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GS-Base Changelog

What's new in GS-Base 20.3

Mar 14, 2024
  • You can play music files from tables/databases/listings of files
  • generated by GS-Base. For example. you can now:
  • filter large collections of mp3 files by specific file metadata: artists, titles, years, bit rates, durations and so on and play them in any order;
  • choose randomly a specific number of mp3 files to play from any large collection on your disk(s);
  • generate play lists that have specific total lengths.

New in GS-Base 20.2 (Feb 17, 2024)

  • New features:
  • You can now turn off instant re-searching when entering field filters. This should be helpful and prevent unnecessary re-searching especially when entering relatively many filters (with the limit same as the field/column limit: 16K) for large data sets. After you enter them, you just use the command Search All Now (Ctrl+F9):
  • You can now turn on/off the automatic field calculation procedure using the above Tools menu or clicking the "AUTO" status bar field. It'll save your time when you're adding/deleting fields, transforming fields etc. for large tables with calculated fields. Previously every such action always resulted in recalculating of all fields. In GS-Base 20.2, when you're done, you can simply use the command Update All (F9).
  • The Database Explorer context menu commands have been added to the View menu.
  • More details have been added to some help topics, e.g. to "Calculated fields and entering formulas", "Notational conventions (numbers, formulas, dates)"
  • Fixes:
  • There was a slow performance problem when using the commands:
  • Previous / next empty field (Ctrl+Up / Ctrl+Down)
  • Previous / next identical field value (Ctrl+Alt+Up / Ctrl+Alt+Down)
  • For tables with a few hundred thousand records they started to slow down significantly, up to the point that this could look like freezing.

New in GS-Base 20.1 (Jan 29, 2024)

  • As GS-Base loads files to RAM, to enable processing data from CSV/text files of any size even for computers with insufficient memory, you can now specify "Text File Input Filters" to limit the size of the loaded data.
  • Filters can use RegEx patters, the popular relations, ranges and fuzzy filters. The File Progress dialog box showing the text file opening process show now also the number of rows that were filtered and loaded (along with all other details, current & ETA times, bytes read and in file, percentage etc.).
  • Fixed: A missing safety check/warning when the number of category columns in created pivot tables exceeded the allowable maximum: 16384 - number of row columns - 2.
  • Tip: you can create up to 100 pivot tables for each table in the database file with up to 256 million rows each.
  • Once a pivot table is created, clicking the "Update" always applies to the current filtered record set.

New in GS-Base 20.0.2 (Jan 13, 2024)

  • Some missing topics have been added to the Help file:
  • Using objectStats() functions to obtain file/image data
  • Using textStats() functions to obtain LongText and Code fields statistics
  • Using fileStats() functions to obtain EXIF tags and metadata from multimedia files
  • Scanning and Verifying File (Path) Lists in Tables
  • Searching for file duplicates in folders and on disks
  • Searching for photo/image/media file duplicates in folders and on disks:
  • Use the Verify File command and choose a folder or disk to scan and load the file listing to selected table fields.
  • As the above command by default loads all file paths, for clarity you can filter out from the displayed listing any paths for file types that you don't need
  • Choose which EXIF tags or multimedia tags you want to compare to find duplicates (or, in general some specific sets of files), like the GPS location where the photo was taken, author or artist, dates, camera type, track name or length, file size etc. There are about 60 EXIF tags and 70 multimedia sound/video tags, please see: Using fileStats() function.
  • The specified values will be automatically extracted/calculated. You can search/sort them any way. You can use various methods to find duplicates.
  • The direct one is to use the Tools > Find Duplicates command.
  • Alternatively, you can use the Tools > Find Unique command, then the Tools > Show Complement command to delete all which will result in retaining one occurrence of each path.
  • You can perform various other searches, like for photos taken between some dates, sound files with specific bitrates, videos using specific encoding, songs or videos by a given artists and many more, see: Using fileStats() function.
  • In one scan you can create a list of 256 million file paths - at the moment this is the maximum number of records per table. If you need to compare files between multiple disks/folders, repeat this procedure and use one the table merging options (or, if you don't use binary fields in your tables simple select the entire 2nd table, copy it to the clipboard, place the cursor below the 1st field of the last record in the 1st table and paste the data).

New in GS-Base 20.0.0 (Jan 7, 2024)

  • Add and maintain any type of file metadata for each file,
  • Verify and monitor file changes on your disks, find changed files, new files and deleted files,
  • View and search the automatically created history of file changes for each file,
  • Search for the same or similar files on your disks using regular expression, search for duplicates, fuzzy searches,
  • Filter full paths, folders, file names, extensions, modification dates, access dates file sizes, also using historical data,
  • Analyze large sets of files (sizes, duplicates, substrings in names/paths, dates) using e.g. pivot tables,
  • Perform all of the above (and more) only for specific static lists of files you choose.

New in GS-Base 19.9.0 (Dec 17, 2023)

  • New features in GS-Base 19.9:
  • Inserting running totals and moving averages.
  • To insert running totals and moving averages in a given field, use the Insert > Running Total and
  • Insert > Moving Average commands for that field.
  • You can calculate these values in a column for up to 256 million rows in seconds.
  • The displayed dialog box enables you to specify the source data field these values
  • are calculated for and the following options:
  • Running totals:
  • The initial value the total is set to.
  • The total type: sum, difference or product.
  • The range of the fields to processed: current selection, all currently filtered records, all records in the table.
  • Moving averages:
  • Weights - Check this option to apply weights to data series
  • values. The default "N...1" selection means that the latest value
  • in the N-element period will have the weight equal
  • to N and the oldest one: 1.
  • You can specify your own weights as a column in some other tables.
  • The number of weights should be equal to the size of the period
  • and the first row corresponds to the latest period value.
  • If the number of weights is smaller, the remaining (missing)
  • weights are assumed to be 1. If it's greater - the last weights
  • are ignored.
  • Period - The number of values each average is calculated for.
  • Shift - For the default 0 value, each period for each average
  • ends in the row/record the average is inserted in and starts
  • N rows/records above it. As there are no enough data for
  • the initial N-1 averages, the corresponding fields will be filled
  • with the #NULL! error values.
  • Positive 'shift' values moves this compartment down/forward and
  • negatives shift values - further up.
  • The range of the fields to processed: current selection, all
  • currently filtered records, all records in the table

New in GS-Base 19.8.0 (Oct 26, 2023)

  • New features in GS-Base 19.8:
  • Performing table joins and the opposite operations (performing table splitting) is now much easier. New commands enable you to perform joins both permanently or dynamically, based on the fast binary vlookup calculation fields with single clicks, without entering any formulas. The corresponding "Tools" menu has been updated accordingly.
  • In the "Join Tabels Permanently" dialog box you can now choose which fields should be merged and whether there should be inserted at the current column/field position.
  • In the "Join Tabels Using VLOOKUP formulas" dialog box you can choose which calculation fields should be added to the current table to perform lookups in the dynamically "joined" table(s). You no longer have to manually enter long formulas in these calculation fields. No matter how many lookup fields are added or how many tables are joined, everything is done automatically.You can now automatically split a table where the same group of fields occur in multiple records. In general, this is the opposite of the above "join" actions.
  • For example, if the sample "orders" table include many orders of the same group of products and each "order" record include the full specification of a given product, potentially duplicating these specifications, that "orders" table can be split to include only e.g., the order date and amount fields and the list of unique product specifications will be kept in the newly created "products" table.

