Handling hierarchical data with new Database Manager

In my work I use FastReport designer, and this tool can represent Relations tables as nested tables

This approach is very convenient.
Is that what you mean?

@BiBo
Thanks for the information. Yes, this would represents a way around the issue that we have been discussing. I appreciate solutions much more than resistance.
On the other hand, I don’t see why this same convenience cannot be built into Wappler’s Database Manager. Wappler offers alternative avenues to everything else.

I am hoping they get the best product possible. Going to a second app to translate the entry is not a good technique, especially since there is such widespread use of MySQL. I’m getting smarter every day, thanks to contributions such as yourself.

Believe me, the more artists that hear about Wappler, the more critiques like mine it is going to receive.

On a side issue. Are your services available for educational purposes when I decide to begin my new project?
Jaydigital

@Gearge @psweb @JonL @Bibo

After learning more about the Database Manager, the difference between hierarchical data and relational data, and your desire for Wappler to be a visual tool for developers, I am more convinced that ever the Wappler must contain a way to visually present the database structure to a front-end developer.

I have been through psweb’s videos for using a graphic tool to visualize a database from columns and it just seems impossible to visualize a layout for constructing a large relational database that must address the various products, customers, promotions, pricing, orders, deliver, and payment options, etc. of an e-commerce website for a commercial distributor from any industry.

I strongly recommend that Wappler look for a way to address data in the same way that Bootstrap addresses page layout. There needs to be a way for designers to visualize how they can enter the monstrous amount of content they must deal with. And, Wappler also needs to provide a way for the developer’s client to visualize how they will use the website. Many of mine have wanted to take over the maintenance of their own website since their data is constantly changing.

I have yet to see a graphical UI for a RDBMS that presents data the way you want.

When I’m feeling lazy or when I am designing something more complex, I sometimes use DBdiagram which has a free version. I build all of my tables and relationships I need and then just export the SQL and import in to whichever DB I am using (i.e MySQL).

I think it’s not about the schema generation but the data visualization.

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True, I do enjoy writing in DBML though, similar in a way to JSON

Same here Jon. No offence Jay. What you are looking for simply does not exist in the world of RDBMS so implementing such a feature in to Wappler would be immensely time consuming and essentially the re-invention of a wheel that is not broken. It is what it is sir. As I said no offence intended!

@JonL

I have used this successfully for years. It can be connected to Magento’s MySQL Database and Admin (and many other platforms) remotely through an Internet bridge connector.

I can enter, see, proof and edit all of the categories and sub-categories on the left. I can enter, see. proof and edit all of the products on the right - including description, images, videos, pricing, customers, and promotions.

I can maintain multiple websites from the same connection with different catalogs.

I can import and export full databases from one database to another.

I can filter and relate the products to a group or to one another and feature whichever I want to on whatever page in the website I want to.

And the entire website is composed of just three page templates - home, product, and category.

I can support dozens of hosted clients (nationwide) from a single remote station as a one-person company.

And, I can see what I’m doing as I do it. because I can link directly to the live product page in a browser at the same time I am working on it .

I believe Wappler could do the same thing, or even incorporate it as it does the Docker and Bootstrap.

Jaydigital

I see where the confusion comes from.

So Wappler(and its database manager) is not and probably never be what you showed there.

What you can do with Wappler is build that app to manage content in a hierarchical way.

Wappler is meant to build what you showed there. It’s not meant to be that.

@JonL

Yes. If I am to use Wappler for the website’s construction, I would just want to use its visual tools for the look, feel and functionality and then see if I could get the database connected directly to my MySQL database to deliver the data.

But it would be even better if the Wappler was able to manage the entire website. Right now, I have to design and build a Magento website using the back-end admin and theme for look, feel and functionality - and then load and manage the data using eMagicOne’s Store Manager.

Then, on top of it all, the Magento is open source and eMagicOne has a very low-cost, one-time, license fee.

If Magento had not been bought by Adobe, I would never even gone looking for Wappler.

Jaydigital

Magento and Wappler, apples and oranges.
You use Wappler to build Magento. Wappler is not Magento.

As I said you have some sort of confusion on the basics.

Have you tried a Headless CMS that connects directly to your mysql database? It has an admin backend to manage data in a user friendly way.

