FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Oleg Sorochinsky]

Freeware mineral collection inventory program

[Kevin Schofield]

[Peter Lemkin]

I'll let someone else 'check out how too good to be true it is'....but a general question on the 'topic'. I've been looking for a good to great collection database program - and would even be willing to pay a modest amount if it worked for me and would also allow me to modify it slightly and print labels to my liking. Anyone have any to suggest. The few I see online work only for outdated versions of Windows [and I don't usually use Windows at all] or are quite expensive - which I'd entertain if someone said it was worth it and I knew what I was getting. To develop my own from scratch I'm capable of, but don't really have the time to work on. Suggestions anyone?

[chris]

Hello,

I downloaded the application and tested it with online antiviruses. No virus nor malware was found. I tried it on my Linux computer using a tool called Wine, a utility allowing Windows programs to run on Linux.

Apparently this software looks like what it seems : a tool to store data about minerals. However some of the functionalities don't seem to work well. But as I'm not using Windows the problem could be on Wine's side.

The English speaking interface doesn't seem to be complete (remnants of Cyrillic ?). If you try it, check it against your antivirus in the first place. The good thing being the application comes within a ZIP archive which can be extracted anywhere and deleted easily if you don't like it.

Christophe

[Fiebre Verde]

There are two issues I see with these non-commercial products
1) Maintenance - Users are not entitled to get updates (bug fixing/enhancements)
2) OS Compatibility - They don't necessarily run smoothly on any OS version (Windows in this instance).
Don't get me wrong - they could very well be smartly designed with a great user interface and do a perfect job but you are basically left on your own (unless of course the programmer is a friend of yours :-))
Gérard

[Jordi Fabre]

[Jesse Fisher]

I recall that a few years back Bob Griffis was marketing a collection database called "Gneissware." I don't recall that it was very expensive, but as it was not "free ware" I would expect that customers could expect some down the road support.

[Oleg Sorochinsky]

This is Microsoft .NET Framework program. There were some remains of cyrillic, as the program works on Russian languaged operating system with Russian interface and with English interface on other systems. Check my facebook page for updated version link, as it is not possible here to post google drive link.

[R Saunders]

I was using the free minerals 3.3.8 program.or earlier,. with windows Vista on my desktop. a couple of times it said it will update with no loss of data, and did. The last time around a year ago it said the same thing and lost all my data. Could not find a way to go to a saved version. Fortunately it was pretty well copied to my word program. I just downloaded the new vs. posted and will try it.
Was their a way to go back to an earlier version? Most all is on MS word and word Pad. Thanks.

[Oleg Sorochinsky]

I can make modifications according to personal requirements for a small amount of money, and I will do modifications for free if I think those modifications will be useful to all users - so far I don`t have ideas what to add so that it is not redundant and would be useful for majority of users. Suggestions are welcome.

[Jordi Fabre]

[Oleg Sorochinsky]

https://www.mindat.org/mesg-5-446729.html

[Oleg Sorochinsky]

Updated version features CSV Export/Import. Link available on mindat message board
https://www.mindat.org/mesg-5-446729.html

[James Catmur]

If you can get the data into CSV or Excel, I have a fairly OK tool I use to do a mail merge and print labels. It parses the data, removes blanks, etc. But it is not perfect.

[rweaver]

I have used MS Access and Excel for more years then I can count. I made my own database using Access and it is easily modifiable to what ever my current needs are. Excel works great for doing labels and both databases can be passed back and forth with each other. Along with Word you can use just about any type of label on the market toady.