ODB for iPad

[dralexisgray]

Hi!
I am trying to find a way to access my odb from my ipad. Ideally, the changes I make on the pad are reflected in the db. I am too inept to set up a server but I do use the idisk. Is there a way to do this? I have been at this for about 9 hours now and I think I might tear my hair out.

[rudolfo]

Hi and Welcome to the forum!
The base files with the .odb extension are database frontend files building a bridge to a backend database engine. Unfortunately the default settings are to integrate the database backend into the .odb (frontend) file. This lets Base feel a bit more like MS Access. But in fact it is counter productive, because it hides the crucial concept of OOo Base.
In short find a database backend that is supported by iPad/iPhone and Base and use that. Well, that would mean that you have two frontends: One with Base on the desktop computer and a second one for the iPad. For android based tablets or smartphones the choice is clearly SQLite, because it is the default database on android. I have no clue about the iPhone/iPad, but something filebased will surely do.

Ah yes, all this is because the chances that OOo will be running on another OS, iOs or Android are pretty low. And you'll have to recreate the frontend (forms, etc) for the mobile device, which might involve "real" programming, if not someone else build an app that works as a generic frontend to that database backend.

[dralexisgray]

Thank you for your reply. I had suspected as much. Sadly, so far I have only found very expensive versions and no open source material!
Again, thank you.

[rudolfo]

The situation might be a bit different for Calc or Writer documents. Because essentially these are documents that are following the ODF standard and any decent XML parser can get some basic content out of that files. Surely not the full formatting and layout settings, but at least the raw content. This could be something like a stripped down AbiWord which understand ODF and requires significantly less resources then OpenOffice. So chances are that someone will write an app for the comon mobile devices which is a visualisation layer around and XML parser to at least display .odt or .ods documents on a mobile device. Editing the data and writing the file in the correct format may be also possible, but with the risk that you save something where you don't know how the final graphical layout will look like.

But for embedded database documents we have a different scenario. Maybe you can get hold of the complete table structure or at least the majority of it by extracting it from the XML files. But the table contents, the rows and columns which is your relevant data is stored in a binary format and will not be easy to grab.