Technical Information

Q & A

Would you give me more information about Dyna DataSet or Dyna Form?
Dyna DataSet and Dyna Form are saved in standard Delphi/BCB (Borland C++ Builder)"*.dfm" binary format.  Indeed, a "Dyna DataSet" or "Dyna Form" is just a Delphi "Data Module" or "Form". You can even use Delphi IDE to create data modules/forms and let Inter DB Editor open them.
Since "*.dfm" has two possible formats -- text or binary, you can uncheck the option "New forms as text" in Delphi's menu "Tools/Environment options../Preferences" to make new forms saved in binary format. Also, if you are using Delphi/BCB to create "Dyna DataSet"/"Dyna Form", please remember that do not add any code/event handler in your unit because Inter DB Editor is a compiled program, it can only open data modules/forms which does not contain extra code or "unexpected components".
The reasons why we use Delphi "*.DFM" format are:

• DFM is a general purpose resource storage format. Almost all the modern programming tools are using similar techniques to save/restore various component settings. It's very flexible because it does not assume any component structure. The evidence of its flexibility is you can open a form designed in Delphi 1 by Delphi 5, even by Kylix!
• Since Delphi/BCB/Kylix will continue to be one of the major DB development tools in the world. So, major databases should provide the connectivity to Delphi. The "Dyna DataSet" will take the advantage of new components by just compile those components into our program. As you know, our program doesn't need to be changed -- we just include the new components into our program to provide more DB connectivity.
• DFM format can be saved in text format, and this makes it easy to be edited and cross-platform ready. Although we don't recognize text DFM files yet, it's not very difficult to write a resource reader which accepts text version DFM. As you know, the binary format DFM files saved by Delphi can be read by Kylix without any problem. Again, this proves the flexibility of "DFM" format.

How to design my own  Dyna DataSet or Dyna Form?
To save a "Dyna DataSet" is quite simple -- you can use Inter DB Editor to open a table/query, and use the "Action/Save DataSet to a data module file" to save all the settings to a "*.DFM" file. This is very convenient because you can can open the saved "Dyna DataSet" next time without doing the same setting again.
As of "Dyna Form", you have to use "Delphi/BCB" to create a new form in binary format and save it to a file. We are planning to develop our own form designer, however, it takes time to finish it. We are sorry for your inconvenience.

What's the detail format of DSS?
You'll get the detail format once you purchase the "DB Tools Combo".

What's the difference between DSS and XML?
XML is a very flexible data repessentation language. DSS is just a data format. Please click here to see the detailed comparisons of DSS and XML. The XML file we saved is an "XML version" of DSS. So, you can understand the brief format of DSS if you take a look at the XML generated by Inter DB Editor.

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