Morfik v2 uses by default the FreePascal compiler to compile your web application. You can
however tell it to use Delphi instead. I haven't done it myself, but I don't see a problem
using DBISAM as long as you instantiate the dbisam datasets at run time and write your own
code to access the tables. Of course this means you can't use the Morfik database design
tools to set up your table connections for the forms and reports. That's why using ODBC
with DBISAM is going to be so much simpler.

Brent

I have got a little further on this for anyone who is interested.

ODBC DBISAM -> Morfik works a treat, I got data out of tables onto web pages in a couple
of minutes in a demo situation ... with a couple of painful caveats:

1. You can only do read-only views. All Morfik's "live" editing architecture seems to be
strongly coupled to Firebird, so if you want users editing DBISAM data you have to write
your own UPDATE / INSERT / DELETE layer (

2. Morfik (because of the way the web works) requires quite a few bits of magic to handle
MEMO fields and PHOTO/BLOB fields ... I didn't go too far into this, but loading these
fields via DBISAM was also a problem. I only spent a couple of hours on this, so I really
can't say whether it was just me being useless, or whether the problems were more
deep-seated. It may well just be that I need to add AUTOGUID fields to the database tables
(Morfik uses these behind the scenes somehow)

Adam

Adam,

<< 1. You can only do read-only views. All Morfik's "live" editing
architecture seems to be strongly coupled to Firebird, so if you want users
editing DBISAM data you have to write your own UPDATE / INSERT / DELETE
layer ( >>

Is this a Delphi code layer that you need ?

<< 2. Morfik (because of the way the web works) requires quite a few bits of
magic to handle MEMO fields and PHOTO/BLOB fields ... I didn't go too far
into this, but loading these fields via DBISAM was also a problem. I only
spent a couple of hours on this, so I really can't say whether it was just
me being useless, or whether the problems were more deep-seated. It may well
just be that I need to add AUTOGUID fields to the database tables (Morfik
uses these behind the scenes somehow) >>

I'll see if I can spend a few minutes checking out their setup, and seeing
what is going on.  It may be something that can be resolved fairly quick.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

>>I'll see if I can spend a few minutes checking out their setup, and seeing
>>what is going on.  It may be something that can be resolved fairly quick.

It would be really good if you could look at this Tim, though I am doubtful how quick it
will be. Their own editable Firebird layer has to insert a number of special fields into
the database (GUIDs) which I am pretty sure are used behind the scenes to massage the java
in the browser ... none of which is terribly elegant, but they are working through the
browser layer, so I don't think there is an easy elegant solution.

I am looking to use Morfik for a couple of projects right now & am facing 3 choices:

1. write my own DBISAM layer so I can edit DBISAM data in Morfik.
2. write some Delphi code to pump DBISAM data into a Morfik/Firebird database.
3. work only with read-only DBISAM data in my Morfik web app.

--

1. would be best solution, but is the worst in terms of how little I know about how to do it.
2. is the "workable kludge" which I will probably go with for now.
3. might be an option for a few quick solutions.

... I am enjoying Morfik though, I think it has real prospects. A DBISAM layer to work
with it would be something I would pay for (like an ODBC driver), perhaps other people
would too??

Adam

Adam,

<< It would be really good if you could look at this Tim, though I am
doubtful how quick it will be. >>

As far as I could find out, you cannot use a different layer than the
Firebird layer, apart from ODBC.  They seem to have the product pretty well
wed to that one database engine.

<< 1. write my own DBISAM layer so I can edit DBISAM data in Morfik. >>

As far as I can see, the only way to interact with an external database is
through the ODBC driver, and by using a TSQLQuery (their object) for
querying, inserting, updating, deleting, etc. data.  IOW, you have to do it
all by hand, and there's really no way to automate it.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com