I have a database that on a yearly basis is renewed. I have to save some of the data and forward it to a new form for the next year. The easy way to do this in Q&A was to  use the copy command and copy just the shell to the new database. Then I could copy in select data, introducing only the data that I need for the upcoming year.

In Sesame I can copy the form element using the form layout elements  and the  resulting batch operation gives  a new database within the old application. I would like to Export the shell into a stand alone database so that I could copy and manipulate the data for my new app.

I would not want to go and manually recreate all of the fields each year. So, I am looking for an analog way of creating a new shell for a new database.

I haven't come accross any specific way of handling this in Sesame. This means only one thing - Get creative!

Emptying an old database and renaming it would be too
unimaginative...  Its like having a new Ferrari and resticting yourself to 20 mph.

Actually, what I was looking for was described in the User Manual - fancy that! It involves deleting all of the records in an existing database and saving it under a new name. Then opening the existing database and doing a merge with the shell of the newly saved form. Then you need to open both forms at the same time.

At this point you need to run a retreive spec on the old form containing data to find the records that are needed to be copied. Once this is done the copy process can be set up and started. Care has to be taken to define the source and destination forms.

The copy process was nearly instantaneous.

At that point you can save the new database as is or trim and remove the old form. 

OK. I'm begining to get a feel for working in Sesame.