Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: eMonticello

There are five applications that I use to modify a large amount of data in the database:

a) WITPLoad - used to extract the database tables as csv files.

b) MS Access - used to manipulate and change the data. I import the data into Access, create the relationships, and use a few forms to view the data. I only use the basic functionality of MS Access: select and update queries primarily. I haven't done any work with CHS files yet.

c) MS Excel - used to pre-process certain data before importing into Access. On occasion, I find it's faster to process some data in Excel before uploading it to Access.

d) Programmer's Editor (freeware) - used as the primary text editor for MS Access. I will often need to write my own code.

e) WITPChck - used to check the data integrity of the database tables to ensure that I didn't muck up the data. Although I've never had a problem (I loaded the static tables such as Leader Descriptions, Ship Class descriptions, etc. into Access so I'm working with Descriptions instead of numbers), I do run it as a QC check.

There are other database and spreadsheet applications available that will do the same job.

If you're doing something quick and dirty. applications a,c, & e.

I can go into more detail, if needed.