GDIdb Professional

Well, here we all are busting our cans to get that database complete for the client. We're working to put it all together and then the client decides he/she wants it more "user friendly" and more "accessible" and not only that, he/she even wants it put up on their website.

Now, there are some of us who can do that without blinking an eye, and there are some of us who have to turn to the client (and a mountainous stack of manuals) and say "huh?". Creating a database alone can be a daunting task for the inexperienced and the experienced alike without learning how to make it work on the web. Putting a database on the web is a whole different story. There are a lot of things to consider when deciding to put a database on the web whether it's just for the database or it's to run the whole web site. The first and foremost consideration is the server you have your web site on. A database is a server hog. It uses a lot of server resources and if you have a lot of people accessing it at the same time, the server can slow to a crawl processing all the requests. Or, maybe your server isn't configured to run a database or they just plain don't allow it. The second thing to consider is the task of updating the database.

Enter GDIdb Professional. Actually GDIdb Professional should have been chosen as the preferred method of publishing your database to the web in the first place. "What is GDIdb Professional you ask?". Well, it's about the best thing to come along since, well, since just about anything.

GDIdb Professional takes your web site database driven woes, and turns them into the most simple of tasks and here is how it works. First off, you don't have to be a programmer to use it. You don't have to know any scripting languages like Perl, C , etc. to use it. You will need to be able to create a database or a spreadsheet with programs like Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, FoxPro, SQL Server, Oracle, Paradox, or CSV text files. You create your database, a GDIdb script, run the script, preview the output, if the output is acceptable, publish it to your web site.  It's simple and much quicker than the alternate route of learning CGI programming or script writing for ASP or something similar.

Learning to use GDIdb Professional takes just a few minutes for the basics and the help files go through it with you step by step. If you can write HTML, you can use GDIdb Professional easily. Whether you are an experienced scripter or not I think you will find GDIdb Professional a tool that you won't want to live without.

Below is the Script Studio interface. Don't let it scare you away. Most operations are point and click and once you have done a tutorial or two you will not have a problem.  Once you have the database information set in your script you can format with HTML the output so it will match your site perfectly. Or, you can build a whole site with your database and GDIdb Professional. Click here for a look at a GDIdb Professional demo site. This link will open in a new window so you won't lose your place here. This demo was created from a Microsoft Access database. You'll notice that these are not .asp pages and you don't have to learn VBscript and ASP in order for your database to work. GdIdb Professional converts your database to straight HTML pages complete with links. 

There are libraries, (the two left pop ups below), to help you with HTML tags and GDIdb Professional script functions.

Below is a screenshot of the main GDIdb Professional user interface. Once you have your script complete, you click on the run button and you will see a message similar to the one below. You can preview your work in your browser to see how it turned out. You can go back in and make changes, click run again, and then preview it again until you get your pages looking just the way you want them. On the pop up on the left you can see that there are example scripts that you can run and look at to get an idea of just how powerful GDIdb Professional is and to get ideas on how to set up your own scripts.

Now, all the above is pretty awesome stuff, but it doesn't stop there. You're probably wondering about updating the database and where the database needs to "live". The database stays on your hard drive. The exciting thing about this is that you don't have to overload the server or spend lots of time uploading the database every time you make changes to it. You can set GDIdb Professional to update your web site from the database on your hard drive. It will update just the changes made to the database saving lots of time in repetitive work and can be set for unattended publishing.

Some great features of GDIdb Professional (not including what I've already covered) are:

• Data retrieval from you web site into a database on your desk top via form submission

• Your database can be assigned an email address where emails are automatically loaded into a database table

• Submit a database of URL's to search engines

• Submit database data to a web site via CGI

• Status check a database of URL's

• Create a moderated web forum with the articles held in a database on your desktop

• And lots more....

You owe it to yourself and your clients to take a look at GDIdb Professional.  This is terrific software. This is something you will not want to be without.

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GDIdb

Macintosh System Requirements
Windows System Requirements
486 min.
Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0
16MB Free RAM
An ODBC compatible database or spreadsheet (e.g. Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, FoxPro, SQL Server, Oracle, dBase, Paradox, or CSV text file)
Dial Up Networking for auto-publish

Estimated Street Price
$76.00 (US) Non-Commercial(personal, educational, non-profit)
$220.00 (US) Commercial
$558.00 (US) Developer(royalty free GDIdb runtime redistribution)

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved