When you open a set of books (also referred to as a database) without using a server, the database is opened with single-user access. We will now go through the details of opening a database with single-user access, using a demonstration database as an example.
When NV2 is installed, a demonstration database is also installed in c:/nv/demobooks/database.nv2, assuming c:/nv is the NewViews installation folder. Notice that NewViews uses the forward slash character, i.e. /, as a separator in file paths and that NewViews databases have the file type ".nv2". Do not use the backslash character in file paths. It is generally simpler to press the <F3> key on the file field to pick databases from a file explorer. Here are step-by-step instructions for creating a login row and opening the demonstration database.
Insert a row in the login table.
To insert a row issue the Edit Insert command. There are also other ways to insert a row in an NV2 table. For example you can just press <Insert>, or issue the Edit Append command. There are also equivalent <Alt> and <Ctrl> key commands.
Position on the file field and press <F3>.
When you press <F3>, a file explorer pops up so you can pick a database file. By default, the file explorer is positioned on the installation folder so the demobooks sub-folder should be visible. Click the plus box on the demobooks sub-folder to display its files, and position on the file database.nv2. Press <Select>, or just <double-click> on the database.nv2 file.
Note, instead using <F3>, you can type c:/nv/demobooks/database.nv2 directly into the file field. But <F3> is faster and reduces typing errors. <F3> can be used on many fields to assist with data entry.
Position on the user field and enter a user name.
You may have noticed that when you added the login row the user was already set to ADMINISTRATOR. This is the default and you may as well leave it set to ADMINISTRATOR for the purpose of this example.
However, if you do enter a user name, you cannot use <F3>. On most fields you can press <F3> for assistance, but not on the user field. If NV2 were to present a list of users for the database, it would be a security breach. So you have to enter a user name by typing it in. Also, you don't have to worry about whether to use upper or lower case characters because user names are always converted to upper case.
Position on the state field and change it to open.
The state field displays whether a database is currently closed or open. You open a database by changing the value of the field to open. You can type in open but we recommend that you get in the habit of pressing <F3>. In this case the popup window will display only two values, i.e. closed and open, but <F3> is still faster and less error-prone in general.
You may be wondering what happens if you change the state field back from open to closed. The answer is that the database will be closed. Of course, when you have a database open there are other ways of closing it that are used more often, but changing the state to closed does work.
The database is open.
Changing the state to open opens the database and displays it in a separate window. You now have two windows open, one displaying the workstation and one displaying the demobooks database. Both may appear in the Windows task bar.
You can now explore the demobooks database.
Close the database.
The easiest way to close a database is to click the close button in the upper-right corner of the database window. You can also switch back to the workstation using the window task bar, and change the state of the corresponding login row to closed.
If you click on the close button in the upper-right corner of the workstation window itself, then this will shut down NewViews, automatically closing all databases.