[Glastonbury] OOo and MySQL = Sorted!

[steve at fractalsoup.org]

Rob Cornelius wrote:

> Well its been quite a day... But worth it.
>
> Everything is working now. Got Open Office talking to a MySQL server 
> on another machine and got these rather Microsoft people working with 
> it... and actually enjoying it
>
> I did get a lot of help from
> http://www.cobolscript.com/profunix.htm
> I cant take the credit myself. Basically compile the ODBC stuff... 
> rpms just dont seem to work (at least on Mandrake 9.1)
>
> Although I am a dedicated SQL purist myself and never use graphical 
> tools normally the database component of Open Office is excellent.
>
> You define your datasource (once) and create a query.  This can be 
> either through typing SQL or in a graphical designer /very/ simillar 
> to Access. Unlike Access though Open Office seems to be a lot better 
> at converting SQL you manually enter to a graphical representation.
>
> The best bit is how the data components integrate with the rest of the 
> package. There is no separate "Access" program. Everything is done 
> from within a spreadsheet or word processor docuement. Ok the query 
> designer is in a separate window. Once you have saved your query you 
> can then see it in a tree view of "objects" associated with that 
> datasource. To get the data from that query into your docuement simply 
> drag and drop the query icon from the data pane onto the document pane!
>
> This bit to my mind is far easier than messing around exporting data 
> with Access into Word or Excel. It even made the Microsoft nuts at 
> this company sit up and take notice. Especially as I told them the 
> spreadsheet data can be saved as Excel.
>
> It was worth it....
>
thanks for sharing your challenge so others may learn Rob.
as a teacher of ict (jack of all trades, master of none) i have to 
deliver data handling which can be taught in many different ways.
i have been experimenting with Open Office to deliver this rather than 
Access.
i also have been surprised to see students comfortably using fields in 
Open Office to set up Data Sources in different formats, sql , odbc, 
spreadsheet *.sxc etc:

knowing it can be done is often enough kick to rise to the challenge to 
find out how it can be done
(if u see what i mean)
steve l-c