Just looking for input on what database language and/or program one of you might choose based on my sample scenario of needs below..... then.... if I may ask it in this forum - the programming language of what would "play nice" with such database language and/or program...

heres the long scenario rundown...

* Lets say I had hundreds to thousands of "contacts" with up to 15 fields for each contact that might include phone #s/birthday/email addresses/work schedule/hours of that person/and other contacts that they are linked/related to.. (so i want more than just a PIM addr book)

* Lets say I needed to be updating it weekly with new contacts or editing existing (so I want easy update ability by me and only me (not the person searching the database explained below)

* Lets say I wanted to have the ability to "now and then" build a report that shows when I last touched base with a particular contact in the address book so I can reconfirm their details. (the report might spit back the contacts that havent been contacted more than 2 years)


now the part of my needs scenario that separates it from JUST an internal database.....

* Lets say I want all the info in a searchable/filterable web/online database that basically behaves like an internal search engine to some degree.. Where I can just type the first name of the contact and it spits out a results page with matching results - or if one types enough of the name where theres only one match it straight goes to the individual contact's page itself.. or if I typed "Mark H" with quotes it would show Mark Holman and Mark Hoggmier in a 2 item results page

- in addition I want to be able to type Mark and have a drop-down menu next to the search input box with all the cities to filter the Mark's out of...

- also reference the "related to field mentioned above" - if for example Joanna Hill's "contact page" came up it would show a clickable hyperlink to Mark Hill's contact page since the two are related as brother/sister...

* Lastly, what if I want to restrict access where some fields wouldnt be shown or searchable (depending on either their login or the URL i give them) - yes I might want to pw protect the online database to some degree..

* and down the road, what if I wanted to build an .EXE file (app) that mimiced the online database website but did it in more of an "offline fashion"... Where it either grabs the data from the online database (or worst case, a downloaded file containing the database raw data)..



Ok that was quite descriptive.. :-) but I feel that If I get descriptive enough someone here might go.. oh thats definitely a "SQL and ASP" type job.. or.. "why dont you just use Zoho creator".. Any particular things pop in your mind based on my requirements? Seeing where I want to start and end up with my database I welcome any input.

Thanks in advance for reading all this! Happy to have found the forums here.

C

Thats a detailed post, but I can only provide a brief pointer. Any database thats lightweight can serve your needs like derby or MySQL, but most of your requirements map into a lot of application/UI logic/flow. Since you mentioned web enabled, I think your options are down to php+mysql (or anything that you are familiar with like ruby on rails). As for the rest there are enough AJAX libraries like jquery that gwt toolkit that give you lot of UI functionality that can be tied to the db backend.

But I do see a contradiction, where you mention building an executable form of your app.