Proposed: Ghijk

["J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick amphigory tez net>]

This message is to propose the development of a Gnome-ish piece of
database frontend software: Ghijk.  Please note that the name is not set
in stone -- I lack the basic cleverness to come up with yet another app
name starting with "G" and am open to suggestions :).  

Ghijk is intended to implement an Access-like database frontend for the
Gnome system.  Basically, this application will consist of three major
components:
	1) Display Component: The display component will provide
	   facilities to display data in an "end-user" fashion.  
	   A report generater will also be included in the component.
	2) The Data Abstraction Layer: The data abstraction layer will
	   encapsulate ODBC drivers in a convenient object form.  It might 
	   be worthwhile to take a look at the MFC ODBC widgets
	   for ideas here.  Initially, this will simply be a set of object
	   files in the executable -- however, eventually it should be
	   possible to provide these services via CORBA.  This can provide
	   for the Database access needs of other GNOME applications.
	   Note: I'd say do this from the start, but I'm not sure that
	   the GNOME Object model is defined enough yet to know what
	   to implement.
	3) A file-based ODBC driver:  After components one and two are
	   completed, it will be necessary to develop a simple, file
	   based database engine for storing simple data.  (A la Microsoft
	   Jet).  Initial development on items 1 and 2 can proceed without
	   this (using ODBC drivers for MySQL or something).  However,
           eventually this will be necessary as most users simply 
	   don't need the power of something like Oracle or even Msql.

I think I've pretty much covered the bases.  Let me note that I don't
think any more detailed discussion of this application is appropriate here
-- however, people interested in working on this with me may send me an
email directly (patrick@amphigory.tez.net).  If there's enough interest, I
will create a mailing list.  I'm certainly interested in the help!

Note that with GnuWord (or is it GWP?), the proposed mods to OLEO, the
presentation manager I've heard talk of a couple of times, and this, we
would basically have an MS-Office equivalent package.  

Patrick

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J. Patrick Narkinsky | God doesn't like intellectual slackers any
                     | better than he likes any other kind of slacker.
                     |                          - C.S. Lewis
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