was the basic syntax for a single field. I`m used to having "fields" in a database, not "elements," but I read the PDF files.

I do understand that given the Windows environment, the choice was for power. As such, I read the Appendix, learning why Sesame uses things that Q&A doesn`t, and how old Q&A ways of doing things were changed. I get the reasoning, but so what? I don`t care.

I thought Sesame would take me a day, in terms of mostly comprehending how to get around a Windowed interface. I see I may as well just start from scratch.

It`s true that the old BASIC way of programming each field was strange, had limitations, and so forth. So? I didn`t care because I wanted a simple, flat-file, standalone database, that wasn`t at all as powerful as Pardox at the time. Again, the context help taught me how to program the fields. It wasn`t until I had a simple, working database that I got excited about going out and reading a book.

I bought one of the original "Q&A Bible" copies, not because I needed it, but because I`d learned how to build something cool just by hitting F1. After that, I wanted to see just how far I could push it. And I pushed it pretty far. :-)

The straw that broke the camel`s back, for me, was that on my 19" LCD, with 1280 resolution, I didn`t see any way to make the database take the whole screen. It was all up there in the left corner.

What I wanted was to click the opening shortcut, have the entire screen show up as "Q&A-ish," like Word, or Excel. I wanted the main menu items of old up in the standard top Windows menus. I thought I could click "Create a new Database," and have a blank form, like WordPerfect. I figured I could hit Help, see immediately how to insert a field, label, and location.

In other words, I expected Q&A, but with the standard Windows interface, standard menus at the top, and nothing like the split pane "Explorer-like" craziness of a modern-day PIM. (Those are useless too, as far as I`m concerned.)

I figured I`d later use a menu item to program each field, and that my main advantage would be when I went to use external databases it`d be simpler. That`s not what I got. To me, even being still in the mood to learn new software, it was just so completely different I was lost. As I said, from what I saw, it would mean essentially learning a whole new database application. In that case, I`d just as soon use something simpler.

:-) All this is my personal opinion, only. I have a service-based business, not a product based business. As such, all my professional life I`ve been annoyed by how most reference manuals begin with building a product-based, inventory style example database. None of that applies, and makes it that much harder for me to even understand the examples.

I get the idea that Sesame was intended to transfer powerful, macro-based Q&A legacy databases into 32-bit Windows. Fine. I never cared to build industrial-strength databases out of a flat-file application, and left that to the relational database developers. But way back originally, Q&A was supposed to be a single-user database that went along with a word processor, spreadsheet, and drawing program.

Q&A um...Write? was supposed to handle mail-merge more directly that WordPerfect or MS Word. Nobody I knew much used the Write module, but it was there. What made it a success was ease-of-use, and the clear mission vision. It was never supposed to compete with Paradox, Oracle, Delphi, or Access. I wonder if Sesame went into that competition and maybe lost sight of us home users who just want to keep track of a birthday list, or customer list.

Craig,

Thank you very much  for letting me know where you had issues. I hope you are able to find a database package that meets your needs.




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Erika Yoxall Technical Coordinator Lantica Software, LLC

Follow up - March 2007
For anyone stumbling across this thread, here`s where I ended up.

I looked online and found a copy of Lotus SmartSuite 9.7 for about $23 (including shipping). The company actually sent me v9.8.1, which was nice. I installed only Lotus Approach, having no need for WordPro, Freelance, or 1-2-3. I also installed Lotus Organizer just because it looked cool.

Approach actually reminds me very strongly of Q&A, excepting that Approach is a true 32-bit Windows application. It`s also a relational database, using "joins" to make simple relations to other databases.

My standard test is to build a birthday calculator. I put in my DOB, and then want to know how old I am, today. I want to know when`s my next birthday--using a field that will demonstrate that it`s calculated the next year from this year (Today). I also want to know how many days is it until my next birthday.

These are simple calculations to work logically, but not easy to put into a spreadsheet or database. ALL the other databases I tried were either too complex to figure out intuitively, or they crashed on my system, or they looked too strange. Approach handles it all easily.

The main downside is that although it`s an exceptional database program, it`s languished. Presumably, the market went with Access because it`s often bundled with MS Office. Sadly, it`s far too complicated for most home users. Approach is definitely geared to those home users.

As such, I can`t find any books at all...even used books. There are books on the entire SmartSuite, but not only on Approach. There are a couple of PDF files on the installation CDROM for Lotus Script, a programming language, but that`s too complex for my needs. I was looking for something like "Mastering Approach" or that kind of thing.

I did find an online user support site that has lots of good stuff. There`s also an out-of-print book by Sue Sloan, last copy sold in 2005. They`re thinking of maybe doing a re-release, but can`t say for sure.

So you`re left to mostly the online help system. That`s fairly good, but not as helpful as Q&A`s system was. Still, I`m learning a great deal about how to do what I want. For the price, I`d highly recommend Approach 9.7 or later. It`s been fixed to work not only on Windows XP but also on Windows Vista.

You`ll probably have to have some background understanding the basics of databases, but overall, Lotus Approach is where Q&A would have gone, had it been properly upgraded to a Windows version from DOS.

I`ve used both Lotus Approach and Alpha Five. Lotus Approach is pretty easy to pickup and start using. I actually built a helpdesk application in less than a week after messing around with Access and getting nowhere.

Check out Alpha Five at alphasoftware.com, thats what I use all the time now. It has an xbasic scripting language, great field rules. I believe you can download a 30 day fully functional copy.

Access can`t hold a candle to Alpha Five.

John

I looked at Alpha Five, but it was too expensive for our current budget. Very nice, strong, and powerful database, and it looked like I could figure it out without a Ph.D. in IT. Price was the deciding factor. Maybe when we get our first or second million we`ll move into Alpha Five though. :-)

Lotus? I had no idea they were even still in business... 

I remember buying Approach on it`s first beta. It was a good product, even then.
I was on the naming team for Lotus Notes. Things were great until, well, 1-2-3 and the rest of their Office products fell completely off the planet. Oh well, those were the good old days. They still have a great building in Cambridge, near the Charles River.