100 Using MyData

Using MyData

Once the structure has been set up in your database file, it's time to fire up MyData itself. In the BlitzMax version, all databases had to live in the "Databases/" folder which had to live in the same folder as were MyData itself was located. The Mono version allows you to store your files anywhere, but remember, MyData requires writing permissions in the folder or on the database file. Especially when using Unix based file system such as in Linux and MacOS, it's important to have this in order.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST PUTTING YOUR DATABASES ONTO FLASH BASED DEVICES SUCH AS MOBILE PHONES, TABLETS AND USB STICKS!!! Strictly speaking any device which mounts on your system as a drive or folder or anything can be used for MyData, but flash ROMS which are the prime data storage of these kinds of devices, will lower in quality when saving and overwriting data a lot, and that is exactly what can happen when maintaining a database on them. In other words the life span of these devices will shorten like crazy (also note that the same will happen if you instructed MyData to export to these devices). Internal Harddrives of Desktop computers and laptops are completely safe, as well as external harddrives, since they use magnetic systems.

Although no longer in really active use, it's also best NOT to use optical devices either, as they basically have the same issues.

(If you want you can suffix the filenames of your databases with .MyData but you don't have to. If syntax highlighters will ever appear for IDEs you may wanna go for this, though).

Starting MyData

Well, in Windows you can just run MyData.exe in order to run MyData. Linux and MacOS X will require the Mono Framework as a dependency. For MacOS X a full application bundle will be created. For Linux things differ too much depending on your distro, but as long as you have the Mono Framework installed MyData should work, and when you use the terminal and use the "cd" command to go to the folder where you installed MyData, and type "mono MyData.exe" this should work.

When MyData has started up succesfully a file selection window (in GTK+ layout) asking you to open your database. Just look up your database and click "select", and MyData will load the database and now the fun can begin.

I'll explain on the next pages how you can get to work.