Looking for a good general-purpose database

[davidbrit2]

Greetings all,

I've been hunting high and low for a decent general-purpose database app (something along the lines of a very slimmed-down MS Access). I see a number of promising options hiding in the App Store, but it's difficult to tell if any would meet all of my specific needs, or if there are any that I'm overlooking entirely. I played around with TapForms Lite, and it didn't seem to hit all the marks, though it seemed quite nice in its own rite.

Here's essentially what I need:

• General-purpose database, allowing creation of different tables/forms with various types of fields. Text, numeric, date, time, drop-downs, check boxes, radio buttons, etc.
• It doesn't need to be a relational database - a single table/form per database file would be acceptable. But if it is relational, that's cool too.
• Ability to create and save views, i.e. very specific subsets of the data with different filtering, sorting, layout, etc. I would need to be able to fetch, for example, all records where a specific date field is empty or greater than the current date, or records that have any one of a certain set of values in a particular field, and also specify the sorting of the results. A database with a single search function that searches every field at once isn't specific enough. I need something more on par with the filtering that can be done with an SQL query.
• Some kind of export functionality to create standard files (CSV, Excel, sqlite, whatever). Importing would be nice too.
• AirPrint support would be highly desirable.
• I'd like some kind of convenient syncing, whether it be via iCloud, or a direct sync over a wireless LAN. I mostly use Windows, but I don't particularly need to access the databases outside of iOS on any regular basis.

In other words, I want the Database app that's built into the HP 200LX, but for the iPad and iPhone! I've been limping along with Numbers, but it's a rather crude "database", even if it does provide the syncing and printing that I like. I can at least put multiple tabs in a file to categorize records, but there's no filtering whatsoever, and it's rather sluggish and clumsy to deal with a schema that has a lot of columns. Multi-column sorting is also rather painful.

So, what would be worth taking a look at?

 

[Layth]

Have you taken a look at HanDBase to see if it meets your needs?

 

[davidbrit2]

Yeah, I've spent some time looking it over. The heavy use of skeuomorphs and real-world metaphors turned me off a bit.

Anyway, I finally found something that's just about perfect: MyStuff2. It's marketed more as a home inventory kind of program, but it's extremely capable, and makes a good general-purpose database as well.

It does nearly everything on my list, except for custom data-entry forms (no big deal). It doesn't quite do real syncing yet, but there are a number of options to backup/restore/import/export data. I can at least make a backup to iCloud on one device, then restore it on another to get them in sync. This is pretty much what would happen with my Numbers "databases", but automatically. The website claims that real syncing is planned, so that would be cool.

 

[tfn22]

Yeah, I've spent some time looking it over. The heavy use of skeuomorphs and real-world metaphors turned me off a bit.

Anyway, I finally found something that's just about perfect: MyStuff2. It's marketed more as a home inventory kind of program, but it's extremely capable, and makes a good general-purpose database as well.

It does nearly everything on my list, except for custom data-entry forms (no big deal). It doesn't quite do real syncing yet, but there are a number of options to backup/restore/import/export data. I can at least make a backup to iCloud on one device, then restore it on another to get them in sync. This is pretty much what would happen with my Numbers "databases", but automatically. The website claims that real syncing is planned, so that would be cool.

Have you found a way to add icons for add'l categories when using MyStuff2 ? I just started using it, but know I want add' grouping, and I want an icon/ thumbnail for each extra category.

 

[AQ_OC]

What about Bento for iPad?

 

[tfn22]

What about Bento for iPad?

I will check it out. Thanks