Along with WordPress, Dabble DB powers most of IT|Redux and intalio.com. This Office 2.0 alternative to Microsoft Access not only has the best user interface currently available, but the team developing it — Andrew, Avi and Colin over at Smallthought Systems — is one of the most supportive I came across in my quest for building a good Office 2.0 setup.

As proof of such responsiveness, I received access to Dabble DB’s new API for data entry yesterday, less than a month after having requested it. The good folks at Smallthought migrated one of my two Dabble DB instances to their private beta version, and stayed online to support me on a Saturday evening. They did not have to stay up too late though, for I had my first application up and running in less than three minutes. You can now submit Office 2.0 support quotes using a simple form instead of email.

By all means, this application is a trivial one, but don’t get fooled by its simplicity. What it really does is to demonstrate that Dabble DB’s vision for a working Office 2.0 alternative to Microsoft Access is possible, and not far from becoming a reality. Five years ago, I met with Adam Bosworth, who had just left Microsoft to create Crossgain. At Microsoft, Adam had lead the Access development team, and his idea for Crossgain was to create a web-based alternative. For legal and technical reasons, he could not fulfill his vision, sold his company to BEA, then moved to Google. Dabble DB should make Adam proud today, for his vision was right, even though a little bit early. It’s all about timing — as if we needed anymore proof for this.

Creating a public data entry form with Dabble DB could not be any simpler. You just click on the ‘Export’ button, select ‘FORM’, and simply copy the JavaScript code that is automatically generated for you and paste it into the HTML page where you want the form to show up. And voila! You’ve got an online form connected to your database. Colin and the rest of the gang came up with such a clean implementation that you can even change the names of your fields in the database schema, and the binding between the public form and the online database still works. What more could I ask for?

Well, a couple of things. First, I’d like to get a simple workflow process built into the database that would allow me to approve entries that are made made from a public form. Such a feature should allow me to specify whether public entries should be made available on feeds with or without prior approval by default. It should also take advantage of the new Edit mode for table columns that was released last week. That way, I could approve multiple entries at once, making my own worklfow a lot more efficient.

Also, having a way to customize the presentation of forms would be nice. Ideally, Dabble DB will come up with a form composer similar to what Wufoo offers today, but instead of having to drag and drop every single form element from a palette, a canonical form would be automatically generated from the database’s schema and the tool would let users move things around, hide some form inputs and set default values for them, and give full control over simple presentation elements such as fonts and colors through CSS-generating property fields.

I do not know how far we are from this, but I’d say that we should get pretty close by the end of the year. In the meantime, I will try to build some more sophisticated applications with Dabble DB’s new API, and see if there is a way to connect it to Wufoo. Here is a cool idea for a mashup!