New in GS-Base 19.7.0 (Sep 20, 2023)

  • New features in GS-Base 19.7:
  • A list of recently used folders has been added. It's displayed as a separate split window along with the list of recently used files. For files this windows displays their sizes, modification dates and states. For folders the list includes the recent access dates.
  • Both lists (of files and folders) can include up to 50 items each and new items are added in a cyclic manner. Both lists can be locked to prevent any new additions or re-ordering.
  • A new window similar to the above is now also attached to the "Open" button so you no longer have to close the current database/file to see the lists of recently used ones.

New in GS-Base 19.6.0 (Jul 29, 2023)

  • New features in GS-Base 19.6:
  • You can individually set field types when importing CSV/text files with up to 16,384 columns:
  • These settings override the auto-type detection that is performed for the entire file to ensure that no data are truncated or incompletely converted to numbers etc.
  • Overriding the default "convert to numbers" options can be useful for example, to retain leading 0's in some fields that would be otherwise converted to numbers and still convert all other required data to numbers.
  • You can save LongText and Code fields directly in the CSV/text files. The data in a such single saved field can be of any size, up to 4GB and the file size can be virtually unlimited.

New in GS-Base 19.4.0 (Jun 26, 2023)

  • SQLite *.db format support. You can load/save *.db databases with tables containing up to 256 million records, including tables with formatted LongText and BLOB objects (files, images). Similarly to other supported formats (text/csv/xls/xlsx/dbase/xbase/mysql) by default all those files can be opened/used/edited in-place, without changing the file format or their parameters.
  • The SQLite *.db format thanks to its popularity can be a good alternative to the CSV/text files when it's important to avoid any possible inconsistencies and differences in how various programs might convert CSV/text data.

New in GS-Base 19.3.0 (Jun 9, 2023)

  • New features in GS-Base 19.3:
  • The number of columns/fields has been increased: you can now use tables with 16,384 columns/fields and 256 million rows/records. Similarly, you can apply up to 16,384 field filters at the same time.

New in GS-Base 19.2.0 (May 25, 2023)

  • New features in this release:
  • You can split both saved text/csv and Excel xlsx/xls files and/or worksheets based on the number of rows you define:
  • The "Save Excel File" dialog box:
  • The "Open Excel File" dialog box:
  • The "Save Text File" dialog box:
  • The "Open Text File" dialog box:

New in GS-Base 19.1.1 (May 17, 2023)

  • New features in this release:
  • You can create tables with all images/files loaded from folders
  • The 19.1.1 update extends the functionality of the objectStats() function to let you manage your picture/photo collections.

New in GS-Base 19.1.0 (May 10, 2023)

  • GS-Base 19.1 enables you to encrypt individual table fields leaving the remaining data unencrypted and editable.

New in GS-Base 19.0.0 (Apr 18, 2023)

  • GS-Base 19 adds JScript and VBscript scripting, significantly extending the previous GS-Base functionality. With a simple few lines script, you can
  • Now perform mass importing / merging / joining / updating tables with up to 256 million records from text, Excel and all other files in entire folders. You can merge and filter millions of records in seconds.
  • You can also switch to the 'shared' mode, where other programs can update the same text, Excel or other file at the same time.
  • You can create/edit/save/use global scripts saved as a part of the GS-Base settings and scripts saved directly in database files
  • Writing scripts is easy. For example, this merely two-line script imports the 1st table from an Excel workbook and saves the GS-Base database as a new file:
  • GSBase.ImportExcelTable("e:\excel_data\file_a.xlsx", "", 1, "");
  • GSBase.SaveDatabaseAs("e:\new_file.gsb");
  • Mass merging records from CSV or Excel files from the entire folder (to the current table) is equally simple. You just enter the following and click "run" or assign a keyboard shortcut to run it:
  • Var mergeParams = GSBase.CreateMergeParams();
  • // merge records from e.g file2000.xlsx, file2001.xlsx, ..., file2023.txt
  • MergeParams.path = "e:\data\file20??.xlsx";
  • MergeParams.table = "products";
  • MergeParams.matchFieldNames = false;
  • GSBase.MergeRecordsFromExcelFile(mergeParams, 1)
  • Saving filtered (by e.g. a "year") and sorted results as 23 Excel files with field names in the 1st row:
  • Var field = GSBase.CreateFieldParams();
  • GSBase.GetField(1, field);
  • Field.sortIndex = 1;
  • Field.sortIndex = "A"
  • For (i = 0; i < 23; ++i)
  • Field.filter = 2000 + i;
  • GSBase.SetField(1, field)
  • GSBase.SaveRecordSetAsExcel("e:\sample_" + field.filter + ".xlsx", 0, 1, 0);

New in GS-Base 18.6.5 (Apr 8, 2023)

  • Users can create named text file open/save settings that are stored globally in the settings file. Instead or re-selecting all the parameters repeatedly for various text files, you can choose quickly any previously defined text file settings with a single click in the "Open Text File" dialog box.
  • New "Open Text File" dialog box
  • The "Autofit column widths" option available in the "Settings" window has been added directly to the above "Open Text File" dialog box as well.
  • Other minor improvements include displaying the text file name in the "Open Text File" dialog box.

New in GS-Base 18.6.3 (Apr 6, 2023)

  • A new formula in the "informational" category: TextStats(field, type)
  • Returns the LongText or Code field statistics:
  • type = 0 - returns the number of words,
  • type = 1 - returns the number of letters and numbers,
  • type = 2 - returns the number of letters, numbers and spaces,
  • type = 3 - returns the number (2) plus punctuation characters and separators,
  • type = 4 - returns the number of newline characters.
  • A new formula in the "informational" category: ObjectStats(field, type)
  • Returns the Images/Files field statistics:
  • type = 0 - returns the number of objects,
  • type = 1 - returns the size in bytes of the biggest object in a field,
  • type = 2 - returns the size in bytes of the smallest object in a field,
  • type = 3 - returns 1 if a field contains images (in a format supported by GS-Base) or 0 otherwise.

New in GS-Base 18.6 (Mar 24, 2023)

  • New features in this version:
  • In-field charts as field formats. With one click you can create any number of mini-charts displayed in fields.
  • All parameters and display options are set up automatically. By default, you apply this in-field format to a field(s) at the end of a data series placed in a continuous group of other numeric fields. Chart(s) can be also displayed at the beginning of such a series - a plain cell text alignment (Align Left, Align Right) determines this.
  • You can use line, column and area charts. The maximum number of charts is the same as the maximum number of records: 256 millions. The maximum size of each data series is equal to the maximum number of columns - 1. To change the color, set the font color for a given field.

New in GS-Base 18.5.2 (Mar 8, 2023)

  • New drop-down lists with checkboxes and multiple columns.
  • You can display list items in 1 to 99 columns. Dragging the vertical gridlines in the list window resizes all these list columns. To resize the list window, drag its bottom-right corner or its edges.
  • You can create up to 100 list in one database file. List items can be entered manually, or you can choose to load them automatically from some record field from any table in the same database file. GS-Base will load all current unique values from that field. The maximum number of list items is the same as the maximum number of records: 256 millions.
  • Other list options include: AutoAppend, AutoComplete, Sort, multiple-selection separator.

New in GS-Base 18.4.1 (Jan 20, 2023)

  • The "File > Database Checksums" command enables you to create SHA-256 checksums/hashes for selected database/file content (excluding formatting, column/row widths, colors etc.)
  • Comparing these checksums you can verify that the actual data have not been changed after copying, transferring, saving in a different format etc.
  • You can use this function to create control SHA-256 hashes for any file formats that are supported in GS-Base.

New in GS-Base 18.3.0 (Dec 30, 2022)

  • Saving, loading Excel *.xlsx workbooks and splitting/merging Excel worksheets automatically. This is the same functionality that was added recently for the *.xls files
  • Optionally creating backups when saving database files. (The "Settings > Options > General > Create backups (...)" option.) Backup file names are created by adding the ".bak" extension to the original file path.
  • The mouse wheel option was added to the "Settings > Options > Editing" dialog box page (switching between scrolling lines and pages).

