Mergeant, 1999 - 2006 (c)  Vivien Malerba <malerba@gnome-db.org>
___________________________________________________________


****  WARNING  ****
*    
*    This program is still considered as beta software, and thus it might
*    corrupt your data. So do not use this software for production
*    purposes. See the BUGS and TODO files for more information.
*
*******************


Mergeant is a program which helps administer a DBMS database using the gnome-db
framework (see http://www.gnome.org/gnome-db/ for more information about
gnome-db). 
The program specifically requires the Libgda/Libgnomedb libraries, along with the more 
common GTK+, GConf, Libxml, Libglade and Libgnomeui.

Mergeant is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License V2.0
(read the COPYING file provided with this package).



****  DISCLAIMER  ****

    Mergeant comes with NO WARRANTY AT ALL!!! Take a look at
    the COPYING file for more info. Basically, if it breaks something
    (for example your beloved DB), or whatever you are not happy with,
    IT'S NOT MY FAULT!



**** Compiling and Installing is (relatively) easy ****

    Before trying to compile or use Mergeant, make sure you have a fully 
    configured and working gnome-db (and libgda) installation.    

    Configuring Mergeant is a simple matter or runing the "configure" script
    (see configure --help for more information on all the options)

    So to configure and build Mergeant, do something like: 
    ./configure 
		AND 
    make 
    make install   <-- probably as ROOT depending of $prefix



**** Using the program ****

- Calling the program with the --help argument will give you all the possible
  options.
- Mergeant, as any Libgda based program, defines data sources to access any given
  database. At any time you can declare, modify or remove datasources.
- The first time you connect to a DBMS, Mergeant will have to fetch all the 
  information needed, and this will take some time; this information is then
  stored in a file located in ${HOME}/.libgda file to be re-used for later
  sessions



**** Example ****

Mergeant comes with a sample Sales database stored in a SQLite file which should appear as
the "SalesTest" data source. To use it simply run "mergeant SalesTest".


Do not hesitate to mail me some comments (bugs, features you would like to
see,...)