A new free alternative to phpMyAdmin

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patrikG
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Post by patrikG »

Sounds nice. I'll give it a go once my computer at home is breathing again.

Regarding the hypothetical phpMyAdmin vs. DBadmin - I like competition. Makes me feel as if I had a choice ;)
jason
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Re: so that's what I get

Post by jason »

burrito wrote:wow! wasn't expecting that.

I try to contribute something to the community and I get:

1) an accusation that I'm spamming the forum posing as someone else
2) a blow on my choice of words for the thread topic
3) an overall accosting that I shouldn't have wasted my time
1) So your saying it doesn't look a bit funny? If you didn't, fine, you didn't, but don't act like it's surprising. For all we know, it's your partner who signed up and posted.

2) It was a pretty poor choice of words. The first thing I thought of was "What, phpMyAdmin isn't free?" Admit it, and move on.

3) So prove to use why you didn't waste your time? So far, the first thing I noticed is that it's compatible with IE 5 or greater. I don't use IE, so it doesn't make the program all that much of an alternative.
burrito wrote: I"m not trying to sell you something here. I was trying to help make DB administration easier for people. I did ask for one person's endorsement on this product because I think it IS feature rich and provides a lot that phpMyAdmin does not. I now regret doing so....(incedentally, I never got it)
See, that's your mistake. Why worry about getting an endorsement? Rather, just build something that's better than phpMyAdmin.
burrito wrote: I made this in the hopes that people would like the ease of use and help me develop it further. I'm not reinventing the wheel as I think (at least for my use), it's significantly improved over the aforementioned. I made it for myself, but just thought I'd share it because it has worked so well for me.
That's fine, but apparently, many people don't agree. Accept it, and make your product better, don't complain about people saying what they think about it.
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EvilWalrus
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Post by EvilWalrus »

P.S.: get a real browser, IE is childsplay.
ilovetoast
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Post by ilovetoast »

burrito:
If you can't take questions.... You announced your product as an alternative to phpMyAdmin. Therefore, asking you to tell us why we should look at yours is a fair line of questioning. As a hint, if you're going to tout a product as an alternative to product X, then you need to specifically state what features you offer that are better than or missing in product X.

Database admin tools are not something that most people have the time to go download, play around with, etc., especially given the existence of phpMyAdmin. I would be happy to consider your tool as I agree that choice is good. But you have to tell me why it is worth my time. And the fact that it works good isn't enough. I assume it works good otherwise you wouldn't have released it.

twindagger:
Thank you. This was the answer I wanted. A specific merit vs. product X that addresses a somewhat common gripe about product X. This is what I was looking for/expecting, burrito.

both:
I am curious if it works in Safari, as IE went in the trash the day Safari was released. This weekend I'll download your program and see how it handles Safari while kicking the tires around a bit.

Questions:
Do you feel that it is production quality or is it in an advanced development stage? On one hand you seem to say it is production quality but on the other you ask for help.

Is it Open Source? As in SQLite or is it GPL'd or somesuch.

Are there plans to port this to SQLite for PHP 5?

peace
twindagger
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Post by twindagger »

ilovetoast:

I'm not sure what it works in. We do use Microsoft's DHTML DOM quite a bit in the javascript to play around with table rows and other stuff, so I'm willing to guess that, unless Safari follows the same DOM, there will be some problems.

I do feel that it is production quality for our purposes. But there may be plenty of problems in your specific situation(s) that we aren't addressing. It could use a lot of work to make it more generally acceptable, that's why we opened it up to you fellers.

Let me give you a little insight as to what I mean. When the program (web app?) was just running on our server, we didn't need to worry about primary keys called anything other than "id," because that's what all our primary keys are called. Now, I put a ton of work into this getting it ready for release on our website to allow primary keys other than id, or for tables without a primary key. It still doesn't work properly with multiple-part keys because I didn't have time to fix it that way. But, if I end up with some free time somewhere down the road I may be able to fix it so that it works.

We're new to the open source world, so I really have no clue as to what the difference between a completely open-source application and a GPL would be. Here's how I feel about it (burrito may think differently). I don't care if you take the code and modify it to your heart's desire. Do what you want with it. But, if you make something really cool or fix a big problem (like adding support for multi-part primary keys :wink: ) I'd like to see it and maybe add it into our version on dbadminplus.com.

Jason:

Burrito's intent of saying it was free was simply to let you know that it was free as opposed to other alternatives to phpMyAdmin and was not specifically addressed to phpMyAdmin (we know it's free, we used to use it). His main problem is that people are griping about it without downloading it and giving it a whirl. I know that a lot of people don't have time to give it a try but it's kind of disappointing that they disrespect our efforts because our time and skills weren't enough to make it completely cross-browser compatible. We released it to the world because we thought someone might like to help us make it better.
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Burrito
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stuff

Post by Burrito »

toast, I"m in the same boat as TD as far as the code goes...go nuts. Perhaps you could provide us with some guidance as to what steps we should take to make this "truly open source." Is source forge the answer? If so, how do we submit a project to them.