New in GS-Base 18.2.0 (Nov 26, 2022)

  • New "cross-table" calculation functions using fast binary searches or regular expressions and sequential searching:
  • sum_ex(), min_ex(), max_ex(), mean_ex(), quartile1_ex(), median_ex(), quartile3_ex(), mode_ex(), count_ex().
  • The above functions enables you to generate summaries, reports, statistical information etc. in one table based on values in other tables and the calculations effectively use all the processor cores defined in the "Settings" dialog box.
  • For example, with tens of thousands of records in the master table and several millions in the slave table(s) updating all calculated fields should be completed almost instantly or in seconds (with some short additional time for internal sorting before the first execution of the first function call).
  • New "cross-table" calculation functions for processing data from other tables using nultiple filters:
  • sumIfs_ex(), minIfs_ex(), maxIfs_ex(), meanIfs_ex(), quartile1Ifs_ex(), medianIfs_ex(), quartile3Ifs_ex(), modeIfs_ex(), countIfs_ex().
  • Although these functions use slower sequential searching, they provide more filtering options and pattern matching and can be helpful for medium-size data set, especially if there is some larger number of processor cores defined in the "Settings > Options".
  • Their sample syntax is as follows:
  • sumIfs_ex(table, calcField, field1, criteria1 [, field2, criteria2, ...], [emptyValue])

New in GS-Base 18.1.0 (Oct 31, 2022)

  • Saving, loading Excel *.xls workbooks and splitting/merging Excel worksheets automatically. You can expect medium-size *.xls workbooks (e.g. 100MB-200MB) to be loaded in GS-Base tens to hundreds of times faster than in Excel.
  • Date, time and date-time fields are automatically converted between text fields in GS-Base and date/time serial numbers in *.xls files.
  • When saving an *.xls file Long Text, Images/Files, Code binary fields are saved to name.gsb-bin.zip file (one such a zip even if there are split files) and after unzipping all objects, memos are accessible from the corresponding Excel/GS-Base as links.
  • Formatting remains the same in GS-Base files and *.xls files.

New in GS-Base 18.0.0 (Sep 24, 2022)

  • Existing searching for duplicates has been replaced by more versatile functions:
  • Searching for duplicates either within the entire table or the current record set
  • Displaying the results using the physical table order or any sort order
  • Easy selecting up to 100 fields as a duplicate key
  • Displaying the results as:
  • The first (entered in the table) records from each group of duplicates,
  • The last (entered in the table) records from each group of duplicates,
  • All records from each group of duplicates except the first one,
  • All records from each group of duplicates except the last one.
  • Searching for/displaying all unique field values (incl. keys consisting of up 100 fields) and optionally saving their frequencies in another field:
  • Displaying the results as:
  • The first (entered in the table) records from each group of duplicates,
  • The last (entered in the table) records from each group of duplicates.
  • Searching for fields values from any quartiles, below or above the mean. Searching statistical parameters can be calculated for the entire table or the current record set. For non-numeric fields the statistics is obtained as follows: string lengths for not formatted Text fields; numeric date/time values for Text fields formatted as Date/Time; the total size in bytes for Long Text and Images/Files fields.
  • In addition to fuzzy searches performed by the Find&Replace functions, the individual "Similar" field filter was added:
  • https://citadel5.com/help/gsbase/searching.htm
  • The "Hyperlink" field format has been extended to allow creating links and jumps between individual records in different tables.
  • The new "Copy As Hyperlink" copy command variant with the automatic Ctrl+C re-assignment simply creates and copies a given link that can
  • Be then pasted in any record field of another or the same table.
  • https://citadel5.com/help/gsbase/formatting2.htm
  • A new style to display a list of symbols/images entered in table fields as a list of predefined names:
  • For example, to display four-and-a-half out of seven-star ratings in a record field, you can enter:
  • Star, star, star, star, star-half, star-empty, star-empty

New in GS-Base 17.8 (Jun 4, 2022)

  • Configurable forms. The default layout allows you to define the number of form columns, input field widths and heights, colors/fonts and other options. Multi-column forms enables you e.g. to view/inspect tens of fields at once.
  • Merging tables linked by any type of field relations there can be multiple key values both in the primary table and in the merged table. Converting such linked tables into one physical table makes filtering, importing/exporting and further processing much easier. In the pre-17.8 GS-Base versions such functionality was merely partially available with calculated fields and the "cross-table" calculation function(s).
  • The "Short Toolbar" option that enables you to define and turn on a short version of the default main toolbar. This will help you to keep required toolbar buttons and the search keys combo box on screen when narrowing the program window.
  • Displaying progress dialog boxes when calculating the optimum column widths and row heights for opened/imported text, xBase and SQL tables. This takes place if the "Settings > Options > General > Auto-fit (...)" options are selected. Optimum column widths are based on the length of the record field contents and row heights on whether there are line-breaks in a given field.
  • For very large data sets, especially under low-memory conditions, the table layout calculation time might be comparable to the loading time so this option enables you to control the process.
  • Other changes
  • The build-in "IF" function in used in calculated fields required previously a strict Boolean condition value. For compatibility reasons, any non-zero 8-byte floating point number is now treated as the "true", e.g. IF(1.0e-100, 1, 0) returns 1.
  • Minor GUI changes and improvements.

New in GS-Base 17.7 (May 2, 2022)

  • Saving, loading (optionally storing) tables in the Excel *.xls format.
  • Tables with records exceeding the *.xls 65K limit are automatically splitted and saved as name.xls, name(1).xls, ..., name(n).xls.
  • Splitted *.xls databases are automatically merged when opening e.g. the main name.xls file in GS-Base.
  • Tables in folders in the GS-Base database explorer pane are saved as full paths in *.xls files and the tree explorer structure is recreated in GS-Base.
  • Date, time and date-time fields are automatically converted between text fields in GS-Base and date/time serial numbers in *.xls files.
  • When saving an *.xls file Long Text, Images/Files, Code binary fields are saved to name.gsb-bin.zip file (one such a zip even if there are splitted files) and after unzipping all objects, memos are accessible from the corresponding Excel/GS-Base as links.
  • Formatting remains the same in GS-Base files and *.xls files.

New in GS-Base 17.6 (Mar 16, 2022)

  • The dark/night mode: it can be turned on to save energy consumption in notebooks, to reduce the harmful blue light and to help with eye strain.
  • Definable cross-highlighting: you can highlight rows(s), column(s) or both to make viewing/editing tables easier and faster, especially if a given table view is configured to display a large number of fields in a row or column.

New in GS-Base 17.5 (Jan 16, 2022)

  • New commands, toolbar buttons and new or changed icons on the toolbars making using GS-Base more comfortable. (Plus things like changing the (main) "Search" term to "Filter" and "Set Field Filter" names.)
  • The "Find-As-You-Type" option was removed from the "Find and Replace toolbar > Options" menu and added as a better accessible and visible combo box on the toolbar.
  • In addition to the above the third search mode was added: "Find Similar". Basically it performs matching using the same method as spell-checkers and enables you to find misspelled words etc.
  • The "Find and Replace toolbar > Options > Partial/Full matching" options determine whether substrings or full fields are searched for.
  • The "Find All" command on the "Find and Replace" toolbar applies to the standard and "Find Similar" searched modes and you can now select any range of columns/fields to search. (Previously all columns/fields were always searched).
  • A bug fix: after specifying a user custom format for dates the date picker was no longer displayed for such a field.

