If you’re looking for a way to make sense of complex business data, MUSE may be the tool for you. MUSE blends elements of spreadsheet and database software into a unique program that lets you explore multidimensional data in a variety of ways. Not only does MUSE allow you to manipulate your data but its natural query language also lets you find the data you need, with a surprisingly simple ad hoc method.
Musing Over Data
MUSE's extraordinary flexibility makes it useful for the exploratory phase of data analysis — when you're not quite sure what you're looking for. By contrast, canned reports from traditional database programs generally offer too much or too little information at this stage.
Moreover, MUSE lets you analyze and manipulate your data without ever thinking in terms of traditional database reports or complex spreadsheet formulas. If you’re a marketing manager, for example, you can import several spreadsheets containing multiproduct sales data and easily compare sales of one product line with another, or last year's sales with this year’s sales of a particular line. MUSE accomplishes these tasks with ease; the same tasks in a traditional database or spreadsheet program would require users to expend considerable time and effort.
The most fascinating aspect of MUSE is its natural query language. In the previous scenario, the marketing manager could simply type, “What are sales for cashmere for Barney's for January?" MUSE is able to interpret such a query and provide the appropriate data.
Play by the Books
To acquire and manipulate data with MUSE, you work within five environments. You’ll spend most of your time manipulating data in the WorkBook, which uses a spreadsheetlike row-and-column format. In corporate sites (the primary' market for MUSE), WorkBooks generally acquire their data from DataBooks, MUSE’s database environment, which stores data in tables. You can also import data into a WorkBook from spreadsheet programs in Excel 3.0, WKS, WK1, DBF, DIF, and SYLK file formats and from database programs in text-file formal (fixed-field or comma-, tab-, or single-space-delimited).
The third environment is a script-writing window, in which you enter English-language queries and view the results. A charting window lets you chart data in a variety of basic 2-D, 3-D, and animated formats. The fifth environment is the program's dictionary, an internal language reference that enables MUSE to interpret your queries.
In addition to basic language elements, the MUSE dictionary includes definitions of virtually every unit of weight, measure, and currency on earth. If you want to know how much change you’ll get back in lira if you pay for a $1.25 item with 50 francs, for example, MUSE can tell you (9,359.45 lira). You can beef up MUSE’s query-interpreting powers by supplementing its central dictionary with your own context-specific dictionaries.
The Hard Part
The ease with which you can acquire and manipulate data from within MUSE is impressive. However, getting data from your company’s database into the program's DataBooks, where users can access it and pull it into their WorkBooks, is difficult. Typically, this process requires a good deal of planning and record organizing and at least the assistance, if not the total involvement, of systems professionals and consultants.
Organizations are likely to collect data in a central database; peel off summaries; and load them into MUSE DataBooks, which are made available on network servers (MUSE gives you the option of pass word-protecting sensitive company information). Corporations with SQL databases can take advantage of MUSE’s Clear Access scripts, which let users load data directly into DataBooks from a mainframe database.
Several DataBooks can be open simultaneously and shared on a network. For this to occur, however, users must open DataBooks in read-only mode. The drawback to this approach is that when it comes time to update a DataBook, you have to bring down the entire system.
A powerful linking feature lets you create connections among tables in a single DataBook as well as among DataBooks themselves. By linking a table of sales data by city to a table of cities by sales region, for example, users can query MUSE to generate a list of sales by region. MUSE searches the DataBooks and answers simple queries in the script window.
More-complex data analysis occurs in the WorkBooks. Although WorkBooks outwardly resemble spreadsheets, their internal structure is quite different. Because row and column labels in MUSE define data categories rather than cells. you can rearrange your data in a variety of ways simply by dragging rows and columns around.
Because WorkBooks are multidimensional, you can assign data to rows, columns, pages, and chapters. Each of these dimensions can be “primary" or “secondary" resulting in as many as eight dimensions per WorkBook,
English-language queries make data acquisition easy, but you must structure queries correctly. Fortunately, the syntax is straightforward, and MUSE's QuickStart, tutorial, and handbook do an excellent job of explaining the procedure. Designing complex queries that pull data out of multiple tables in a DataBook, however, is probably a task better left to developers, because syntax-related problems are likely to occur.
Confusing Quirks
MUSE provides a host of powerful features, but the program is not without its weaknesses. One is that text items are limited to 999 characters each — considerably fewer characters than the text fields in 4th Dimension and other Mac database programs are equipped to accommodate. This can cause problems if you try to import large text fields from these programs into MUSE DataBooks and WorkBooks.
In addition, several MUSE interface elements are a bit strange and confusing. Using brackets or braces around the name of a category as you create a query script causes MUSE to display a pick-list window that contains all the data items in that category, a valuable shortcut that saves you from creating a separate script for each category item. Unfortunately, the pick-list window doesn’t indicate the category of information you're selecting. If the script isn’t visible (and scripts are often covered by other windows), you can’t always be sure what you’re clicking on. Moreover, when you select pick-list items, the original query is altered, so you must reenter brackets or braces into the script before you can use the pick list again.
One of the program's most frustrating trails is its unconventional use of dimmed objects. In MUSE, they’re frequently active, and the manual instructs you to use them, even though Macintosh interface guidelines dictate that dimmed objects are for indicating options that are not relevant in the current context.
MUSE is a strong tool for users, but from a developer’s point of view, it needs improvement. The program limits an application designer’s ability to completely automate tasks or to insulate the innards of a MUSE system from users. In addition, developers can’t create their own buttons, entry screens, or menus.
The Bottom Line
MUSE is sure to open up new vistas to business users looking for a manageable way to access and explore corporate data. Once data has been properly laid out and organized in DataBooks, users can take advantage of a level of flexibility and ease of use that hasn't been available in traditional database and spreadsheet programs. With a bit of polish on MUSE’s interface, Occam Research is guaranteed a winner.
Benjamin, Louis Jr. (July 1992). MUSE. MacUser. (pgs. 52-53).
Occam Research Corporation
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Muse.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
