GS-Base

All About GS-Base, A Cool Database

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Need a database that’s easy to use without a steep learning curve? Want something to organize photos, music files, CDs, or icon collections that’s not rocket science? For everyone in this category, there’s today’s discount software promotion, GS-Base!

GS-Base is a database that lets you organize photos, music, icons, and contacts, with the ability to analyze very large data sets. With GS-Base, you’ll be able to use pivot tables containing up to 256 million records and over 2000 columns, identifying duplicates, performing full text searches, and getting statistical breakdowns in a single click.

Beyond its data analysis capabilities, GS-Base also helps you with your print workflows, with the ability to print forms, letters, reports, or generate personalized email messages and attachments from the database. You can even take advantage of the 300 integrated calculation functions in GS-Base to create calculated field and validate data!

Please note folks: GS-Base can be installed on any portable device and used without performing any registry modifications. Also, the setup file is only 2.5MB and no other libraries or run-times are required.

Expand All Email Updates Load 43 Older Comments

Petr Hello to GS-Base and GS-Calc Support/Developers:

I purchased GS-Calc recently and find it a fast, light-weight spreadsheet editor. I am am now interested in GS-Base when it becomes available on BitsDuJour. But, I have a bug to report and this really needs to be fixed before I can use either of your software titles. This bug is with the Export to TXT or CSV files with GS-Calc. When I export I specify TAB delimiter and no text qualifier (I delete the " or ' character). I only want a TAB character between fields for several of my other importing needs. GS-Calc does insert the tab but also inserts {NULL} characters which crashes the import of the resulting file.

Please fix GS-Calc (and GS-Base if it has the same problem) such that exporting to CSV or TXT files has the ability to use no-text-qualifiers, only TAB field delimiters. Thank you.

On the import side, I would like to import a CSV or TXT file specifying the delimiter character and globally setting all imported fields to be TEXT type (without automatically converting numbers to a number type, or date text to a date type. I just want to import and export TEXT with my specified delimiter.

A second request is to add the feature of selectively selecting multiple rows using Ctrl-key for non-adjacent selections AND Shift-key for selecting multiple adjacent rows. If I want to apply the same text formatting, for example, to multiple rows, or copying multiple rows, I need the ability to select several at once. Thank you.

Jul 24 2016 at 12:24pm Copy Link

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Citadel5 @Petr

Thank you for your previous purchases and your comments. Specifying a quoting symbol is a must because otherwise your exported text file will (potentially) not be loaded correctly by any other programs if the cells/fields contain newline/linefeed characters or the TAB itself.

Please note that this option is completely transparent to you if your data doesn't contain any TA/LF/CR characters. (The quoting symbol is simply not used in such a case.)

I assume that crashing you mentioned (when importing such exported files) concerned some other programs you have? GS-Calc/GS-Base should use correctly any quoting symbol you specify, including an "empty" symbol.

Citadel5 - Jul 24 2016 at 1:20pm Copy Link

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Petr @Citadel5
When I export using MS-Access, I have the option to specify a field delimiter where I choose the {TAB} character. Then I can also choose a text-qualifier with the drop-list option given are (1) quote, (2) double-quote, or (3) {none}. This gives me the desired result.

Same with OpenOffice, I can use a {TAB} field delimiter and delete the text-qualifier. This gives me the desired result.

With GS-Calc, I can specify the {TAB} field delimiter but when I delete the text-qualifier (because I don't want a text-qualifier for text fields), I get the {NULL} characters displaying when I open the exported file in Notepad++ with the option to display-all-symbols. This exported file from GS-Calc crashes several of my programs used to import the file exported from GS-Calc.

Using Notepad++ to view the exported files exported from MS-Access or Open Office just show the {TAB} and {CR|LF} correctly (no {NULL} symbols. I can provide screen shot images upon your request.

I would be happy to test a version of GS-Calc when you provide a fix. At this point GS-Calc, which I purchased, and GS-Base which I want to purchase, are useless for me if I can't export in the same way as with MS-Access and Open Office.

I do not have a Tab character in my text fields. If I do expect a Tab, then I will use a different delimiter character. My import programs in my other apps also import any text-qualifiers, this is why I need an option in GS-Calc (like with Ms-Access and Open Office) to have no text-qualifiers. Thanks.