New in GS-Base 17.4 (Nov 18, 2021)

  • Changes in this version:
  • Custom lists to insert data series in fields. List items can be embedded in cell strings.
  • Manage Series dialog box
  • Fill toolbar button
  • Built-in series with day/month names.
  • Inserting series help page
  • Inserting formula based series.
  • This enables you to define any type of data series including those referring to resources in other tables. For this series type you need to define a formula that will be calculated for each record within the selected range. Used formulas are added to the "recently used" list which is stored in the settings file.
  • Formula Based Series dialog box
  • Inserting random series.
  • You can use several popular distribution types. Additionally, for the uniform distribution you can choose to create a series of items randomly selected from a given custom list.
  • Insert Random Series dialog box
  • Mass Find & Replace.
  • The "Scripts" command on the "Find & Replace" toolbar can be used to perform quick mass text replacing for the whole table using regular expressions.
  • Find and Replace Scripts dialog box
  • The RegEx menu used in GS-Base to insert RegEx sequences easier has been extended to include the Unicode/Non-ASCII sequences as well.
  • RegEx menu menu
  • The amount of memory used by the "Replace All" command to enable the Undo action has been minimized. (Previously the allocated memory was proportional to the whole table, which might make it difficult to use.)
  • Bug fixes

New in GS-Base 17.2 (Aug 24, 2021)

  • Opening and saving MySQL *.sql files. https://citadel5.com/help/gsbase/mysql_files.htm
  • Increased saving speed for files with a large number of memo/long text/object fields.
  • Added more detailed information and/or tips to the help file available online and included with the program.
  • Minor interface improvements, including showing both the elapsed and ETA times in the "progress" dialog boxes.
  • A bug fix: saving PDF files for subsets of the full table always generated the remaining empty pages.

New in GS-Base 17.1 (Jun 1, 2021)

  • Long Text/Memo editing and formatting commands which previously required activating a context menu are now available via a new toolbar:
  • Multi-language spell checking can be now performed for both tables/forms and Long Text/Memo fields by specifying the font language in the "Font" dialog box:
  • The Help file has been updated to include descriptions of some functions added in recent versions and mentioned only in the forum announcements.

New in GS-Base 17.0.1 (Feb 9, 2021)

  • Changes in this version:
  • COM interfaces.
  • GS-Base 17 offers dual COM interfaces so all its core functions can be access programmatically from users applications.
  • GS-Base no longer displays messages about (the option of) converting the older standard zip to zip64 when opening databases. The status line simply displays an indicator which variant is in use and this can be switched in both directions at any time. If you try to save a standard zip (zip32) file with the amount of data that might exceed the zip32 limits, GS-Base will display a warning message.
  • Default setup folder changes
  • When running the setup in with the admin rights the default installation folder is the "Program Files" folder (and only the individual users settings are saved to local users "program data" folders).
  • When using the "Find Duplicates" and "Find Filtered Duplicates" commands the current sort key (if exists) is permanently switched to the one relevant to these searches.
  • Bug fixes:
  • The field filters displayed above the field headers (for informational purposes) didn't display non-ascii characters corre

New in GS-Base 16.8 (Jul 8, 2020)

  • The zip64 file format:
  • The standard older zip file format has been replaced by the newer zip64 format. As opposed to the standard zip, the zip64 files are not limited to 4GB and the number of sub-streams (files) is no longer limited to 65K.
  • This means databases can now contain virtually any amount of data and the number of inserted objects/images or memo entries is no longer limited to 65K.
  • Notes:
  • The zip64 files can be explored like standard zips in the File Explorer in Windows 10. However, please note that the 64-bit zips with a large number of sub-streams rather aren't handled efficiently in Windows. For example, for the following 25MB zip64 database file containing 100,000 very short "long text/memo" entries
  • https://citadel5.com/docs/db_with_100000_memos.gsb
  • after you rename it to a *.zip file, trying to explore it in the File Explorer (or browsing a folder containing it) will occupy the File Explorer for anything from several to tens of minutes or more. Thus it's usually a good idea to use the *.gsb file extensions for the database files instead of the *.zip extensions.
  • If you open an older zip file, GS-Base lets you choose whether the format should be updated next time you save it.
  • The "Find-As-You-Type" and "Find In Current Results" searching options.
  • If the "Find As You Type" option is "on", entering/deleting characters in the "Find" edit field results in automatic full-text searching.
  • The "Find In Current Results" was the default state in the previous versions and it causes subsequent searches to be performed only within already filtered records, narrowing the results. The "Find As You Type" and "Find In Current Results" options are mutually exclusive.
  • https://citadel5.com/upd_screens/gsb16. ... 8_find.png
  • Verifying URLs entered in database fields:
  • You can save the returned URL status and filter the status codes as necessary or you can let GS-Base verify the returned codes and automatically list all errors/broken URLs.
  • Notes:
  • You can pause and continue the verification process:
  • These can be both http and https URLs, optionally with the ending ":number" port specification.
  • Choosing cancel to close that dialog box causes retaining the previous results in the "status" and "modification date" fields.
  • https://citadel5.com/upd_screens/gsb16. ... 8_urls.png
  • Additional file information in the opening window:
  • The list of recently used databases displayed in the opening GS-Base window includes now the database size and the last modification date.
  • Also, if a given path no longer exists, it's preceded by the "cancel" icon.
  • https://citadel5.com/upd_screens/gsb16. ... .8_rul.png
  • The "Any flags" searching option:
  • This additional option in the "Search" dialog box enables you to search for records with any flags set.
  • Warning about saving as text:
  • If you edit a text or dBase file and add some data that can be saved only in the *.gsb/*.zip format like multiple tables, pivot tables, drop-down lists, GS-Base will warn you about this if you don't switch the file format before saving.

New in GS-Base 16.4 (Nov 11, 2019)

  • New in GS-Base 16.4 (vs 16.0.1):
  • Improved syntax coloring for the "Code" field subtype. (Especially for
  • the "c++" syntax and keywords.) Added the "c#" field subtype and the
  • "assembler" field type (Intel/MASM style).
  • Vertical scrollbars in the tables views now reset their scrolling
  • ranges based on the number of found/displayed records. (Previously the
  • ranges always depended on the total number of records.)
  • Additional warning/information and options when a pasted block of
  • cells exceeds the number of fields.
  • The "Open Text File" dialog box is re-opened automatically after
  • encountering and reporting invalid UTF-8 characters (to enable users to
  • switch to the ANSI character encoding easier).
  • Creating and saving pivot table reports as new tables with
  • automatically time-stamped names.
  • The "Copy Pivot Table" command has been added and the "Save As"
  • command has been moved to the "Copy" menu as "Copy To File...".
  • The string/error code displayed in pivot tables to denote #N/A! - "not
  • available data"
  • The "Select All" command in the "Copy With Options" dialog box
  • switches sequentially
  • between three copied field selection ranges (original selection, all
  • "on", all "off").
  • The "And:" field search filter has been changed not to require the "*"
  • special character in strings. It causes searching for substrings by
  • default now.
  • The "Copy With Options" command has been added as an alternative to
  • the "Copy" command to enable more flexible copying (of both tables
  • and forms) from GS-Base to other programs. The standard "Ctrl+C"
  • shortcut is assigned interchangeably to one of these commands.
  • The "Copy" commands in the Pivot Tables pane are now attached to the
  • "Copy" button. Two new options enable you to copy table field names,
  • category names and formatted data.
  • The profile data can now be password-protected and encrypted. The
  • profile data include all the global program settings and the list of the
  • used databases.
  • Dual database views enabling you to edit/view two tables independently.
  • Displaying the one-to-many relation between two tables in dual views.
  • Splitting views using a mouse (instead of the "Split" commands used
  • previously).
  • Text wrapping in forms can be optionally turned off.
  • Search keys can be easily updated/edited and sorted.
  • The "Sort" button automatically switches between the three states:
  • "ascending", "descending" and "no sorting".
  • Corrections in the cross-table formula descriptions.
  • The database explorer pane width doesn't change when resizing the main
  • window.

