Proper implementation and support for external dataa

[orish]

I've just upgraded to NOF13.

The data objects are EXACTLY THE SAME as before (in fact, I don't think they've changed since around NOF 7). The data objects interface is still the same old clunky Windows XP ODBC interface, and there is no way to modify an existing Data List or External Data Object. The only workaround - as before - is to create a completely new data object and copy & paste the design pages from the old stacked page to the newly-generated stacked pages and then remove the previous objects and pages. And because it still relies on the old Windows ODBC utility, there is still no support for Access 2010 or Excel data sources (let alone Office 2013 or beyond)!

There is also no change in how the "header" page of a data list is produced either. It's still not possible to design it. I've never been able to use it, so I've always had to produce my own separate HTML document manually.

This is a necessary fix/upgrade for NOF - data objects and external data handling make up one of your key selling points in your aadvertising, yet you've simply abandoned it. It's like buying a modern car with wonderful electrics and a new wheel design, but with a 1990's engine that still hasn't got fuel-injection (let alone programmable FI)!

Implement a much more flexible (and editable) ODBC interface with direct access to the latest Excel tables, Access databases and real-time MySQL server-based databases, with field-level formatting control.

[1FugleyKiwi]

Quick question - why do you use NoF?

[orish]

Quick question - why do you use NoF?

Is that relevant? NOF is great for accurate laying out of pages. I use it to create ebooks or parts of my websites that are data-generated. If the external data feature was properly implemented (and it's been one of the major selling points of NOF almost since the beginning) then it would be a truly great product.

The way I get around the limitations for now is very cumbersome: I use an Excel macro to generate HTML for each data item and then I use the insert HTML feature (ctrl-t) to insert the field ($dataobject(field1)) in a text area or cell carefully positioned on a stacked page. NOF only supports the 8-year old ODBC connectors, which means Access 2007 (MDB) or dBase (DBF, which I think was obsolete by around 2005 anyway). There is an Excel connector, but I've never got it to work. I have Access 2010, which isn't recognized (ACCDB), so I copy an excel table into Access then save it as an Access 4 MDB file and then use that file to connect to NOF. The biggest problem is that, along the way, many of the fields get truncated after 255 characters (that's another issue, but I got around that by creating a dynamic link between Access and Excel and then creating MEMO fields across the board).

Another problem is that there is a limit to how many fields you can have. One ebook of mine consists of a page with 50 rows of reading exercises. Each row has 5 fields. I tried to create a dataobject for this and discard the stacked pages while just keeping the top page consisting of the table. That didn't work. The only way round this was to create a single stacked page with 250 fields on it. In retrospect, I could have simplified this by concatenating all the fields in Excel to produce a single row consisting of 5 cells and inserting the HTML code as part of the formula (e.g. "<td>"&A2&"</td><td>"&B2-etc) and then just insert a single data object field, one for each row. Better yet would have been to generate the entire table using an Excel macro/formula and then simply copy it into a text box as raw HTML manually.

It shouldn't have to be so cumbersome, but for now NOF is useful as a container for the real content; and it's a great way to manage dozens (or hundreds) of related pages and maintain stylistic consistency. But then so does Joomla and Drupal and other CMS's - but they don't have the same degree of page layout control of NOF. And NOF is better suited for generating off-line HTML that can then be inserted into a website or converted into an ebook.