QuodDB Tutorials

1) How to send information from Microsoft Excel to QuodDB ?

- Create an Excel page with a format suitable to be save as a CSV file, the following table is a good example:

Name	Phone	Email
John	292 383833	john@xpto.net
Andrew	228 398912	andrew@hotmail.com
Cristina	191 289222	cris@zdnet.pt

- In the first line include the column names, then one line for each record.
- In Excel select File / Save As, and in the file type box select CSV.
- Save the file as a CSV.
- Check the next section to learn how to create a QuodDB table based on an external CSV file.

Note : On some versions Excel doesn't use the default comma ( , ) as the CSV separator, if QuodDB reports an error loading the file or joins all the columns you might want to check the separator used with notepad or other text editor. Then select the correct separator in QuodDB before loading the file.

2) How to use an external CSV file in QuodDB ?

- First put the file on the Telephone, you can do this by using Nokia PC suite ( or other connection application ) and copy the file from the PC to the phone memory or the memory card
- Enter QuodDB and create a new table that will be used to contain the file, do this selecting Options / Data Definition + Options / New.
- Select Options / Edit for the new table
- Select Options / External Data / Import CSV structure.
- Locate and select your CSV file on the mobile phone. (*)
- The columns defined in the first line of the CSV file will show up as columns for the table.
- Edit each column properties if necessary, for example one of the fields might be a phone number but be marked as text.
- Select Back to return to the main menu.
- Select Options / Data Edition
- Select Options / External Data / Import CSV file
- Again locate and select your CSV file on the mobile phone.
- The data in the file will show up in the QuodDB table.

To free memory you can now delete the copy of the CSV file on the mobile phone using Nokia PC suite or other utility.

(*) Note : If your file doesn't show up please make sure that you have QuodDB 1.04 or newer, due to a bug in some of our older versions only files marked as Archives would show up in QuodDB.

Pratical example :
- Imagine the file created by Microsoft Excel in the point number 1, that file would be called contacts.csv. Now :
- After connecting the Phone to the PC use nokia PC suite to copy contacts.csv to the memory card.
- In the Phone run QuodDB.
- Selecting Options / Data Definition + Options / New.
- Create a new Contacts table.
- Select Options / Edit for the Contacts table
- Select Options / External Data / Import CSV structure.
- Select Memory Card + Contacts.CSV
- The fields Name, Phone and Email will show up as columns in the table.
- Name and Email should be Ok, but Phone need's to be edited and the type changed to Phone Number ( CSV files and very simple and don't support type information, so QuodDB handles all columns as text ).
- Select Back to return to the main menu.
- Select Options / Data Edition
- Select Options / External Data / Import CSV file
- Again Select Memory Card + Contacts.CSV
- The 3 records in the CSV file will show up.

3) How to send information from QuodDB to other software.

- Just select the table to export as the current table ( using Options / Switch Table )
- Select Options / Data Edition.
- Select Options / External Data / Export CSV file ( in some phones this option might be hidden, you must scroll down in this case ).
- Select Phone Memory or Memory Card
- Choose a name for the file and select Ok.
The data will be converted to a simple text CSV format, you can now pass the file to the PC using Nokia PC suite and open the file with the other application.
If the other software doesn't support the CSV format you might want to use some common software to handle the conversion ( example: Microsoft Excel ).

4) In the Reports Module edit does not edit ?

One of the main issues when designing a mobile application is memory. Usually it's a quite scarce item - even on the most recent models. To make an efficient use of memory in the Reports module QuodDB opens the table in "read only" mode, this way the user can only consult the information - not changing it. 
Selection Options / Edit allows the user to see in more detail one of the records - but not changing it.

5) By mistake I've imported a CSV file twice

It is possible that if your table doesn't have unique keys, if you imported the same external CSV file twice you will get duplicated records.
To avoid this, before exiting the Data Edition module select Options / External Data / Undo last import. 

6) Sort doesn't seem to work

Only columns marked as KEY can be sorted.

7) How to define Column types from the CSV file ?

In the first line of the CSV file you can define the column type , following the name of the column you can specify the TYPE between [], check the example :

EXAMPLE.CSV

Number[TYPE=I],Name, Phone[TYPE=P]
1,John,872028222
2,Carla,3939312233

Valid types are :
T-Text, assumed by default
I-Integer
P-Phone number
D-Date
M-Time
F-Float

Only after version 1.07.