New in GS-Base 16.0.1 (Dec 15, 2017)

  • A number of new pivot table function have been added: geometric and harmonic means, variances and standard deviations, counting specific numbers, counting strings based on regular expressions, kurtosis, skewness, most frequently occurring numbers and strings. To maximize performance, the pivot functions can make use of up to 100 processor cores.
  • A few "copy" functions have been added to the pivot table context menu to make it easier/faster to copy them to other programs.
  • The len() function has been modified to return the actual total size of a given binary field, if it's applied to binary fields.
  • A few issues with percentile functions in pivot tables have been fixed.(For example, only one such function could be use at a time.)

New in GS-Base 15.8.3 (Feb 21, 2017)

  • If an array formula is used in a text field, its value is now accepted as the corresponding string, that is {x1, x2, x3; x4...}
  • Bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 15.8 (Feb 21, 2017)

  • Users can easily create a simple zip archive of text files (tables) which will be opened as native GS-Base databases (with the same speed and without any interaction).
  • Additional text import/export options.
  • The "Treat empty field values as zeroes" (pivot table) option now just controls whether empty input fields are treated as zero values or ignored in calculations.
  • Bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 15.7.1 (May 29, 2016)

  • Changes in this version:
  • The number of max. used (when filtering, updating, using pivot table percentile functions) processor cores is 100.
  • Percentile functions have been added to pivot tables.
  • Updating (F9) records or performing actions resulting in auto-updating more than 65535 calculated fields causes displaying the "Update Progress" dialog box.
  • Added syntax highlighting for the "Formula" field in the "Search" dialog box.
  • When editing filtering expressions or formulas in the "Field Setup" dialog box, one can now use a list/tree of database tables and fields to insert a given field name quickly.
  • Formulas can be now entered directly in table/form fields. (To enter text strings starting with "=", enter two leading "=")
  • Other improvements and bug fixes:
  • A fixed problem concerning crashing when merging a text file, if a given text file contained unrecognized field names.
  • The vlookup_ex() functions is significantly faster now.
  • A fixed problem with the vlookup_ex() formula entered in the "Field Setup" and/or "Search" dialog boxes. If the searched/source table was very large (e.g. million(s) of records) the formula syntax checking (performed after clicking OK in those dialog boxes) is extremely slow (which looks like "freezing").
  • A fixed problem with using multi-monitor configurations, where some dialog box might be incorrectly displayed on the wrong monitor.
  • Under certain circumstances actions updating fields other than "F9 - Update" could result in updating only a portion of the record set (which required the full update (F9) later).
  • The "Paste" action/command in GS-Base was extremely slow for very large data blocks. It should be much faster now.
  • A fixed problem concerning very slow text-to-number field conversion (that is, when changing the field type in very large databases).

New in GS-Base 15.4.2 (Dec 15, 2015)

  • The selected "System dictionary" option was not saved between sessions in the 64-bit version.

New in GS-Base 15.4.1 (Dec 15, 2015)

  • A fixed issue concerning a Hunspell dictionary path that couldn't be changed (which could result in crashing after pressing F7).
  • A group of date-related commands (inserting next week, next month, previous week etc.) was inactive.

New in GS-Base 15.4 (Dec 15, 2015)

  • Changes in this version:
  • A new alternative spell checking engine (Hunspell) which is now available both in the 32- and 64-bit versions. Like previously, the system spell checking functions can still be used in 64-bit Windows 8.x and later. For more information about the new spell checking options, installing Hunspell dictionaries, creating custom dictionaries etc., please see the updated help file or view the corresponding page online.
  • A new "Field Setup" dialog box. It offers the following:
  • a list of fields of the current table - no need to close the dialog box to edit subsequent fields,
  • syntax highlighting when entering formulas in calculated fields (highlighting fields, text strings, errors),
  • the list of functions automatically displays the description of the currently entered function (entering the opening "(" starts searching),
  • when entering an erroneous function name, automatic searching for possible suggestions/correct names is performed,
  • simple double-clicking updates the selected function.
  • Undo/Redo available also after changing the record structure. (In the ver. 15.2 and earlier, such modifications in the "Field Setup" dialog box reset the undo buffer.)
  • Automatic recalculation of the whole table after any field modification (and after the corresponding undo actions).
  • A number of various minor editing improvements and cosmetic changes.
  • Fixes:
  • Fixed converting "Long Text"/"Memo" fields to plain "Text" fields. Such conversion left the initial UTF-8 3-byte sequence in the text fields. Although they where invisible, this could lead to searching problems for some search modes.
  • A not working clicked scrolling/up-down control in the binary field view if the tabs exceed the width of the view after adding multiple binary fields. (Switching and scrolling tabs via keys and table clicking works correctly.)
  • A fixed problem concerning ambiguity when inserting images/files if there are multiple "Images/Files" fields. Selecting a given binary field in a table took the precedence over the tab selection in the binary view. (Should be the opposite.)

New in GS-Base 15.2 (Oct 19, 2015)

  • Regular expression highlighting in "Search" dialog boxes.
  • Regular expression highlighting in "Find & Replace" edit fields.
  • Various improvements to make using Regex easier and faster.

New in GS-Base 15.1 (Sep 29, 2015)

  • Changes in this version:
  • A new "Insert Password" command enabling you to insert unique passwords (either as a series of any number of unique passwords, filling in the currently selected range of table fields or as single unique strings subsequently used in edited text/code/memo fields).
  • There are several options that helps you to increase the probability that the generated passwords are unique. For typical settings, 8 character passwords should be unique within one to several millions generated case-sensitive passwords. (You can use the "Tools > Find Duplicates" command to verify that.)
  • Generated passwords can contain Unicode characters but non-ascii characters should be used with care as some systems (especially various recovery systems) might not support them.
  • The "Separator" option has been added to the "Drop-down lists" dialog box to enable you to specify any separator (which also includes the "new line" separator and any strings up to 10 characters) for inserted drop-down list multiple selections.
  • Fixes:
  • When specifying some field as a source of the drop-down list contents, if that source field was in a table in another folder, then this selection was reset each time the "Drop-down Lists" dialog box was re-open and had to be re-selected again.
  • After specifying some field as a source of the drop-down list contents and when editing a given field, the displayed list's width was equal to the width of that field instead of the width of the longest item it contains.
  • The "Tab" key was inactive in the "Code" field.

New in GS-Base 15 (Sep 17, 2015)

  • A new "Code" field type (which is a code editor with syntax highlighting).
  • Spell checking is now available (in the 64-bit version) as a separate menu command (as opposed to the previous "always on" state in table/form cells and in "Long Text" fields) with the standard dialog box layout, language and spelling options. It's available in tables, "Long Text" and "Code" fields and in the e-mail message editor.
  • A new field edit control to enter the data; improved displaying and printing of wrapped multiline plain "Text" fields in tables and forms. Separate "edit" and "enter" modes (where cursor keys complete editing); initial cursor position can be now determined by mouse double-clicking
  • The "Find Flagged" command has been integrated with the "Search" dialog box (thus both filtering modes can be combined now)
  • Added new shortcuts to clear all search filters and to display all records: 2 x Esc (Esc pressed twice in a non-editing mode within less than 1s).
  • New, more convenient date/time insertion procedure (used in tables, forms, memo/code fields and in the e-mail message editor).
  • A new e-mail dialog box; highlighting embedded record fields; html code highlighting; bcc addresses; a test sending mode for bcc addresses.
  • A new sorting objects command has been added to the "Objects" context menu.
  • Multiple selection in drop-down lists is now available as an option. In the "single selection" mode lists work as previously. In the "multiple selection" mode users can use the Ctrl and Shift keys (and clicking) to select multiple list items or range of list items and the selection is accepted by pressing Enter or double-clicking.
  • Various minor improvements and bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 14.8.4 (Mar 30, 2015)

  • Improved/added support for the "hyper-fast" function of the mouse wheel.
  • A new option to change the mouse wheel scrolling from line scrolling to page scrolling.

