this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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About once a year, I unsuccessfully quest for a FOSS replacement for Filemaker Pro. Specifically, I'm on the hunt for a solution that:

  1. Lets me create a variety of graphical 'layouts' of fields positioned on a page to display different segments of the data.
  2. Can search the data from those same layouts, by entering text into various fields (eg, 'Sanderson' in author, '< 1/1/2015' in date.

This is largely for personal sized datasets: I only need to handle small (several thousand entries, all just text based) data collections. Basically, small enough that it could in principle be handled using a Libreoffice Calc spreadsheet and applying filters - I'd just like something more friendly.

Several users will use my databases (locally, no need for online hosting). It will be rare that multiple users try to access it simultaneously, so its ok if only one person can open at a time. Macros and relational field structures would be a bonus but not necessary.

I've tried a bunch of solutions. The closest are:

  1. Libreoffice Base. Layouts can't be used to both enter and search data. Creating new search queries is overly arduous.
  2. Kexi. Similar to Base.
  3. Symphytum. Great, except the search is much too limited (no field specific search)

Any other suggestions?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In beta but you mean sonething like this?

Nextcloud Tables (Companion app for Nextcloud Tables) https://f-droid.org/packages/it.niedermann.nextcloud.tables/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks - but having to host NextCloud is a dealbreaker for me. It seems very exciting and perhaps I'll learn how to do this at some point, but I'd really love a simple standalone program.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Have you considered using a nextcloud provider instead of hosting your own? Thats what i do, i use murena.io

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I used to have a similar app that used local sqlite database if i remember right, cant remember what it was though, i have a feeling it might have been a desktop program

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago