Hi friends,

for my studies, I would like to create a dictionary database of my own. Until now, I have created specialized tables in Libreoffice Calc for each language I study. Looking up the terms is quite difficult. I thus thought I could transfer them to a database for easier searching and entering of new entries. Do you think Kexi could be used for this? Is it reasonable to choose Kexi?

If yes, how would I go about doing this? Obviously, I need a table with the fields 'term', 'language', 'grammatical information', and 'translation'. So I did set this up and imported the data. But now I am stuck. There are two things I somehow cannot figure out:

First, how do I create a search dialog that allows me to search for parts of 'terms' and have Kexi display a list of results?

Second, how do I create a dialog to enter new data?

Thank you for your help and comments,

mutlu

Hi Mutlu
You can use Kexi to quickly design and use a compact dictionary tool like that.
You can use the Find dialog. I admit it works best with tabular view for now than form view. After needed fixes (for 2.9.7 I hope) both views should work the same in this regard. Consider using current version (2.9.5), request updates from your OS distributor if you cannot find that.

You can design form or enter records in the table view. Both give the same result.

Currently forms cannot be opened as separate dialogs/windows, if this is what you want. All views are embedded in tabs.
This can improve in the future, feel free to request any improvements and report bugs at http://bugs.kde.org.

Parameter query can be used to find a substring in your column and show results. Some screenshots: http://www.kexi-project.org/pics/1.1.1/ ... query.html

Kexi handbook is published at http://userbase.kde.org/Kexi/Handbook.
Priorities for Kexi development can be controlled at https://www.bountysource.com/teams/kexi.

Thanks,
Jarek

Hi Jarek,

Thank you for your help and encouragement. I tried and succeeded. After a few hours of trying, I now have a workable dictionary interface that does most of what I need. I am still using 2.8.1 since my work machine is shared and thus stuck on Ubuntu 14.04. I did not file any bug reports, since the version is so outdated. But I have to say that the tabbed interface is not bad at all. I don't have experience with similar programs, but this seems successful to me.

It would be more comfortable to use (for me), though, if it was possible to use enter on a text field, rather than having to click a button with the mouse and to close a newly opened tab, for example by hitting escape.

There is one thing I am wondering about, though: Is it not possible to access the content of a textbox embedded in a form from a query? If not, is there a way to use variables to hand over data from a form to a query? I tried creating a new table to work with variables, but was unsuccessful, since I could not access data from two different tables from a single query. Any ideas?

Thank you for this wonderful program,

mutlu

* And one more question: Is it possible to define which element of a form has the focus when the form is created and/or activated?

I am glad it somehow works for you, Mutlu.

mutlu wrote:Thank you for your help and encouragement. I tried and succeeded. After a few hours of trying, I now have a workable dictionary interface that does most of what I need. I am still using 2.8.1 since my work machine is shared and thus stuck on Ubuntu 14.04. I did not file any bug reports, since the version is so outdated. But I have to say that the tabbed interface is not bad at all. I don't have experience with similar programs, but this seems successful to me.

Issues with access to a current version is a weak 'deployment' point of the Linux distros. I hope that will be solved by shipping dedicated packages one day.

mutlu wrote:It would be more comfortable to use (for me), though, if it was possible to use enter on a text field, rather than having to click a button with the mouse and to close a newly opened tab, for example by hitting escape.

Both things could be solved if we have a function that lets to assign actions to shortcuts or override existing shortcuts and beaviour. Or having a scripting module handling that. Noted.

mutlu wrote:There is one thing I am wondering about, though: Is it not possible to access the content of a textbox embedded in a form from a query? If not, is there a way to use variables to hand over data from a form to a query? I tried creating a new table to work with variables, but was unsuccessful, since I could not access data from two different tables from a single query. Any ideas?

It's not possible, maybe in the future using scripting (which is at the moment experimental). Maybe a workaround could be at the moment to copy the value and paste it in a question dialog that appears when a parameter query gets exeecuted.

mutlu wrote:And one more question: Is it possible to define which element of a form has the focus when the form is created and/or activated?

It's controlled using so called Tab Order, which unfortunately is kept as a hidden part of the GUI, with auto-tab-order being the only option. The latter order is computed based on position of input widgets: from top-left to bottom right.

Any wishes or bugs are welcome at http://bugs.kde.org, please don't be afraid to report something duplicated or invalid, it always helps anyway.
Thanks for using Kexi!