New in GS-Base 14.8.3 (Mar 20, 2015)

  • The day(), hour(), minute() and second() functions can now also accept standard date/time period strings (e.g. as returned by the dateDiff() function) returning the corresponding numeric value. For example:
  • =day("2005-02-09") returns 9,
  • =day("PD350T20M") returns 350,
  • =hour("12:59:11") returns 12,
  • =hour("PT21H13M") returns 21,
  • =minute("12:59:11") returns 59,
  • =minute("PT21H13M") returns 13.
  • Fixed issue with the dateDiff() function: it rounded the returned date/time period to full hours, discarding minutes and seconds.
  • Significantly increased speed of the date parsing procedures (used by the "Open Text File > Convert text to dates" option and by the "Edit > Convert Field Data > Dates To Standard Date String" command).
  • The "Creating new databases" help section contains now more information about handling/using date/time fields correctly.
  • The "Opening and saving text files" help section contains now more information about opening text files correctly.

New in GS-Base 14.8.1 (Mar 12, 2015)

  • Fixed bug: the "Edit > Convert Field Data > Text To Standard Date Strings" command and the "dateValue()" function used a fixed US month-day order in dates instead of the current system order.
  • The "Open Text File" dialog box has a new option/check box: "Convert text to dates". By default this option is turned off.
  • Note: Use this option with caution as selecting it may significantly slow down opening large text files. It's recommended that you used the "Edit > Convert Field Data > Text To Standard Date Strings" command for a given field(s) after the file is opened.

New in GS-Base 14.8 (Mar 12, 2015)

  • The maximum number of records can be now set dynamically to a value between 64 K (65,536) and 256 M (268,435,456). This value determines the initial (per application instance) memory usage in GS-Base and it's calculated as follows:
  • the max. number of records * 4 bytes.
  • For example, the previous version 14.7, with its fixed 12 M record limit, allocates 50MB after any database is opened. If your databases contain some small numbers of records, you can select a lower record limit to decrease that memory usage.
  • This value doesn't affect the file format itself and doesn't prevent existing databases from expanding after that limit is increased.
  • Fixed issue concerning very slow formatting (especially re: font changes) in very large files.
  • Significantly increased speed of all formatting and many editing actions.
  • GS-Base now displays warnings if the imported/opened files contain too many rows, columns or if some cells (in imported text files) contained more than 8K characters.
  • Bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 14.7 (Mar 3, 2015)

  • Nested folders with tables; tables and folders with tables can be moved/copied/pasted within the "Database Explorer" window.
  • Different icons for different field types in the "Database Explorer" windows.
  • Resizable toolbar table name combo.
  • Definable field operations ("Edit > Increase/Decrease"). This feature will allow you to modify any numeric or text fields easily and quickly without defining any calculated fields in a given table. Additionally, the results can be automatically rounded (both to the left and right of the decimal point).
  • Saving edited text/xBase/xml/html files includes the entire table and the default order.
  • Previous versions saved only the filtered and sorted recordsets, discarding other records. This behavior can still be achieved with the "Save Recordset As" command.
  • An additional "Find Filtered Duplicates" command. As opposed to the "Find Duplicates" command, this new command causes displaying duplicates save the first one from each group, thus all duplicates can be removed in one pass.
  • Inserting fields with png and jpeg images in letter forms.
  • Copying objects between different records. (Previous versions enabled copying within the same record.)
  • The "Field Setup" dialog box has two additional buttons: "Next field" and "Previous field".
  • Double-clicking the column splitter resizes the column (to fit to the contents).
  • After executing the "Replace All" command, the number of replaced occurrences is displayed.
  • Two new check boxes "Auto-fit column widths in imported files" and "Auto-fit row heights in imported files" in the "Options" dialog box. Selecting them causes resizing column widths and row heights after opening text, xBase, html and xml files.
  • Note: auto-fitting columns and rows can noticeably slow down opening very large files. To make it faster, increase the "Options > Number of CPUs" value (up to max. number of available processor cores).
  • The row height and column width resizing procedure now relies on multiple processor cores so specifying the "Number of CPUs" > 1 will be increasing its speed linearly.

New in GS-Base 14.5.2 (Jan 5, 2015)

  • Significantly improved e-mailing functionality. Optionally sending both separately definable text and html contents or only text or only html.
  • Using TLS connection security which ensures fully secure communication with the SMTP server. Previously both messages and the e-mail password were sent using unencrypted plain text and the SMTP server was not verified. If you're sending e-mails, it's strongly recommended that you upgrade as soon as possible.
  • Optional spell checker active when editing the message.
  • Specifying delays between group of messages
  • A new "Sort" dialog box with 10 keys (consistent with the one used in GS-Calc).
  • The "Sort Options" button has been added to the "Sort" button menu.
  • Several other improvements and minor new options.

New in GS-Base 14.1.1 (Jul 29, 2014)

  • Changes/modifications:
  • Inserting/dropping images/files directly in tables previously always caused opening the "binary" field view. This update adds a new check box in the "Settings" dialog box ("Auto-open the pane when files are inserted") which makes that auto-opening optional.
  • Bug fixes/modifications:
  • Thumbnails in the "binary" view pane were always based on some fixed size value (as in the previous versions), even if some custom value was specified.
  • Opening the "binary" view pane is now not possible if a given database doesn't contain Long Text or Images/Files fields.
  • When inserting an object, if there were multiple images/files fields, that object was always inserted into the 1st one, even if you select another one.
  • When inserting an object, the "Choose Binary Field" dialog box enabling you to choose the binary field wasn't displayed if there're some existing images/files fields in the table. Currently that dialog box is also displayed whenever the insert/drop operation occurs for a non-object field.

New in GS-Base 14.0.3 (Jul 7, 2014)

  • New features/modifications:
  • Optionally loading/saving only a specified range of records when editing xBase files.
  • New "Append modified memo fields to the existing memo file" option in the "Open xBase File" dialog box. It minimizes the number of bytes written when one chooses to save very large *.dbf + *.fpt/*.dbt database. Only modified memo fields are saved.
  • The option to turn on/off saving RTF text in xBase memo fields has been added to the "Open/Save xBase File" dialog boxes.
  • Added "IsEmpty()" filter.
  • Improved labels display (text truncations) in dialog boxes when running GS-Base in Linux with Wine.
  • The "Special" edit field in the Field Setup dialog box has been enlarged and formula validation has been added to that dialog box.
  • The "Save XML File" dialog box has been added. It enables you to choose fields to save and to specify whether formatting should be saved as XML attributes and XML tags.
  • When saving text and XML files Long Text/memo and images/files objects can be saved to an additional *.zip file and the respective file links will be saved in the corresponding text/XML file fields.
  • When opening files in formats other that *gsb/*.zip, GS-Base no longer requires the exclusive write access.
  • Remembering recently used "document folder" and "image folder" if the "Default Folder" is not defined.
  • Bug fixes:
  • The "After pressing Enter" option used in forms has been corrected.
  • The problem with the "selected records" printing option for non-table printing has been fixed.
  • The   HTML predefined symbol is no longer (incorrectly) saved when exporting XML files.
  • Fixed bug: exporting to XML files enables saving only up to 32KB text fields.
  • A mixed sequence of of drag-and-drop actions and undo/redo actions could lead to deleting the contents of the "Long Text"/Images field which was the target of the drop operation.
  • Pressing Del in the table view to delete the the entire "Long Text" field contents at once might require a few repetitions if the text contained spelling errors.
  • 14.0.3 Update:
  • Fixed problem concerning resizing of the combo boxes and buttons embedded in the toolbars when using GS-Base in Windows XP.
  • Minor corrections regarding using GS-Base in Linux/Wine.