Yeah the way I do it is, before I start a massive project where I am going to have a big database structure that the site/app is completely reliant on is to first design my database in a visual way, in an app that is not even made for databases at all called MindNode, its my version of sketching out a whiteboard of what i will need before i write even one line of code or start making any database.

Then I would normally go create the entire structure through phpMyAdmin, and when it is done and i am doing the relations side I often switch to the SQL Designer built into phpMyAdmin just to get a visual representation of the table relationships.

So the above is when I am doing 95% of my normal sites/apps.

However when using an ecommerce platform such as OpenCart which is the only one i have ever really used to its full potential, then I do not even worry about the database that OpenCart is adding in the background, I just go and use the application as provided and create products and categories for the products etc. It does all the background SQL stuff on it’s own.
That however is a very unique situation and platform though, and I understand that the same ease of use will never be available in Wappler, DreamWeaver, NaviCat, phpMyAdmin etc. as it is entirely specific to how the developer has developed OpenCart in this circumstance.

To be very honest, just because I have Wappler for most of my work does not mean I stop using other tools that are more specifically geared towards what I need. Like my massive africa collection website, needed a blog, I installed WordPress in that directory to give the Blog functionality as there was no need to re invent the wheel.

Wappler’s database connector tool will at some stage offer a more visual way of doing things, but more like the phpMyAdmin database designer tab I currently use and the likes from tools like NaviCat. To be honest though I doubt Wappler will ever be as easy as WordPress is for a Blog, or as easy as OpenCart/Magento is for an ecommerce platform, or a easy as your database tool is for databases.
It is however nice to have the ability in Wappler to do much of the database stuff, and it is nice to know that if I want I could build WordPress itself using Wappler, and if I wanted I could build OpenCart using Wappler too, the same can not be said the other way round, I could not build Wappler in WordPress nor OpenCart.

@jaydigital, with what I have seen of your particular situation I think that would already be achievable inside Wappler pretty easily.

  1. You need to find a way to get your thousands of hours of database related work out of it’s current platform. Maybe export as CSV, and import data into a normal MySQL Database.
  2. You then need to use Wappler to access that data and to create your look and feel and theme and where all your data is used.
  3. Publish and you are done.

Last Step then is managing it all, allowing your family to add stuff and images etc.

  1. You need to create an administration section inside wappler that is securely available to your users.
  2. You build it exactly as you want it to work.
  3. Train your users how to use it.

So it is a fairly hefty task, one I do for almost every website.
When a client asks me for a website, my first question is do you want a website that I manage for you or a website you manage yourself, as if you would like to manage it yourself then it is going to be 4 times the price as I have to build an entire admin GUI for you to do it.
If it is me managing it I can just open Wappler and do what I want to.

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That looks like a nested (hierarchical) grid view pulling the data from the database and displayed with a CRUD form, not really database management. You can create this webpage using Wappler. I can see there are some SQL command buttons, but what you are showing here is just a CRUD form. Your Categories/Products hierarchy is just joins in your database.

Certainly don’t want to mix things up here, but based on this exact image, looks like you are needing just nested CRUD grids rather than needing this functionality in the Database Manager.

Are you after products such as DBeaver @jaydigital?

https://dbeaver.com/features/

@psweb @turn3636, @Akayy, @JonL

Thanks guys. Now that is all helpful.

I’m not really interested in building Magento - just competitive e-commerce websites to deliver my syndicated e-commerce services. But database management/replication is crucial to the “syndicated” part.

And I think that I will personally concentrate on psweb’s idea of replicating my personal project’s database to a standard MySQL version with the hope that Wappler can connect to and use it.

Jaydigital

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Once you have it is a normal mysql structure then you will be sailing.

@psweb

Well, my Store Manager has the ability to export a CSV file and import it to another database. So it seems like I should start there. Do you have a particular MySQL version you recommend for the new baseline. I never work directly with a standalone database so I don’t know one from the other.

Thanks again.
Jaydigital

I personally use Maria DB 10.3 but for no particular reason other than thats what my host added to my server, I have used Maria DB 10.2 and normal MySQL 5.7 as well as many others, I personally found the Maria DB MySQL versions to just be faster which is why i now generally choose those.

@Hyperbytes is my MySQL goto guru so I wonder if he has any thoughts on versions.

MySql or Maria would be fine. Maria is just a fork from MySql