Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 105004
Make OOo Base UI and navigation looks similar to calcu.
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:38:54 UTC
This a more of an Excel problem than a OOo-Base issue. But I would like to see this feature first come OOo than a MS-Product. At work I do a lot of data processing. User generally sent me data in an MS-Excel or CSV format. They have MS-Access on their PC, but still they use MS-Excel format. As Excel never insist to define or use consistent data type on a column, there are a lot of crap data, which causes lot of problems while processing data. I wish Office App vendors make layout and navigation of their database module much similar to a spreadsheet layout. My Suggestion:- When user start database module we may present a in memory database with few tables having blank record as mentioned in Issue 104873 (see attachment below) Then the opening screen can have an Accordion/Tree control showing like * Tables - Table1 - Table2 - Table3 * Queries - Query1 - Query2 * Forms - Form1 - Form2 - Form3 * Reports - Report1 User can double click any object (Table1, Table2 ... or Query) it will open as a tab on right side. There should also be a "new Object" button if user want to create a new database object. New table object always comes with 10 case-insensitive text fields with 10 to 20 blank rows. Later user should have an option to rename the table by right clicking on tab and choosing rename in context menu. Table structure can be modified by selecting "Design" from the context menu. For fields, user should have an option to rename it by right clicking the fields column header and choosing rename in context menu. Other field properties can be modified by selecting "Design" from the context menu. This "Design" screen is same as Table "Design" screen with the chosen field as currently selected field. Also both "Design" screens should NOT be popups. Instead it will be shown in the same Tab of corresponding table/view/form/report. There should be also a button on design screen to switch back to data view. This functionality (switch back to data view) is same as current OOo Base Query view. Once user finished working with a table, query, form or report there showed be an "x" button to close the opened tab.
Created attachment 64708 [details] base.png
Created attachment 64744 [details] base.png with expected contextmenu