Something that confused me early on was the relationship between the Forms Designer and HanDBase itself. Once forms are created in the designer, they are included in the HanDBase file. When you create the form, you have the option to have it used when a new record is added and/or when one is edited. Once you choose that option, your form appears seamlessly instead of the bare-bones standard form.

Figure B shows three handheld screen shots. The first shows a layout in progress in Forms Designer, the second shows the completed form in action, and the third shows the standard form.

FIGURE B


Here we have a layout in progress, the completed form, and the default form if you choose not to create your own Roll over picture for a larger image.

You can also include buttons, like the "Status" button I've put on my first form. Buttons can make your forms much more interactive. They can add records, delete records, or take you to another form, as mine does.

Managing your information
Once your information is all in HanDBase, the fun really begins. The software, handheld or desktop, is outstanding at sorting and filtering your information. You can create as many views as you want, showing different fields each time. I have a view set up to show only the band's executive members, one to show the section leaders, and one to show who hasn't yet paid their fees.

A view "remembers" its filtering information, so I don't have to ask the program to "show only people who haven't paid" each time. I can just choose the "Unpaid" view, and get the list. The program will also do reports for you, showing what percentage of your data meets a certain requirement. You can show these on the screen or export them to memo format.

Creating a database
While I had pre-existing data for my band list, I also wanted to test the program when creating a database from scratch. To this end, I created a database to list the information about the food I can eat on the commercial diet program I'm currently using.

Creating a database is easy. When you start, you enter the name for the database, and then the various fields that you want. Fields can be text, integer, decimal numbers, checkboxes, and a number of other things. This is the most time-consuming part; deciding what fields you need and what kind they should be can take forever. Once you decide, though, HanDBase makes it easy to fill them out. Figure C shows my list of fields.

FIGURE C


Fields can be added and changed easily. Roll over picture for a larger image.

After the fields have been created, you can either create forms to go with your new database, or just use the default form to enter information. This database won't need to be updated much, so I stuck with the default. Figure D shows the data.

FIGURE D


Entering this data took less than five minutes after the database had been created (which took maybe fifteen minutes). Roll over picture for a larger image.

Synchronization
Synchronization is one of the most crucial areas for a database, and I have spent a lot of time testing HandDBase in this area. I had issues with one of my first test databases, but was not able to duplicate them in later tests, so I would chalk those up to my inexperience with the software. I would strongly recommend creating a test database for practice prior to risking significant data.