Rutba Data Files 2.17 and 2.18: people and roles, and tables linked to PostgreSQL and MySQL

Data Files began as one file on one computer, which is right for a sole trader and wrong the day a second person needs the same records. Rutba Office 2.17, on 23 October, and 2.18, on 25 October, are about that day.

People and roles

Protect this database, in the side panel, makes the person who chooses it the database’s Admin, and from then on the database asks who you are as it opens. The Admin adds people, each with a role and a password of their own.

• What a role may do. Each table can be hidden, read only, open to adding, open to changing, or open to deleting too, and a role can be limited to the records its own person added. A field can be hidden or read only, and each query, form, report and print template shown or hidden.
• See as. The Admin sees the database exactly as a role would before anybody relies on it, and goes back with one click.
• Held underneath. A query, a report, a print template and a form’s list read only what the role may see, so a hidden table cannot leak through a report built on it. Who added, changed and deleted each record is kept.

Tables linked to a database engine

Access users know this as linked tables. Link to a database engine asks for an address, a database and an account on PostgreSQL, MySQL or MariaDB, then which tables to link. From then on the engine keeps the records, every change is saved straight to it, and every computer linked to the same engine works on the same records. Microsoft SQL Server is listed as coming.

• Nothing secret in the file. The file keeps only how to reach the engine. The password is kept in this computer’s protected store, and since 2.20 in the profile’s own keystore, which opens only in that profile on this computer.
• Live. A linked table on screen is read again every 15 seconds and changes only when the engine’s records did, never under the cell you are typing in.
• Like any other table. Queries join a linked table with your own, and reports, print templates and forms read it. An engine out of reach says why, and the rest of the database still opens.

A copy that works offline, and tables from elsewhere

A live link is no use on a train. Since 2.18 a linked table can be kept as a copy in the file instead. You work on it with the engine out of reach, and it catches up when the engine is back, or at once with Sync now. When a record was changed at both ends, the engine’s version is kept and the one from this computer is listed beside it, so nothing is lost without your seeing it.

A table can also be read from a CSV file or a spreadsheet, from another Data Files database, or from a web address that answers with JSON, page after page. It is read again every 15 minutes, or every 5 or 60, or only when you ask, and kept in the file as a copy. Since 2.20 a database’s sources and links are used only once this computer allows them, and a kept password or key goes only to the host it was typed for, so a database someone sends you cannot point your saved password somewhere else.

Forms, reports and the rough edges

• Form Design (2.18). A form’s fields are moved and sized on its grid with the mouse or the arrow keys, labels renamed, and fields taken off and put back.
• Subforms are changed where they stand, and a new line typed at the foot is added to the record shown.
• Report totals choose Sum, Average, Count or nothing for each number.
• Imports that read like a person. 12/04/2025 is read as 12 April unless a day above 12 says otherwise, and Import says how it read the dates. Amounts with a money sign come in as currency, and a CSV’s own ID numbers are kept.
• Refusals that name names. “Products has no record 99, so Product cannot point at it”, and a delete says which records point at the one going.
• Related fields by name. The datasheet shows Milk, not 1.

The office.rutba.io guides go further: how to give each person their own permissions in a database, and how to work on PostgreSQL or MySQL tables from a desktop database, whichever program you use.