As for all of the other BS, that's filled this thread, I for one would like to just put it to rest and turn the focus to our product. I think it has great potential but it certainly has a lot of room for growth. We didn't make this product with the intention of "competing", as someone put it, with phpMyAdmin rather we simply made a customized version, if you will, that we found (for our needs) to be an improvement over it. As a way of giving back to the community we thought we'd share it.

phpMyAdmin set the bar and as such has become the standard (as it should). Perhaps I did word the title to this thread poorly and I may have implicated in my post(s) that DBAdmin+ is far superior to phpMyAdmin, if so, that was not my intent. Let me reitereate, for OUR needs and purposes, DBAdmin+ has proven to be more user friendly, eaiser to use, and less time consuming that phpMyAdmin. Obviously this won't hold true for everyone (especially those of you who don't use IE 8O . But my hope is that with your help, this can develop into something that everyone can use. My only reason for that hope is that it might make things easier for you. As I said in my last post, that is the only benefit that I'm receiving from this project (the satisfaction that I may have helped someone else)...so let's move on.

can anyone provide some insight as to what we should do (other than post in here) to corral help for this project?
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Post by jason »

can anyone provide some insight as to what we should do (other than post in here) to corral help for this project?
First, don't suggest this thread is BS. Seriously. If you want to "corral help for this project", then you are going to have to learn how to effectively communcate. This means that the responses you are getting are a direct reflection on how you communcated. You came here trying to "sell" someting (your project, and garner help for it), and while the community is always appreciative of any efforts to improve on existing products, you can't expect people to just roll over.

Next, in order to get more help, your best off doing several things.

1. Come the the realization that you are not going to get help. I say this in all seriousness. You, and your partner, will do 99% of the work. You will get a lot of people who talk, but don't actually do any work. You have to put out a good product, and if people want to help, they will actually contribute.

2. Fix your product. IE only is a serious problem. Honestly, whenever I see IE-only, I read it as "Doesn't know how to program". Seriously! I am not saying I really think you don't know how to program, but it actually takes work to make software that doesn't work in Mozilla and IE (considering that Mozilla is so much better to develop for, as IE is so limited in what you can do). So download Mozilla, and use that as your test bed, and work to make sure your program works in Mozilla AND IE.

3. Don't give up. That's another important thing. You say it works for you, and it works well. But don't give up there. Make it usable for people who are not you. Just remember point #1, that you are going to end up doing most of the work.

4. As for making it open source, GPL it. Release the code, and let anyone who wants to help, help code it. Obviously, you don't need to accept all the code people may submit, but make development an open event. That's the spirit of open source.
ilovetoast
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Post by ilovetoast »

All sounds fine to me. I'll check it out this weekend in Safari. I don't have the time to fix any Safari problems I find, but I'll let you know of them. My interest is Mac-centric. I try to do what I can to encouraage that web projects are developed in a manner so as to allow standards compliant Mac-browsers and therefore Mac users to be able to access them.
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patrikG
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Post by patrikG »

A general, and still authoratative introduction to Open Source (OS) and starting and maintaining an OS project can be found here:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
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Ixplodestuff8
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Post by Ixplodestuff8 »

twindagger wrote:
We're new to the open source world, so I really have no clue as to what the difference between a completely open-source application and a GPL would be. Here's how I feel about it (burrito may think differently). I don't care if you take the code and modify it to your heart's desire. Do what you want with it. But, if you make something really cool or fix a big problem (like adding support for multi-part primary keys :wink: ) I'd like to see it and maybe add it into our version on dbadminplus.com.
You description sounds alot like the GPL, and I would suggest you use that.

Here are alot of Licences you can use http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ look over some like the GPL or BSD ones, and pick one that fits your project best.
Brian
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A Bad Sign

Post by Brian »

I occasionally read and post to the PHP Developer's Network forums because the discussion here usually seems polite and task-oriented, two qualities that seem to be rare in Internet discussion forums. When someone announces a new tool, of course people will have different opinions of it and some will provide feedback, but it is disappointing that so many people participating in the ensuing discussion--network founders included--have opted to forsake politeness and constructiveness in their criticisms. As in so many threads in so many forums before this one, what could have been a fruitful discussion--in this case, with results including answered questions and product improvements--has descended into mostly useless blabbering mostly regarding other mostly useless blabbering. This is very disappointing indeed.

Regarding DBAAdmin+, I have not yet tried it, but if it is useful to the creators it may be useful to someone else and some may prefer it not in spite of having less functionality than phpMyAdmin, but because of it. There is elegance in simplicity and I personally detest clutter, which is why I have dabbled with creating some simple database tools myself. I applaud the creators of DBAAdmin+ for sharing their work regardless of how anyone thinks it compares to any other tool.
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