Sorry, folks, I realise my hijacking of the Todoist kanban thread with news of Ninox's latest Kanban support wasn't desperately helpful!

Frank (very sensibly) wrote:

Bill.
Would you mind opening a new thread covering Ninox? I find it appealing, I am interested in the CRM template.
The FAQ says Ninox exports to XLS, XLSX and CSV but does not state whether Ninox uses a proprietary format or something like SQL. Can you comment on that?

I believe Ninox uses its own proprietary database format, but if you'd like to find out more, I suggest e-mailing the very amiable German development team, who are very responsive. The fact that the server depends on HTTPS and runs on Windows 2008 suggests they're using some kind of web database server at the back end, but which one of the many I don't know. Ninox has a fairly well developed script language.

It first came to my attention as a potential replacement for FileMaker Pro, which we've been using for many years, but which has become extraordinarily expensive in recent years. Ninox has been making slow but steady progress for a while now, and with the latest update (with GANTT, kanban, cards, full forms etc.) is suddenly looking like a very solid alternative. One of the most attractive features from my point of view is the support for rich-text fields - and, of course, the very modest price for the standalone version(s) (macOS and iOS).

The only slightly disconcerting aspect of the standalone version is the fact that you can only make administrative changes to a database (i.e. change/delete fields, layouts etc.) from the device on which you originally created it. There appear to be good reasons for this restriction, and you can force a device change, but this oddity does occasionally result in unexpected behaviour. You can create as many views as you like on any device, however.

The price for team-focused Ninox Cloud is pretty reasonable, in my opinion, but I haven't experimented with it yet; I've been toying with the idea of setting up our own server, but given the reasonable Cloud prices, might decide to host with Ninox instead. However, I'm still getting to grips with the programming, which is not difficult. There are some very nice features, including a kind of "slide-in" view of table > subtable > subtable where you have multiple relationships in a descending hierarchy (e.g. project > subproject > task). Yes, Ninox is capably relational, although I'm not sure it meets the definition of a fully relational database. Having said that, I'm not a specialised DBMS programmer, so it looks pretty darn relational to me!

Cheers!
Bill

Looks nice. But the desktop version runs currently only on Mac, even though the server version supports only Windows. Is this (Mac workstations, Windows server) common in a business environment? Would anyone set up a Windows server in an office of Macs just to work with such a database?
https://ninoxdb.de/en/manual/ninox-server/ninox-server-installation

Similarly, Ninox Cloud runs on "any device with a web browser", which is interpreted as Windows, Mac, iOS, Android--i.e., no Linux.
https://ninoxdb.de/en/products/cloud

Anyway, nice to know that a Windows version is apparently in the works, though I've heard that before:
https://ninoxdb.de/en/forum/technical-help-5ab8fe445fe2b42b7dd39ee7/windows-version-5c475d1ede50d32e65138304


MadaboutDana wrote:

The fact that the server
depends on HTTPS and runs on Windows 2008

Thanks Bill. And thanks for the info.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Anyway, nice to know that a Windows version is apparently in the works,
though I've heard that before:
https://ninoxdb.de/en/forum/technical-help-5ab8fe445fe2b42b7dd39ee7/windows-version-5c475d1ede50d32e65138304

Oh, I hadn't seen that. This eliminates my concerns - because a Windows version would be more than welcome for the CRM I need to set up. I'd need to be able to access the database (no pun intended) both from Windows and MacOS and do not want to use the Cloud edition.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Looks nice. But the desktop version runs currently only on Mac, even
though the server version supports only Windows. Is this (Mac
workstations, Windows server) common in a business environment? Would
anyone set up a Windows server in an office of Macs just to work with
such a database?

Windows server / Mac workstations : It's mostly common in small to medium sized companies, yes, not in big ones. I've seen such setups in small business say between 10 to 40 employees, like architect offices, designers, medium sized recording studios or video/film editing rooms , etc.. Generally in places that tend to be more Mac than Windows based.

Also Linux servers + Mac workstations is quite common in some video editing studios.

Skywatcher wrote:

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
Looks nice. But the desktop version runs currently only on Mac, even
>though the server version supports only Windows. Is this (Mac
>workstations, Windows server) common in a business environment? Would
>anyone set up a Windows server in an office of Macs just to work with
>such a database?

Windows server / Mac workstations : It's mostly common in small to
medium sized companies, yes, not in big ones. I've seen such setups in
small business say between 10 to 40 employees, like architect offices,
designers, medium sized recording studios or video/film editing rooms ,
etc.. Generally in places that tend to be more Mac than Windows based.

As you say, Skywatcher, very much a small-business setup - but also very common.

Sadly, Apple's rather erratic implementation of Apple Server lost a lot of credibility after they scrapped Xserves, and a lot of previously Apple-based servers were swapped over to Windows Server (which is not excessively difficult to manage, generally pretty reliable, and very well documented). Indeed, one of our own Cloud (i.e. remotely hosted) servers is a Windows server, and although I'm not a seasoned server admin, it's very easy to run.

I contacted Ninox customer support asking for a Windows version.

Here's their answer (translated): "We just published a version for Android devices, a Windows version will follow soon and is planned for this year".

To my question whether "this year" means first half or second half of 2019, they replied 2 hours later: "second half".

Franz Grieser wrote:

I contacted Ninox customer support asking for a Windows version.

Here's their answer (translated): "We just published a version for
Android devices, a Windows version will follow soon and is planned for
this year".