[Bookbase-help] Looking at bookbase.

[Tom R. <th...@fo...>]

Sirs, I'm looking at using bookbase to track books that I've read/own.

I'm looking at bookbase and find a number of shortcomings here for
my purpose.

First, it requires the ISBN number and refuses to accept a book without it.
Many of the books I've read are old and don't necessarily have ISBN
numbers or have multiple ISBN numbers from various publishers/versions.
I would like not to give one or use some "N/A" or "unknown" type entry.

Problem is, this create duplicates ISBN numbers causing it to fail.

There seems to be no way to select/modify an entry.

If I "search" for a title, then click on a result, the book entry fields
are not filled in. I am therefore forced to enter  them in again by hand,
it attempts to add yet another entry.  This may be an error on my part,
but how to I recall an entry to modify it?

How do I maintain just one entry for each author, and list multiple
books by this author?  There does seem to be an extra field following
the author name, is this for an author ID that allows my to refer back
to an author in the db?  How is it used?

The same is true for publishers.  I would like to access just the author
or publisher fields for modification too.

On this issue, I would also like to have a comment field for each author
and publisher, and It should have some field for rating books, although
the comments field would do.

In absence of any satisfactory answers to these questions, is there any
other book db system out there that would allow me to maintain a database
of books without these restrictions?

My alternative is simply to do a php/web abased form and my own tables.
The other alternative is, of course, to modify the existing program,
but that would be a waste of my time if there aren't others of like mind
involved in this project.

As is, I can't even use bookbase for initial entry because it seems to
keep creating duplicate entries int he author and publisher fields.

I must have something wrong.

Please CC a copy to me directly because I'm not on any lists for this
project.

Thanks for any response (save flames :-).

-- 
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* Tom Redfern        Box 21 Snoqualmie   WA 98065-0021  USA          *
*                    Email: th...@fo...  Phone: (425) 888-7080 *
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The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts
to fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to
be one of the facts that needs altering.  -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"