Frequently AsKed Questions

	How can I move the buttons in the panels from bottom to top?
	Settings for placements of buttons: `maxbase.mnu`, 2nd line reads South. Change it to North, East, West to see what is the best for you. (North and South are the two that work well now).

	How can I avoid users messing up with my db?
	If you want to customize MaxBase, remember that if you put a dash ("-" without the quotes) on a button label in the maxbase.mnu text file, that button will be disabled (useful if you want to put the db in a computer on a fair or on a show room, or avoid your cousins/sons/etc hacking it). NOTE: maxbase.mnu files for Unix and Mac (\n and \r line-terminated) are stored in maxbase..unix and maxbase..mac where * = a language (eg eng = english or ita = italian). Just copy one of them into maxbase.mnu.
	How can I translate MaxBase in my language?
	`maxbase.eng` and `maxbase.ita` can be copied/renamed to maxbase.mnu; eg if you 'copy maxbase.ita maxbase.mnu' you'll see all the text strings turning suddendly into italian words (yes I am italian). To create a new language just copy maxbase.eng into, as a n example, maxbase.de and translate all the text that's there in German. Copy maxbase.de into maxbase.mnu and your menus, labels, buttons, everything will show up in German. Don't forget to send me a copy of your maxbase.mylanguage, so I can include it in newer releases!
	I have heard that I can print and view images. How do I?
	Unzip plugins.zip (or macplug.zip or unixplug.zip) and you'll find two new buttons in the main panel after a DB has been loaded: view text/image and print. View text/image works only with dbs which have the words "image" and/or "text" in some field's name, and show an applet which sports the image for that record (field with IMAGE in its name) along with the text for that record (field with TEXT in its name). Printing is a bit easier, because you basically select some records, push the "print records" button. A new application will then pop up and allow you to customize the command to send to the printer in order to print the "printme.txt" file which has been generated and there are also some options to control the appearance of the fields which are being printed.
	How much can I customize it? Can I have two languages at once?
	MaxBase looks for plugins and .mnu files in the directory where it is launched, so you must pay attention to that (also, the position/size of the window and fonts/colo(u)rs get saved in that directory). You can use this info to make it work for you: call 'java MaxBase' from the directory where you did put a database plus its own plugins and .mnu and .ini files and you will have a database customized with those settings (.mnu, plugins, .inis). More in detail: plugin.ini -- 2 lines each plugin: the 1st is the text to show in the button, the 2nd is the command to issue when the button is pushed. maxbase.ini -- position, size of the window, number of records to be loaded at once, active query, index last used. maxbase.mnu -- menus, labels, buttons, messages, etc. If maxbase.mnu can't be found, MaxBase proceeds with the default action: english language, all buttons enabled.
	How can I reduce memory footprint for MaxBase?
	Well, I have spent a lot of time trying to optimize it. Whenever you enter one of the principal panels (Main Panel, Records Panel, Tools Panel) MaxBase makes the garbage collection mechanism turn on. As a net result, if you're experiencing memory hogging, try to switch panels and you should recover at least some of your RAM. If the above doesn't work, add as a last parameter `-gc:0` to MaxBase (works also with Sportello); if neither this helps please contact the author. `-gc:0` simply prevents those garbage collections to be kicked in, and so it can be useful also for those VM which have GC bugs.
	Why do I get an empty archive when importing from DBF files?
	Records stored in DB III files are marked as 'deleted' when they have a '' character somewhere (the exact location isn't important to our discussion); I have seen that at least in one case ALL of the records which were imported from another database did sport that '' character, effectively fooling our DBF import routines (as a side note, also Object Desktop pro DBF filter was fooled the same way), and this is probably a problem on the export routines in certain databases. So, the workaround is to provide the `-sdr:0` (it means Skip Deleted Records = 0) parameter to MaxBase prior to launching it. Warning: this way all the records marked as deleted will be imported as well, and in many circumstances you don't want this to happen (because you could have many records which you don't see with other databases for they're deleted, but they still are phisically present, and that's why this option has been defaulted to skip deleted records). After having imported an archive with the -sdr:0 switch you may have to manually delete unwanted records with MaxBase (just select the records to be deleted and press CTRL+D, or choose 'delete' from the 'data..' panel).
	Help! My archive is corrupted!
	If you are experiencing archive corruption, please follow this few steps: first of all, backup the possibly corrupted .dat file (the main archive); then, delete all of the .idx (indexes) files for that archive; finally, reload the archive. This should correct your problems. If it doesn't, e-mail the author for a possible recovery solution.