I want to recommend your GS-Calc to my clients, as it is much easier to use than Open Office and less costly than MS-Access. Please provide the fix to select {none} for text-qualifier while exporting with a {TAB} or other specified character for the delimiter. Thanks.

Jul 24 2016 at 1:51pm Copy Link

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Citadel5 Initially, after reading your comment, I thought about adding quoting symbol validation in the "Save Text File" dialog box, but - sure - to follow users' habits the "none" option can be allowed as well.
However, let me write it again, this is a one-way export as you will lose information about cells/fields positions and contents if you set the quoting symbol to "none" (and displaying some warning might be necessary).

That change should be included in the next update. Please note that you
don't have to wait for it. If you specify e.g. ^ as a quoting symbol (or anything
else not occurring your data), the result will be the same as "none" if you
don't have TAB/LF /CR.

Citadel5 - Jul 24 2016 at 3:15pm Copy Link

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Petr Maybe we should have this interaction via private email so I can attached a screen shot of the bug. Where can I email you?

Using GS-Calc, let me describe the step-by-step actions to recreate the bug:
(a) With a spreadsheet open, goto File | Save-as
(b) Select Save-as-type: (txt, csv, tsv) and enter a file name to save as.
(c) click the [Save] button. Click [Yes] on the warning about formatting dialog
(c) The Save-Text-File dialog displays. Select {tab] as CellSeparator
(d) On the Save-Text-File dialog, next the Quoting-symbol: droplist only has " {double quote} or ' {single quote} characters. But, I can save with a blank (no selection for Quoting-symbol) which exports the text file with NUL symbols displayed before and after each field (cell) when viewed with a text editor such as Notepad++ using View All Symbols. This is a BUG.

The solution is to fix the export such that no extra characters are used for the Quoting-symbol when I leave the drop-list blank. Or add a new option to the droplist called {none}. Ms-Access calls this a Text-qualifier and do have the option for {none}. OpenOffice lets me delete the Quoting-symbol. Both Ms-Access and OpenOffice export correctly. At this time, GS-Calc exports with the NUL symbol displaying in the output file. I'm happy to work with you in a private email to send you screen shot images and test a fix in GS-Calc.

If the export with no Quoting-symbol works correctly with your GS-Base, I want to also purchase GS-Base when GS-Calc is fixed. You have great software except for this minor bug. Thanks.

Jul 24 2016 at 4:49pm Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ Petr
Quoting symbols are used to enclose strings containing separators, LF/CR and quoting symbols themselves.
Since you're specifying (and you should not) an empty string as the quotation symbol, it's compared against the terminating NULL in every text string and every text string in your exported text file becomes: NULL ...string...NULL.

Please:) give it a try and enter anything (not occurring in your data) as the quoting symbol and you'll have your desirable output. It's really as simple as that.:)

Citadel5 - Jul 24 2016 at 5:30pm Copy Link

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Petr @Citadel5
I followed your directions, specifying a Quoting-symbol as the pipe character: |
And did get your predicted result. The pipe character does not show up anywhere.

But, I find this not very intuitive. As stated before, MS-Access has an option to select {none} for the Quoting-symbol. With OpenOffice, I can delete the Quoting-symbol to get the same result. I prefer how MS-Access does this because it is simple to select.

I understand the possibility that I have a text character that might be the same as my field (cell) delimiter. In your next version, you could display a warning, as you described earlier.

For the next version, will you add the {none} option for the Quoting-symbol in the drop-list options for both GS-Calc and GS-Base? This would make the export option more intuitive and the same as MS-Access. If 'yes', how long before the {none} option is added to each of Calc and Base?

I would like to buy GS-Base when it is on sale at BitsDuJour. Thank you for your patience.

Jul 24 2016 at 7:16pm Copy Link

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Bruno User Well, well, well, so much for GS...-CALC. "I would like to buy GS-Base when it is on sale at BitsDuJour.": That was about 3 days ago around here. :-) And which is worse, I'll continue to speak about GS-Calc here...

1)

See the discussion there ("Past Deals"). I did finally not buy, but entered reminders "Buy GS-Calc?"* in my agenda, since I've heard promises "will be done within the next months" many times, but also think that that if the promises are fulfilled (i.e. also, work without fail), paying 20 bucks in some months instead of 10 "today" will be what they call a no-brainer (and my 1-year-free-updates period will start then).