New in GS-Base 13.3 (Jul 7, 2014)

  • Bug fixes:
  • xBase (dBase, Clipper, Fox Pro) files larger than 2GB couldn't be opened correctly
  • xBase memo fields were always saved/read as UTF-8, even if the encoding of the main table was OEM/ANSI. At the moment there are two separate encoding options for the main *.dbf table and for the xBase memo data in the "Save..." and "Open xBase Files" dialog boxes
  • Clipper files with memo files saved as the *.fpt variant could not be opened. At the moment GS-Base reads and preserves the existing memo format for Clipper files, still using the *.dbt variant for new Clipper files
  • The "vlookup_ex" function (used in calculated fields) was very slow (in practice: unusable) for a very large number of records. In GS-Base 13.3, fast binary searches are already performed for all the previously listed "type" parameters: 0 (the default one), 1 and -1. To use strings with wildcard characters, you need to specify "type=2". For the "type=4" value, the RegEx option has been added. Adding "8" to "4" performs case sensitive RegEx comparisons and adding "16" - enables empty RegEx matches
  • Note: for "type=4" and "type=2", the sequential linear searching is performed which makes those "type" values unsuitable for huge numbers of records (e.g. 1 mln records x several thousand lookup's)
  • There are no longer (performance) limits concerning "concurrent" lookups when updating calculated fields
  • Some minor, cosmetic fixes concerning GUI/displaying, message boxes etc

New in GS-Base 13.1 (May 1, 2014)

  • The new 64-bit release is no longer limited by the 32-bit 4GB boundary.
  • Images/Files and LongText fields can now be displayed (additionally) directly within the table and forms. To turn this on/off, use the "Settings > Options > Editing > Table/Form view pane > Display LongText & Files field contents" option. You can specify the thumbnail size and optional information (names, sizes, modification dates).
  • If this option is unchecked, the fields will be displaying plain labels containing the number of files, the total size and the last modification date/time. (If the Images/Files field contains some shortcuts to external files, only the number of files is displayed as the label.)
  • A new "Settings > Options > Editing > Table/Form view pane > Edit LongText/Files fields in new windows" option.
  • If this option is unchecked, trying to edit (e.g. by pressing Enter, double-clicking or pressing any character/number key) a LongText or Images/Files field will cause opening the LongText or Images/Files view pane to enable users to view/edit the field contents.
  • If this option is checked, trying to edit a LongText or Images/Files field will cause launching an application associated with a given file type. Choosing the "Save" command in that application will automatically update the data in GS-Base.
  • Depending on how that edit action is initiated, the following additional functionality is supported:
  • - pressing a digit key opens either the text or the n-th (1...9) object for editing,
  • - pressing a letter key prints either the text or the n-th (a...z) object.
  • Images/Files and LongText fields are now sorted by the total size of the field contents.
  • Note: Objects inserted as links (shortcuts) to external files (with the "Insert Shortcut to..." command) will be sorted by size if they were inserted in GS-Base ver. 12.1.3 or later. Unless re-inserted, all links from previous versions will be treated as 1-byte objects.
  • You can now specify the thumbnail size (separately for both images displayed in tables/forms and for date displayed in the Images/Files field pane).
  • The language/code page settings in the "Advanced PDF Options" dialog box no longer has to be connected with the current Windows system language/code page. The most recent selection from that dialog box will be used. This should make it much easier to save PDF files correctly constructing all the glyphs for non-US languages/names. Also, the sample custom character encoding list in the help file was expanded/corrected to cover all Windows-1250 characters.
  • The "Find All" command from the "Find & Replace" toolbar now searches not only textual/numeric fields but also LongText and Images/Files fields. Those two field types are always searched using Regular Expressions. (For inserted files, GS-Base compares the specified RegEx pattern with the file names.)
  • The standard filtering function applied to LongText and Images/Files fields now always uses Regular Expressions, similarly to filtering text and numeric fields and searches both the actual text from LongText fields and file names for Images/Files fields.
  • More character encoding options have been added to the "Open Text File" dialog box to improve the non-UTF text file conversion between various Windows language versions.
  • Drop-down lists can use data directly from database fields.
  • If a given field has some drop-down list attached, the corresponding column header is displayed with a marker (the same way as in GS-Calc).
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed possible problems when deleting records: if you sort records, then scroll to the bottom, then select a range of records that covers both some existing records and the empty area beyond the end of the table and use the "Remove Records Ctrl+D" command, either some additional records will be deleted or GS-Base will become slow due to erroneous filling the remaining table up to 12mln rows with empty records.
  • Fixed bug concerning incorrect encoding of non-ascii characters in PDF files. This bug appeared after switching from the older Ansi to the Unicode application type.
  • In GS-Base 12.x (as opposed to the earlier versions) the field trailing spaces were not removed when opening xBase files.
  • If a user specifies an incorrect option for the character encoding when opening/importing a text (or xBase) file, GS-Base didn't display any warning if some invalid UTF-8 (non-ascii) sequences were found. This could lead to not finding fields with such sequences when filtering records or using the Find & Replace functions, displaying some specific RegEx messages or - in some rare cases - to crashes when using the Find & Replace function. Currently GS-Base displays a respective warning and shows where the invalid code is (in the imported text file data).
  • Fixed possible problem with some character encoding variants for memo xBase fields.
  • For extremely large files, GS-Base 12.x may "react" very slowly when editing fields. The ver. 13 should be several times faster.
  • In GS-Base 12.x the Find & Replace function could be extremely slow on some computers for very large data sets (e.g. +0.5mln records). In GS-Base 13 this should be tens of times faster.

New in GS-Base 12.0.2 (Jan 29, 2014)

  • New features, changes and bug fixes:
  • GS-Base can already display/edit all Unicode characters supported by Windows. All non-ascii characters will now look the same in every Windows language versions. The available methods of entering Unicode characters have been described in the "Entering Unicode characters" help topic.
  • Spell checking available for all fields in Windows 8/8.1. Spell checking can be turned off for individual fields in the "Field Setup" dialog.
  • The maximum length of the "Text" field is now ~8K (8169 bytes).
  • Optional UTF-8 for xBase text fields.
  • A list of recent files attached to the "Open File" button. A new database can be opened without (explicit) closing the current one.
  • Changes in the "View" menu and in several dialog boxes.
  • Changes in various other GUI elements (e.g. themed borders, optional excluding inactive fonts in formatting dialog boxes, tooltips for binary fields).
  • New sort options in the "Sort Records" dialog box. They are now re-used automatically by the "quick" sort toolbar button commands. They are defined individually for each table and saved to the database file.
  • Help improvements.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed problem with the "Unicode rtf" format used with the "Edit in External Application" commands for "Long Text" fields and for the "letter" printing mode. This format is not widely supported and GS-Base switched back to the generic rtf format.
  • Fixed problem with displaying sample UTF-16 data in the "Open File" dialog box.

