complex many-to-many links was too hard to do with other tools. Salsa seemed like the first product that would let me do it without going back to graduate school.
You start by creating an object by drawing a box in the workspace, naming it, and dragging other objects, data elements, items, or groups into it. Salsa comes with a large number of common, predefined objects; many more are available in a series of specialized starter kits ($49 each, $149 for all 10). You can also roll your own. If you right-click on an object or data item, an extensive property sheet comes up for you to edit. For example, one pair of properties -- so useful that they're always visible as subscripts to the item name in the object box -- is the minimum required (usually 0 or 1) and maximum permitted number of instances (usually 1 or
n
).
You link one object to another simply by
dragging the header of the first into the body of the second. Salsa simplifies building complicated databases by assuming that all relationships are bidirectional and many-to-many.
I created the data model, established the links, and clicked on TestDrive to create the databases, forms, queries, and reports. While refining the data-input form to add a drop-down pick list for one particular field, I was startled to find that I'd reached and exceeded the limits of Salsa's visual-programming capabilities and had entered a decidedly different world. System help messages directed me to create an unbound control combo box, reset certain of its properties, and write some lines of code for the change event to link it to a bound control.
Bound and unbound controls? Change event? Code? Where and what were these things? By systematically trying all the menu options, I found the mysterious change event by clicking on Scripting under the Tools menu. After conquering that obstacle, I soon discovered, among other th
ings, that Salsa is fussily case-sensitive, differentiating between Stylebox.AddItem and Stylebox.additem (wrong). And I learned that there are easier ways to add pick lists than that which the help system suggests.
Previous versions of Salsa relied on a proprietary database engine. Now, Salsa can create Microsoft Access database files via Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), and other standard DBMS formats are in the works. In this version, you can use either the Access or proprietary formats as your default storage model.
Complementing the $350 Salsa is a new $49 run-time version that lets you run and distribute a Salsa application, create new data, build queries and reports -- indeed, you can change just about anything but the underlying data model.
A few weeks after you buy Salsa, a technical-support person will call to arrange a 1-hour phone-support session to help you build an application and talk you through any rough spots.
On reflection, Salsa is both less and more than I'd hoped for. L
ess, because it doesn't perform magic and do what I was thinking -- talk about unrealistic expectations! More, because it helped me create a complex application on which I'd previously given up.
When I approached Salsa with the perspective of an unsophisticated user, to get a simple version of the application working well before adding the bells-and-whistles refinements, my applications came together smoothly and swiftly. This powerful and capable program let me do things I couldn't figure out with other database packages.
Product Information
Salsa for the Desktop 2.2......................$350
Wall Data, Inc., Kirkland, WA
Phone: (800) 915-9255 or (415) 812-1600
Fax: (415) 856-9265
Internet:
http://www.walldata
.com/
Circle 1049 on Inquiry Card.
Hot Sauce for Cooking Up Databases