Also, I discovered that GS-Calc allows for 1024 bytes in text fields, whilst MS Excel theoretically allows for up to 32 KB in them (since "2007" version) but that's really not something you should really try to do with it, and some paid add-in that appeared on the market in order to correctly handle large text from within Excel vanished from the market rather fast, after lots of problems with it being reported.

So I think I can live with a 1024 characters limitation per text field in GS-Calc IF it's 1024 (latin) characters (including öäüéàè and such), but the dialoge which appears says "1024 bytes", so this might not be 1024 characters for languages like Chinese (which is not a problem for me, but might be for other users), but before buying, I'll trial 1024 accented characters within a text field, too, since if they counted for several bytes, the "1024 limit" became unpredictable.

* = I hope I'll be able to trial again, since trial is 30 days, and I de-installed after 2 or 3 days; not every program allows for re-trial at all in such a scenario.

2)

I have read the above conversation with the utmost interest, since the problem discussed there concerns me (but I didn't get that far in my GS-Calc trial after deciding to wait some months before trialling again, and thus didn't discover the problem for myself).

Petr (who obviously does not have read the GS-Calc conversation just days before) seems to use the spreadsheet for tasks similar to the ones I do there, more or less "text analysis", but for texts containing numbers so as text editors alone not doing the trick. Let me explain. More-or-less** defunct askSam (search for it here, in the "Search for Software" field, for more information) was the only text processing software of my knowledge that was able to easily process numbers in texts, too, by its means of virtual (and even implicit) "fields" which were in fact processed as "number x near text a", allowing for searches / selections like "if the postal code (the number of employess...) in the record in question is GREATER (or lesser) than y, then it's a hit" - try to do this with text editors, even with KEdit (which allows for forther processing of (JUST!) the lines which are "hits" for a search, as a group):

You can try to do this with regex, but regex was never intended for processing numbers, i.e. for evaluating if a given number is greater or lesser to another, given one, so you CAN in fact do this with regex, but it's an incredible chore.

Hunce the interest in doing some of the work within a spreadsheet, and then it's important for import AND export being smooth (and as said, I had only trialled import), and it goes without saying that if you use a spreadsheet in the aforementioned way, you need cell delimiters (tabs, or the above-mentioned pipe character), but you don't need to enclose cell content (with spaces or not) in (single or double) quotes; of course, your script could easily delete unwanted quotes, but then, before import already (and not only on export, as mentioned by Petr), your script should identify "natural" (double or single) quotes (i.e. those which might be included within the original texts), and defuse them, so as they won't compromise further processing.

** = Well, (among others, perhaps,) some German website continues to offer a German version 6, it seems.

3)

I want my remarks - I only take time to discuss software I'm highly interested in - to be as constructive as possible, also marketing-wise (here: "Very useful for processing texts containing numbers, too, since..."); otherwise, it would be outright paradoxical to mention little flaws just for software I want to promote, when "leaving alone" software I might have a low opinion of. Thus, I'm looking forward to the next months in GS-Calc development! (Hoping that it's 1024 characters for European languages, not 1024 bytes!)

Well, so much upon GS...CALC here. ;-)

Jul 25 2016 at 3:52am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ Petr
Yes, like I wrote above, it'll be changed/corrected in the next update. I think it should be published in 3-4 weeks.

If you don't need quoting symbol you may also consider the fixed-width text export/import. Unlike the "none" symbol that you want to use, it'll preserve the information about the data structure when reading/importing it back.

Citadel5 - Jul 25 2016 at 4:02am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ Bruno User
As always, thanks for comments.

Ad.1)
That's correct - in GS-Calc it's 1024 byte limitation as internally strings are stored in UTF-8.
(In GS-Base it's 8K for the plain text field and theoretically up to 2GB for Files/Memo fields. "Theoretically" because the GS-Base max. 2GB *.zip database file size matters.)
Note that GS-Calc displays a warning when you try to exceed the 1K UTF-8 limit.

Will consider consistently increasing that limit to 8K in GS-Calc as well, though
at the moment the performance has the highest priority (where GS-Calc is used
e.g. to deal with tens millions of cells or more) and it may take more time to optimize.

Yes, you can "re-trial". Neither the trial nor the full version leave any "traces" after de-installation.