New in GS-Base 11.2 (Oct 17, 2013)

  • New features, changes and bug fixes:
  • The "Find & Replace" toolbar now features the "Find All" button/command that performs full-text filtering. The "Find Previous" and "Find Next" as previously are used to scroll to the previous/next occurrence without filtering.
  • The "Search" dialog box has now an additional button/command "=" (Alt+=) which initiates searching with the content of the currently selected field.
  • The "Letter" printing mode enables you to use formulas, not only field references. With cross-table summing and counting formulas you can now easily generate various statistical reports in that mode. The "Insert Data Field" dialog boxes were improved.
  • The "Show All" button has been added to the main toolbar. It corresponds to the "Tools > Show All Records" command and causes removing all search criteria and displaying all records.
  • You can now freely convert fields between the "Text"/"Numeric" and "Long Text" types. Previously this caused resetting the contents of the converted fields.
  • Fixed issue concerning slow saving of very large DBF files with memo fields. Saving might be now tens of times (or more) faster for large DBFs.
  • When saving a new DBF file "Memo" field type can be now generated from "Text" and "Numeric" fields. Previously the explicit use of the "Long Text" field was required.
  • Records in DBF files marked as "deleted" are imported and displayed as records with the default "selected" flag set. Similarly, that flag causes saving a given record in a DBF file as "deleted".
  • Fixed bug concerning missing information about exceeding the max number of tables and "Long Text" and "Images/Files" fields in the GS-Base *.zip databases. Each such item corresponds to one stream in a 32bit zip file and their total number can not exceed 65,535. To process a larger number of memo fields, GS-Base can still use DBF files.
  • The "2-mins" and "3-mins" values on the "AutoSave" and "AutoClose" lists in the "Options" dialog box were switched. Additionally, those combo boxes are now replaced by edit fields.
  • Fixed bug concerning embedding "Long Text" fields when using the "Letter" printing mode. (The fields weren't printed correctly.)
  • The formatting commands were added to the table/form context menu.
  • A few other minor bug fixes and data security improvements.

New in GS-Base 11.0.1 (Jun 7, 2013)

  • Improved/fixed storing of files with names containing non-ascii characters. (Previously the file names might not be displayed correctly when exploring/browsing the database zip files outside GS-Base, e.g. in Windows Explorer.)
  • Bug fixes and other minor display and editing improvements.

New in GS-Base 10.0 (Dec 12, 2012)

  • A new "Database Explorer" pane was added. It displays the database structure: tables, field names, types, filtering status and special field functions. Field and table re-arrangements should be now even faster and more convenient. (Tip: right-click it to review the available options/commands and double-click to setup a given field).
  • A new "Find & Replace" toolbar with much more options to perform full-text searching and replacing. Modified "Search" dialog boxes; improved help file; better optimized flicker-free repainting of record tables, forms and pivot tables; opening files in all supported formats via the drag-and-drop operations.
  • Regular expressions with back references were added to both filtering functions and full-text searching functions. More information on RegEx along with examples is available in the "Searching records" help topic and in the "Full Text Searches" help topic.
  • Bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 9.1.1 (Apr 4, 2012)

  • This update fixes a bug concerning exporting files in the Excel XML format.

New in GS-Base 9.1 (Mar 22, 2012)

  • Changes:
  • Additional data validation for numeric fields. Incorrect data entered in a numeric field is rejected, not accepted as null/0.
  • Bug fixes:
  • The auto-conversion field property is not available for numeric fields.
  • If (after copying some fields in a table view and) before executing the "Paste" command a user leaves some selected range as a target range and if the target column is sorted then GS-Base may hang after executing the "Paste" command.

New in GS-Base 9.06 (Mar 2, 2012)

  • This is a maintenance update fixing a few bugs.

New in GS-Base 9.0 (Feb 2, 2012)

  • All database fields (of all tables) are now edited in one window
  • New field properties: "Calculation", "Validation", "Conversion", "Auto-increment"
  • Statistical information displayed for each field (means, medians, quartiles, breakdown)
  • Minor bug fixes

New in GS-Base 8.2 (Jul 25, 2011)

  • New printing options: improved label printing, new print setup.
  • GS-Base can now use an optional *.gsb file extension for its database *.zip files.
  • Improved object/image (inserting and) handling.
  • More format types displayed as graphics in binary fields.
  • Entering both formatted and unformatted numbers and dates
  • as filters in the "Search" dialog box.
  • Using the "Equal" searching mode as the default mode for numeric fields.
  • A new "Edit > Convert Field > Replace Substrings" command performing table-based, batch character/substring substitutions for all records at once.
  • Significantly smaller setup file size after removing the older, previously bundled graphics/jpeg library.
  • Various bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 8.1 (May 12, 2011)

  • Main new features and changes:
  • Using multiple proc. cores when filtering records and updating calculated fields. The number of cores (that GS-Base is allowed to use) can be specified in the "Options dialog" box. (+1 core = +~100% faster.)
  • Significant speed improvements concerning the "cross-table" functions (10-15x for plain pattern searches and much more for the vlookup_ex non-pattern searches where binary searches can be applied).
  • New cross-table functions.
  • New "Edit > Convert > String To Standard Date String" command.
  • The "Wrap text" alignment option now changes the way the standard fields are edited. The edit control switches over to the multline edit mode and performs wrapping also without using Ctrl+End.
  • Various bug fixes.

New in GS-Base 8.0 (Apr 13, 2011)

  • A new file format: GS-Base 8.0 uses *.zip files containing tables of records as plain comma-delimited *.txt files, memo fields as either *.txt or *.rtf documents and inserted images and files in their own native formats. The self-describing structure of zip-subfolders enables you to easily and safely view and modify those zip archives even without GS-Base (which includes modifying records, adding/deleting tables, memos, images and files that can be inserted by a simple drag-and-drop operations). Those zip files can also store any number of files not used to GS-Base.
  • 12 million rows.
  • Pivot tables. (Up to 12 million rows x 2047 columns.)
  • Form views, better configurable splitters.
  • New formulas in calculated fields: cross-table summarizing and counting.
  • Definable and searchable record flags.
  • Stronger (standard) encryption protecting contents of every field type.
  • Significantly increased speed of many functions.
  • A lot of improvements concerning editing functions.
  • Better file shortcut support for both plain text and binary ("Images/Files") fields.

New in GS-Base 7.4.0 (Nov 30, 2010)

  • New features and changes:
  • An optional date picker and calendar displayed when editing date fields.
  • You can turn it on/off via the "Options Settings Use date picker" option.
  • The "Editing field contents" help section contains a list of key shortcuts
  • used with that control.
  • Changing the order of tables in a database.
  • Added keyboard shortcuts for the "Move Field Up/Down" and "Move Table Up/Down" commands.

New in GS-Base 7.3.0 (Aug 27, 2010)

  • New features and changes:
  • Page / print mode templates.
  • Saving a single table or all tables as PDF.
  • Saving the view/pane configuration.
  • Batch records updates (adding, updating or deleting records based on comparison with an external table/file).
  • Changed the way scrolling is handled and how panes are synchronized (to
  • how it's been done in GS-Calc).
  • Selecting multiple records via row headings.
  • New (more detailed) warning/error messages concerning incorrect (too small
  • or too large) page margins.
  • A number of bug fixes and other minor changes.

New in GS-Base 7.2.1 (Jul 2, 2010)

  • Fixes two bugs concerning file attachments in sent messages:
  • limited account users can only send files that are writable in their account;
  • in some systems and for some smtp servers larger attachments might not be sent correctly.
  • In both cases GS-Base didn't display any warning or error message.

New in GS-Base 7.2 (Apr 29, 2010)

  • Fixed a keyboard bug and a memory leak occuring when displaying and printing file icons in binary fields.

New in GS-Base 7.1 (Aug 2, 2008)

  • new import/export options
  • GUI changes
  • printing letters