Using read-only licences

If some of the users on your network only need to search, view and print data without adding or editing records, a read-only licence is the cheapest way of supporting them.

Installation

Installing a read-only licence

Install the licence in the Licences page of the Cardbox Server control.

Installing the Cardbox client for a read-only user

Simply install Cardbox 3.0: do not install any licences and do not tell it to borrow a licence from the Cardbox Server.

Operation

When a user connects to the Cardbox Server and opens a database, and that user does not have a Professional Edition licence of his own, the Cardbox Server has to use one of the licences you have installed into it.

1. If the database file (.FIL) and the format file (.FMT) are both marked as being read-only at the operating system level (for example, through Windows Explorer) then the Cardbox Server will use a read-only licence if one is available (failing that, it will use a read/write licence; failing that, it will refuse access).
2. If the database has profiles, and the user is using a read-only profile, the Cardbox Server will use a read-only licence (with the same fallbacks as before).
3. Otherwise the Cardbox Server will use a read/write licence, and if no such licence is available then it will refuse the request to open the database.

Read-only profiles

The commonest configuration is to have a read-only profile which is marked as the default profile (so that Cardbox chooses it automatically without having to ask the user) and which has no password. This means that an ordinary user will not have to do anything at all, and will get straight into the database with the default read-only profile; while users who need read/write access will use File > User Profile to switch to a read/write profile.

This isn't the only way that things can be set up. You could have no default profile at all, and just tell your users which profile they should choose when opening the database.

What makes a profile read-only

A user profile is read-only if it prohibits the following actions:

• Add new records
• Add records from file
• Edit records
• Batch edit
• Delete records
• Batch delete
• Store kept selections
• Define custom sequence
• Edit native format
• Create & edit alternative formats
• Edit "!" formats
• Add words to the spelling list
• Edit the spelling list

If any of these actions (even just one action) is permitted then the profile counts as read/write.