General Questions

khaled · Post by **khaled** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:12 am

Hi,

I'm quite new to AwareIM and am using the trial version. From what I've seen so far I like it and am planning to purchase once the trial expires. A few questions I have - and please accept my apologies if the questions are answered elsewhere - I did search but found nothing.

1) How can I select which database I'd like to use from the Config Tool? I am aware that AwareIM has a built in database (which I cannot name because of my limited eperience) and is compatible with a whole list of databases. But if I wanted my new business space to work with MySQL, where is the option to select it and connect?

2) Is it recommended to use the built in database with AwareIM? How is it in terms of speed and stability? How can I back up the database? There is no option that I could see within the Config Tool to backup databases.

3) I know there are options for addins to be installed - is there somewhere I can find some premade addins or am I to request them? Where can I request and what will be the cost? I am after a spell checker and auto correction.

4) Are there any developers I can contact to help me (paid, ofcourse) build my app properly?

Any assistance is appreciated and thanked in advance.

pbrad · Post by **pbrad** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:43 am

Hi Khaled,

Welcome aboard. The selection of which database you wish to use is selected during installation. Derby offers the advantage of almost zero effort installation and maintenance however my personal recommendation would be MySQL. Others may disagree but I believe that this is a very robust and cost effective database format. There are any number of mysql tools out there with Navicat being my personal favourite for viewing the database and performing maintenance and backup functions.

With respect to spell checker and auto correction, when adding rules, the config tool is highly useful in autofillling in attributes and rule syntax. If you are looking for a general spell checker, that might be something that you would need to have the AwareIM team develop for you although I have never seen the need for anything in this area beyond the existing capabilities.

There are probably a few developers that may be willing to assist you on a paid basis but you will also find that there are a number of users that will freely offer up their advice and assistance in this forum. I suspect that the more that you dive into this tool, the more hooked you will get.

Cheers,
Pete

aware_support · Post by **aware_support** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 5:04 am

Pete has already answered many questions. Here is some more info for you.

1) There is a way to change the database after the installation as well. The BIN directory of your Aware IM installation has a number of files that start with BASServer.. and have .props extension. Only one is used - the one that is named BASServer.props. This file has all the database settings. The other files have predefined settings for different databases - for example, BASServerJBossMySQL.props has settings for MySQL. So to get Aware IM to work with MySQL you need to rename BASServerJBossMySQL.props to BASServer.props and restart Aware IM. You also need to make sure that the file has correct credentials of the MySQL account. More details can be found in the Installation Guide.

2) Aware IM does not provide tools to backup the database. You have to do it using the tools of the database engine you are using. If it is Derby, you just need to backup the DATA directory. If it is any other database you need to refer to the backup tools of that database. Aware IM automatically creates and maintains two databases BASDB and BASDBTEST, so these are the databases that you need to backup.

3) You need to request the addins. We can talk separately about those, once you are ready to purchase

4) There are independent developers (some of them are active on this forum). We provide application development services as well.

tford · Post by **tford** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:31 pm

Hi Khaled,

I concur with Pete about MySql. In addition to what Pete mentioned, one major practical advantage to it is case sensitive searches.

Tom

kklosson · Post by **kklosson** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:57 pm

I've been meaning to bring this up. I'm currently building/testing with the default database. I notice that search criteria are case sensitive, so you must enter Smith vs. smith to retrieve a result. Is this a function of the database? Is there a way to control this?

Thanks

aware_support · Post by **aware_support** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:55 pm

This is the default behaviour of the database. Derby is case-sensitive, MySQL is not.