Ad. 2)
Yes, both GS-Base and GS-Calc handle text quoting correctly. No unnecessary quoting symbols and the inner ones are doubled.

In GS-Base there are several filter types for numerical data as well and the default one for numeric fields is the "equal" relation. You can also use formulas for filtering/searching.
Filtering added to GS-Calc will be similar.

Ad. 3)
Ok. No reason not to post GS-Calc questions on the BDJ GS-Calc page. They will be answered as well. And - of course - there is the support forum.

Citadel5 - Jul 25 2016 at 4:57am Copy Link

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Tim Parsons Just a small note, as I'm already a happy user: in case the above exchanges didn't give it away already, the developer is a committed and responsive person who fixes bugs very quickly and has added features and facilities to the program that have made it, for me, an absolute must-have for non-SQL database applications.Excellent, fast and -- subject only to available RAM -- capable of handling the biggest .DBF files I've needed to throw at it.

And it runs portably.

I don't think there's anything else out there that even gets close, when you consider the price and the fact that you don't have to learn SQL to use it.

Jul 27 2016 at 10:02am Copy Link

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William W. Geertsema Purchased and installed the program, which showed to be a trial version.
Using my e-mail address and the receipt email Login Password, I had downloaded the program (apparently a trial version) and from the same download page I had obtained the Validation Code.
When running the program, I could find no way to register. I assume that perhaps my e-mail address and the validation code are required for registering, but I could not find a way to do this.
Please let me know how to proceed.

William W. Geertsema
w.w.geertsemaplanet.nl

Jul 27 2016 at 2:58pm Copy Link

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Harold User Also problem registering. Under 'Settings' in program, choice is offered to register or unregister. When I choose 'register' message appears stating do not have permission to update the registry database !??!

Whats happening here?
Thanks for any help.

Jul 27 2016 at 3:27pm Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ William W. Geertsema
If you're correctly downloading the full version(s) file from the download page for registered users after logging on to it, you already have the full version that doesn't require any further registration. In the setup window, you just have to enter that validation code.
If your system run some previously downloaded trial setup file instead of the full version setup, you may try to clear your browser cache and re-download the full version.

@ Harold User
Same as above, you just need to download the full version and enter the validation code in the setup window (offline). No other registration procedure is required.

The "(Un-)Register GS-Base *.gsb File Type" commands are used simply to (optionally) register/unregister the *.gsb file extension and associate it with GS-Base. It's necessary if you want to start GS-Base and open a database via double-clicking (a database file).

Citadel5 - Jul 27 2016 at 4:31pm Copy Link

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Petr @Citadel5, I am buying GS-Base today. I assume it has import/export of text that is the same or similar to GS-Calc. Will you also be adding the {none} option for the Quoting-Symbol droplist options (in addition to the existing single-quote and double-quote)?

In Ms-Access I can define the table such that I set each field as 'text' type. Then when I import CSV or TXT files, it forces everything to be treated as 'text' type fields, even numbers are imported as text (which is my requirement). Please confirm or comment? Thank you.

Also, about licensing. Can one purchase be installed on two of my own personal computers (desktop and laptop)? Thanks.

Jul 27 2016 at 5:12pm Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ Petr
1. Yes, there'll be similar updates for both GS-Calc and GS-Base.
2. Yes, there are the "Convert text to dates" and "Convert text to numbers" check boxes in the "Open Text File" dialog box.
3. Yes, one license entitles you to install it on your desktop and laptop.

Citadel5 - Jul 27 2016 at 5:50pm Copy Link

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PC USER Dear @Citadel5
Can one run scripts using GS-Base? That is add loops, conditionals or even write functions/procedures using the various script functions in GS-Base?

If not, are there any plans to add scripting to GS_Base?

Also, does GS-Calc have scripting?

Thank you

Jul 27 2016 at 6:20pm Copy Link

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Harold User It would have been much easier to install if there were information that the trial version would not upgrade to paid without uninstalling and re-downloading the program.

Jul 27 2016 at 9:56pm Copy Link

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Peter R I already own GS-Base, and the last version available to me is 15.7.1. This offer is for 15.7.2. An error, maybe?

Thank you.

