DBF Viewer and Editor - DBF Commander Professional

DBF Commander Professional interface was developed to be quite simple and easy-to-use. The Main Window is presented below:

main dbf operations

 

Menus

DBF Commander Professional's Main Menu contains all of the commands and are described at their appropriate topics.
The Toolbar is consist of the most frequently used action buttons. Move the mouse cursor above the speed button to it's hint appears. It contains detail information about the command.
Also, the Toolbar contains Tables List - the drop down list of the opened DBF files names. Use it to switch between the opened tables. If no DBF files are opened - click at Tables List to invoke the Open dialog box.
The Toolbar is dockable, so you can move or close it.

At the bottom of the application's Main Window there is the Status Bar. It may contains information listed below:

  • DBF Commander Professional's current status.
  • Application global hints.
  • Last executed SQL query results.
  • Information about Caps Lock and Num Lock keys pressed.

 

DBF Table Form

Since DBF Commander Professional is a MDI application, every of DBF file opens with it's own child-form. It's consist of the following components:

Filter Records Panel

Is designed for filtering records by the defined conditions. For more information, see Tools -> Filter Records...

DBF Table Grid

The most of Main Window's area is occupied with the Table Grid. It is intended for the direct DBF file editing:

  • Use the Up, Down, Left, Right arrow keys to move by the cells.
  • Use the Tab key to move by fields. If the last column was reached - the selection will move to the first field of the next row.
  • Click at current cell (or press Enter or F2 key) to put text cursor into the cell.
  • Use Delete key to clear cell value (if text cursor is in the cell and it's value is highlighted).
  • Use Cut, Copy, Paste and other Edit commands while work with cells.
  • Ctrl+Up (Ctrl+PageUp) - move current cell selection to the top of visible cells.
  • Ctrl+Down (Ctrl+PageDown) - move current cell selection to the bottom of visible cells.
  • Ctrl+Left (Home) - move current cell selection to the first column.
  • Ctrl+Right (End) - move current cell selection to the last column.
  • Ctrl+Home - move current cell selection to the first row.
  • Ctrl+End - move current cell selection to the last row.
  • PageUp - move by visible rows count to the first record.
  • PageDown - move by visible rows count to the end of table.
  • Escape - cancels last cell changing and hides current cell editor.

If a field value is NULL - the grid shows it as NULL text. To get more information about NULLs, see Set NULL topic. Also, you can click the column's header to fast sort the DBF file. Current DBF file will be ordered by the field. By default, the sort direction is ascending.
If the file is already sorted by the field was clicked - the current file will be ordered by this field by descending. For more information, see Tools -> Sorting
Also, you can right-click at the grid to invoke the Popup Menu. It contains the most frequently used Edit commands.

Status Bar

Consist of the following panels. It contains information about the DBF file:

  • DBF file full path and name.
  • Current record number and count records in all.
  • Current field number and count fields in all.
  • Current field type, width and precision.
  • DBF file type - "Visual FoxPro" or "dBase III plus".
  • DBF file code page.

 

SQL Panel

The main feature of DBF Commander is a SQL queries execution possibility.

For more information about SQL syntax, please refer to Using SQL queries topic

In order to execute a SQL query, type it's text in SQL Panel and press Enter key. The whole current string is taking as a query text.
After the query execution is finished, it's full text (with full file names) adds to SQL Panel. Also, Main Window's Status Bar will contain the SQL query result information.

If you use a relative instead of full path to DBF file in query text, please note, this DBF table is being looked at the same directory, from where the current DBF file was opened. If there are no opened files, or the file hasn't been found by this path, the "File does not exist" error box will appears. Thus, it's recommended to use the full paths in a SQL queries.

In order to fast insert full file name into SQL query text, use the Insert Current Filename command

All of SQL queries are stores at the Application Data directory in the ANSI text file named "DBF Commander.log".

If DBF Commander Professional is minimized while a SQL query execution has been finished - the application flashes in the Taskbar to inform you about it