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This article is intended to answer typical questions you may have when you consider Inmagic's new flagship product, DB/TextWorks. I will tell you up front that I like it a lot and plan to use it in my daily work. It has some areas that need improvement, but overall I am very impressed. Here is what I will cover:
Why should you consider switching to DB/TextWorks?
How is DB/TextWorks different from Inmagic's DOS products?
How is DB/TextWorks the same as Inmagic's DOS products?
Opening the box... What do you find when you open this box?
An installation "walk-through"
A review of DB/TextWorks featuresthe good, the bad, and the "coming real soon now"
Some live testing, with a description of how I plan to use DB/TextWorks in my "day job"
First, however, some definitions are necessary. Inmagic, Inc. refers to DB/TextWorks as a "textbase" product, differentiating it from other categories of information retrieval systems. It has a field-based report writer and "relational-like" database linking, as do most SQL, xBASE, or other traditional databases. It has instant text retrieval and requires no programming expertise to design databases and use them, as do most "text retrieval" programs. In addition, DB/TextWorks adds integrated imaging, variablelength fields, and repeating entries in single fields (as in multiple authors of a report-Inmagic calls this "3D" fields). We have seen some of this in the past from Inmagic, but this is a new product, fully Windows-enabled and building on the strengths of Inmagic's past products.
WHY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER SWITCHING TO DB/TEXTWORKS?
If you already use any form of Inmagic product, this version provides major improvements in a variety of areas. In addition, conversion utilities will move your data from your old DOS version to this new Windows version-including all of your reports. If you're not an Inmagic product user, you should consider DB/ TextWorks seriously. This program manages to combine the strengths of both text retrieval systems and fielded databases, while avoiding most of their weaknesses. In either case, you are getting a program that places a small footprint on your computer (about 5MB for the software and messages files) in exchange for placing major productivity enhancements into your hands.
HOW IS DB/TEXTWORKS DIFFERENT FROM INMAGIC'S DOS PRODUCTS?
DB/TextWorks has much in...