Productivity Sauce

If you're toying with the idea of creating a document management solution using OpenOffice.org Base, you don't have to start from scratch. Sergio Corato, the developer of the nifty FastMailMerge extension, has released a beta version of a simple document management database built with OpenOffice.org Base.

Although this is a pretty bare-bones database, its core functionality covers all the basics. You can create multiple clients and attach an unlimited number of documents which are neatly organized into separate folders. Note, though, that the database doesn't store the documents, but only their absolute paths. You can also select any document and open it in an appropriate application (the current version supports only OpenOffice.org files and PDF documents). Of course, you probably wouldn't want to use the database as your main document management tool, but it provides a great starting point for building your own customized tool. The macros used in the database can come in particularly handy, as they offer a few useful techniques that you can use in your solution.