Jul 28 2016 at 12:25am Copy Link

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Bruno User Re GS-CALC (not: GS-BASE) again: Hello,

Thank you for your kind answer. For info: Some googling told me that in regular cases, in UTF-8, basic ASCII characters (like a...z, A...Z) take 1 byte, accented characters (é,ä...) take 2, Chinese characters take 3 to 4; problems might arise in special cases where the original text is not UTF-encoded, then UTF-8 may take up to 6 bytes for special characters.

Thus, for English texts, a reasonable estimation would be near to 1024 characters per cell, for Continental European texts around 850 per cell, for Asian texts the traditional 256 characters; for most real life uses in Europe even for "text-with-numbers crunching", that would be sufficient, and I also understand your speed argument.

What the GS offerings both would need - and other questions in both threads show this, too, I think, is a comparison table, like the ones we know for standard / "prof." software offerings, NOT in the line of "functionality x: Calc: elaborate, Base: basic" or for functionality y vice-versa, but giving the number of the respective functions in every respective area, with some comments for important aspects/functionality, i.e. rather detailed (and even, for lesser functionality, with "(to be amended)", in case. Since I seriously suppose that more than one prospect will loop at both descriptions and then not decide themselves, for lack of quickly-available differentiation (i.e. without trialling both), and go back to MS Excel (well, there are not many of other spreadsheets left (even lesser if you discard the ones that come within a big package only), even the wikipedia comparison table mentions defunct ones within the non-defunct group). That had been my reaction at least, some time ago. ;-)

Jul 28 2016 at 2:50am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ PC USER
GS-Base currently doesn't use any internal scripting. However, if you mean some additional data processing only, it can be done with any external programming as the database file is a zip file with a simple structure containing tables as text files, memo data as rtf or txt files and other objects as streams with their original data.

There are no plans re: scripting in GS-Base, but if you have any specific applications potentially requiring scripting, please send them to the support address or forum.

Yes, GS-Calc supports JScript and VBscript scripts. (See the sample GS-Calc screens.)

Citadel5 - Jul 28 2016 at 3:02am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @Harold User
You can install the full version "over" the trial and vice-versa. No uninstalling is necessary. Both file names are the same so perhaps there were some problems with the browser cache or some download manager.

Citadel5 - Jul 28 2016 at 3:06am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @Peter R
The current version number is 15.7.2. There was a minor, cosmetic change after 15.7.1 and it was initially available as the full versions only.
If you already own 15.7.1, you can simply log on to the download page to update.

Citadel5 - Jul 28 2016 at 3:10am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @ Bruno User
Yes, your estimations re: UTF-8 in GS-Calc should be correct.

The current descriptions and screens generally should already focus on what seems to be the most important/helpful features of both programs. There are some plans for (adding) some more detailed information with benchmarks.

If you meant comparing GS-Base with GS-Base: despite some similarities (concerning interface elements and calculation fields vs formula cells), GS-Base and GS-Calc offer significantly different functionality. Comparing a database with a spreadsheet might be more useful for some specific application and data only.

Citadel5 - Jul 28 2016 at 4:12am Copy Link

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Steven Avery Nice Program. Good review on Donationcoder. I've used ListPro some for these simple quick flat-file database, but I can see that GS-Base is more robust, e.g. in printing and other areas like the pivot table and maybe some table relations.

While still seeking to maintain that ability to design quick and read quickly, without falling into the vortex of a full-blown heavyweight, which is often overkill.

Ready to roll.

Steven

Jul 28 2016 at 11:11pm Copy Link

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Christopher User I was lucky enough to stumble across the GS class of software (Base and Calc) while looking for a software to handle large amounts of tabular data; data in excess of the 1 million row limit in Excel. I quickly tested GS-Base and found it to be very fitting for my needs. There was one limitation that prevented me from moving forward with my implementation in which I reached out to support for. Support was/is top notch! They replied timely, discussed the options and in less than a week had a feature implemented to meet my needs in the software. Since that first interaction their support has continually worked with me to ensure the product(s) are meeting the requirements I have; even to the extent of adding additional features. The software is simple, FAST and lightweight. I have imported 4GB+ CSV files without issue in a matter of minutes all while maintaining a file footprint a fraction of the size of Excel (without the Excel limitations!). I highly recommend both GS-Base and GS-Calc as well as the entire Citadel team; they are top notch!

May 9 at 10:00am Copy Link

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Citadel5 @Christopher: Thanks a lot for your kind comments.

Citadel5 - May 10 at 12:16pm Copy Link

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