
Kexi Project – an open-source visual database applications creator - networked
http://www.kexi-project.org/
======
foolinaround
The following sections on the website would be useful

* roadmap : planned features with rough timeline, and an option for the public to be able to request/prioritize/vote.

* comparison : a list of features of MS Access that Kexi can do, and more importantly, what Kexi can't do yet. Its completely ok to state that something is in the roadmap, or even that it currently is not in the works.

This is very important to potential MS Access users or those who understand
that world, who might consider migrating.

~~~
Narishma
I don't know if there is a roadmap but you can request and vote on features in
their bugzilla:
[https://community.kde.org/Calligra/File_a_bug_or_wish](https://community.kde.org/Calligra/File_a_bug_or_wish)

For the other thing, I don't know if it's up to date but there's this page:
[http://www.kexi-
project.org/wiki/wikiview/index.php@KexiComp...](http://www.kexi-
project.org/wiki/wikiview/index.php@KexiComparisons.html)

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mgkimsal
wow... didn't know this was still going. I remember reading about this
(probably from slashdot) in 2004/2005...

last couple projects of mine have been rebuilding access and filemaker stuff
for the web. filemaker, as nice as it is in some respects, introduces
relatively high licensing costs (at least relative to my client's test
pricing). i guess had he used kexi it wouldn't have been a problem... :)

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jstaniek
Hi, Jaroslaw Staniek, Kexi maintainer here. Nice to meet you and I find the
comments interesting. Feel free to ask me anything about Kexi :)

I'll try to answer some questions.

PS: came here alerted by this post :)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/3p8e9z](https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/3p8e9z)

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jtwaleson
I don't -want- to be negative, but how relevant is this (* nix only, runs on
single machine) in a world ruled by browsers?

My gut feeling says the Access world is dying rapidly, and if that is true, a
* nix version playing catch-up does not have a bright future.

~~~
fsavard2
Actually, genuinely curious here, does anyone know of a solid (popular)
equivalent of MS Access, but web-based? The feature I'd put emphasis on is
rapid point-and-click form creation, not the database and tables part (for
that of course there are plenty).

I've developped a few web applications and forms along the years, but never
could I get something together as quick as I did when I decided to try MS
Access, for a prototype app. E.g. I've used Django, yes I can create forms
pretty quick, but with Access with _no programming_ and 2-3 hours of
familiarization I could put up forms with create/edit/delete functionality in
something like 30 minutes, along with the underlying schema.

I haven't touched it since I created that prototype, but I was left wondering
what's the equivalent in the webapp world, for the basic CRUD use-case.

~~~
cdcarter
For some reason, people don't think of it in this context a lot, but this is
EXACTLY what Salesforce.com does. In addition to the usual "Sales Cloud"
licenses, there is a much cheaper "Force.com Platform" license that doesn't
have any of the core sales features but gives you the database to play with.

100% point-and-click creation of new objects, relationships, forms, etc...
Easy baked in reporting, import, and export. Workflow automation totally
configurable without code. Thousands of apps on the AppExchange to add
interesting features. And of course, when you need to add code, it's very easy
to get started if you know OOP.

If you frequently have to create quick web-based systems that would have been
MS Access, go check out
[https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead](https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead),
grab a free SFDC org, and build something cool.

~~~
hackbinary
My employer was looking for a business process integration platform. We looked
at Salesforce, MS Dyanics, Oracle. We decided to go with Django + Posgres.
We're in the process of converting 100's Access apps and management
spreadsheets at a fraction of the cost £170 per user per month. We where
looking at over £200K PA before we started talking about systems integration.
Similar costs from other suppliers. The management just wasn't interested in
spending that kind of cash before we had anything to show for it.

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enjoy-your-stay
Another app (just for Linux) for throwing a few controls on a Form and making
a database front end is this :

[http://data-forms-action.com](http://data-forms-action.com)

Doesn't support database creation, just Form building.

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kmcb
It would be nice, if there was a platform like Kexi that allowed you to make
not just desktop apps, but mobile apps that allowed large (>1GB) local storage
of data on a phone or tablet.

Filemaker has this for iOS, but not android.

It may exist, but I haven't see it.

~~~
jstaniek
Right, in 2006 this was a target for quite an investment thanks to Google's
SoC funds. We had a lighttpd server bundled with Kexi and it was all the way
to expose Kexi projects to the web environment with a 'single click deploy' to
server. Unmaintained since then, but we know how to do that properly and for
the modern web.

In some way it's even better the 2006's solution isn't in use, we can start
fresh. For this volunteers are needed: web developers/users/designer, not
necessarily C++ hackers.

Some jquery/bootstrap components can make the data grids and forms work well.

~~~
kmcb
One challenge would be maintaining the native mobile platforms. Because of
local storage limits on HTML5, I think you need to use more then the stock
browsers on get it done.

~~~
jstaniek
Yes I believe so. how do you feel about SQLite for local storage?

Kexi picked SQLite as the default backend in 2004, and it was a good bet. For
native mobile there's Qt Quick for the GUI with which large part of Kexi is
compatible. A database creation/handling layer has been extracted years ago
and now it matures under name KDb:
[https://community.kde.org/KDb](https://community.kde.org/KDb)

~~~
kmcb
I think SQLite would work well for most local storage application. It also
helps that it is well known, well documented, and supported.

