PortaBase 1.9 (March 2004)
---------------------------
PortaBase (portable database) is a personal database application originally
written for the Linux-based models of Sharp Zaurus PDA (and should work on
any other Linux PDA using the Qtopia environment.)  It can now also be
run as a Linux or Windows desktop application.

The main features PortaBase currently has are:
- One data table per file
- String, Integer, Decimal, Boolean, Note (multi-line text), Date, Time,
  Calculation, Sequence, Image, and Enum column types
- Add, edit, and delete rows of data
- Custom data views (subsets of the columns in any order)
- Filter the displayed rows using sets of conditions
- Sort the rows by any combination of columns, each in ascending or descending
  order
- Page navigation buttons, with a custom number of rows per page
- Add, delete, rearrange, and rename columns at any time
- Specify default values for columns
- View summary statistics for columns (total, average, min, max, etc.)
- Import data from CSV, XML, and MobileDB files
- Export data to CSV and XML files
- Command-line format conversions (to and from XML, to and from CSV,
  from MobileDB)
- Data file encryption
- Unicode support
- Pick any available font to use throughout the application
- User-specified alternating row background colors
- Simple calculator widget for entering numeric data
- Customizable menu and toolbar configuration

See the help file (help/html/portabase.html) for more information on features
and usage.  This help file is also the online help for the application,
available by clicking the "?" button at the top right of any screen in
PortaBase for the Zaurus, or Help->Help Contents in desktop PortaBase.

Zaurus Upgrades
---------------
To upgrade from a previous version of PortaBase, do the following:

1) uninstall libmetakit1 (if upgrading from 1.5 or earlier) and portabase
   (your data files will be left alone)
2) install the new portabase .ipk file
3) delete the .ipk file (you don't have to, but it frees up space)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Metakit is no longer installed as a separate library.
PortaBase now also uses the BeeCrypt and libjpeg libraries, and installing
each library separately makes things more complicated than most people
would prefer.  All these libraries are now compiled into the PortaBase
executable.

Windows Installation and Upgrades
---------------------------------
Run the downloaded executable; it will launch the installation program,
just follow the directions.

Technical Info and Acknowledgements
-----------------------------------
PortaBase is written in C++, using the Qt and Qtopia libraries for GUI widgets,
data structures, and communication with the PDA environment.  It also uses:
- the Metakit (http://www.equi4.com/metakit) embedded database library for data
storage and manipulation
- an enhanced version of the QtaDatePicker widget developed by John McDonald,
available from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zaurus/
- MobileDB import code based on code from ZReader
(http://www.codecubed.com/zreader/index.html)
- CSV import code based on code from KSpread (http://www.koffice.org/kspread/)
- the BeeCrypt library (http://www.virtualunlimited.com/products/beecrypt/)
for encryption algorithms and good random number generation
- the color picker dialog from HTML@Zaurus
(http://www.codefactor.de/htmlAtZaurus.html), itself based on Qt's QColorDialog
- a modified version of the calculator widget from KMyMoney2
(http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/)
- libjpeg (http://www.ijg.org) for efficient loading and manipulation of JPEG
image files

License
-------
PortaBase is is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

Web site
--------
http://portabase.sourceforge.net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Jeremy Bowman <jmbowman@alum.mit.edu>
