Kexi , component of KOffice, can be used for creating databse, schemas, inserting data, performing queries and processing data.

Kexi is a Free/Libre and Open-Source integrated data management application, a long awaited Open Source competitor for products like Microsoft Access.

Kexi can be used for creating database schemas, inserting data, performing queries, and processing data.

Forms can be created to provide a custom interface to your data. All database objects - tables, queries and forms - are stored in the relational database, making it easy to share data and design

Kexi is a Free/Libre and Open-Source integrated data management application, a long awaited Open Source competitor for products like Microsoft Access. Kexi can be used for creating database schemas, inserting data, performing queries, and processing data. Forms can be created to provide a custom interface to your data. All database objects - tables, queries and forms - are stored in the relational database, making it easy to share data and design.

Kexi is an integrated data management application. It can be used for creating database schemas, inserting data, performing queries, and processing data. Forms can be created to provide a custom interface to your data. All database objects - tables, queries and forms - are stored in the database, making it easy to share data and design.

Kexi is considered as a long awaited Open Source competitor for Microsoft Access, FileMaker and Oracle Forms. Its development is motivated by the lack of Rapid Application Development RAD) tools for database systems that are sufficiently powerful, inexpensive, open standards driven and portable across many operating systems and hardware platforms.

Kexi is Free/Libre/Open-Source Software. As a real member of the KDE and KOffice projects, Kexi integrates fluently into both. It is designed to be fully usable also without KDE on Linux/Unix, Mac OS X (with Fink) and MS Windows platforms.

Kexi is a component of KOffice, with large contributions coming since early 2003 from OpenOffice Polska. It works under Linux/Unix, Mac OS X (using Fink), Solaris, and the Microsoft Windows operating systems. Although Kexi is an open source application, currently OpenOffice Polska is charging for the full featured Windows version, due to the cost of commercial tools (Qt and compiler) needed to port the software to Windows.[1] Thanks to the recent open-sourcing of the Qt library, a free version for Windows (developed by the same team as before) is set to release for KDE 4.

Features

Kexi can connect to different database servers such as MySQL and PostgreSQL.

It can also work without a server, by utilizing the built-in SQLite database engine. Forms can be created to provide a custom interface to data, and are stored within the database. Simple reports can be printed or previewed. Scripting using Python and Ruby is available as well as application macros, similar to those in Microsoft Access (in experimental stage). All database objects - tables, queries, forms, etc. - are stored in a single database file, making it easy to share data and design.

If SQLite is used, the resulting database file can be manipulated using many other SQLite tools, including the Tcl programming language.

Kexi Features

Standard Database Features

* Hiding of the database backend specifics from the user, but allowing advanced users full access at the same time
* Table structure altering
* Table creation
* Database query creation, without the need of knowing SQL (Structured Query Language)
* User-friendly data manipulation (even on complicated queries)

Data Processing and Access

* User-defined forms for data input and presentation
* Data migration from MySQL, PostgreSQL.
* Migration from Microsoft Access databases is available as an additional plugin.
* Scripting support with Python and JavaScript/ECMA-Script language and/or Python
* KWord mailmerge integration (planned)
* Easy data report generation (rewrite planned)

Supported Database Backends

Kexi projects are usually stored in a file. This is convenient for databases that are only used by a single person.

However, for some projects, users may prefer to store their data on a remote database server. This allows several users to use the same database. Currently, changes to the database structure should only be made by one user: concurrent modifications to the database structure are not supported.

Kexi supports the following database systems:

* SQLite (version 2 and 3, file-based)
* PostgreSQL (server-based)
* MySQL (server-based)

It is planned to support also other database systems, especially for FireBird/Interbase and ODBC interface, for better corporate usage in the next versions. Typically, most up to date and best supported backends (from KexiDB point of view) are always: SQLite, PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Screenshots

1.1.3

"Find" window enables easy data search for tables, queries and forms	Images on simple printouts and print preview
Users can create database templates, accessible within the Startup dialog window

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1.1.2

User Mode: available via --final-mode command line option, hides all actions related to design as well as the Property Editor and Navigator panes	Various categories of actions that can be assigned to form buttons
Support for multiple columns joined as the visible value in combo box widgets

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1.1.1

Table view's combo box taking advantage of database relationships	Combo box form widget taking advantage of database relationships
Designing lookup columns (for combo boxes)	Designing a parameter query

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1.1

Table view's date validator (also available in forms)	"NULL" state for Yes/No fields
"Data" tab of the Property Editor's pane providing easy creation of Auto Fields using Drag & Drop	Support for adding custom data-aware widgets as plugins (example: slider widget)
"Compact Database" tool decreasing file size (like a disk defragmentation)	"Object" data type allowing to store images in the database
Inserting an image from file in the form's data view	Displaying image objects stored in the database in the Table View as thumbnails

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1.0

Simple printouts: Page Setup and Print Preview dialogs	An effect of using Simple Printouts feature (see also: High quality PDF document)
Dialog for importing text files in CSV format.	Image Box widget with contents inserted from file
Script Editor	A script written in Python language for exporting table data to XHTML format

Importing Northwind sample Microsoft Access (.mdb) database using Kexi on Linux



Importing above database: details

Screnncasts

1.1.3

Database templates, "Find" window, printing images (5MB)

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1.1

"Compact Database" tool decreasing file size (like a disk defragmentation) (260KB)	Creating Photos database in 10 minutes (14MB)
Altering table schema without removing data (technology preview) (3MB) If you liked this article, subscribe to the feed by clicking the image below to keep informed about new contents of the blog:

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