This looks pretty interesting! If anyone is looking for a tool to build a full fledge Back Office I warmly recommend react-admin (https://github.com/marmelab/react-admin/). Been using it for a year now and we went from 0 back office to a feature full one in no time!
Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
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Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#22i was stunned the first time i saw web frameworks like django and symfony automatically build a full featured admin panel based on model's definition. I wonder if there aren't projects aimed a building just an administration GUI based on SQL introspection mixed with simple configuration files. Just point at a db, and there you go. Side note : what is the current state of codegen based on api and model specifications…
There's plenty of database administration tools that do just that. I guess they could use work in the UX department to make it more user friendly though.
But beyond pure data access you'll want features like access rights (SQL servers will offer that to a point), validations, and data/context specific visualizations.
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#23I think this is the long way around to simply making a DB procedure? Those have parameters, can easily be run by external tools like phpMyAdmin or an IDE, and if the database constraints are sane will help avoid invalid input.
That is true, and I considered this approach. But DB procedures cannot link to each other and the target users are different - giving some people a DB procedure is much harder than giving them a web interface.
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#24i was stunned the first time i saw web frameworks like django and symfony automatically build a full featured admin panel based on model's definition. I wonder if there aren't projects aimed a building just an administration GUI based on SQL introspection mixed with simple configuration files. Just point at a db, and there you go. Side note : what is the current state of codegen based on api and model specifications…
> building just an administration GUI based on SQL introspection I built exactly this. The idea was to make databases look and feel like a file manager where databases are shown as folder, tables as subfolders and rows are shown as files that once open shows a fully editable form that look like this: https://archive.kerjean.me/public/2020/screenshot_20200117_2... It understands foreign keys and create relevant links…
> I built exactly this. The idea was to make databases look and feel like a file manager where databases are shown as folder, tables as subfolders and rows are shown as files that once open shows a fully editable form ... It understands foreign keys and create relevant links to easily navigate through.
I thought that was the whole point of e.g. LibreOffice Base and the like? (including Paradox, Access, etc.) So you built a web-based clone?
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#25i was stunned the first time i saw web frameworks like django and symfony automatically build a full featured admin panel based on model's definition. I wonder if there aren't projects aimed a building just an administration GUI based on SQL introspection mixed with simple configuration files. Just point at a db, and there you go. Side note : what is the current state of codegen based on api and model specifications…
There are a lot of headless CMS which assists with the creation.
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#26Thank you so much I've wanted something like this for years but never invested the time into finding or building it.
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#27This looks pretty interesting! If anyone is looking for a tool to build a full fledge Back Office I warmly recommend react-admin ( https://github.com/marmelab/react-admin/ ). Been using it for a year now and we went from 0 back office to a feature full one in no time!
React Admin is awesome. Combine it with Hasura (automatic GraphQL on top of PostgreSQL) and you can build an entire back office admin suite (API endpoints and admin front end) in a matter of hours. You end up writing more SQL than react as react-admin is basically a CRUD form generator.
This adaptor connects react-admin with Hasura: https://github.com/Steams/ra-data-hasura-graphql
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#28Great work! I once was a fan of custom well tailored DSL's for each tool. However, nowadays I really like the current direction of providing a lot of tooling with only SQL necessary to use them, even with the dialects differing a bit. I've made my own contribution here too, with a tool to join and analyse data in various databases and file formats (JSON, CSV, Excel) using plain SQL, OctoSQL: https://github.com/cube22…
> ... I really like the current direction of providing a lot of tooling with only SQL necessary to use them, ...
Everything old is new again!
Database Backed Web Sites:
The Thinking Person's Guide to Web Publishing
Philip Greenspun - 1997
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#29I believe admin panels are the MVP implementation for this idea.
Almost every business software is a select/insert/update. If you can do it over a view, or you have a trigger on insert/update/delete you are able to have a customer facing product with minimal manual operation.
Re: Show HN: ESQLate – Build minimum viable admin panels with just SQL
#30So I made something similar to this at a couple of my jobs. We could basically add a SQL script as a file to a folder and it would automatically have a new report, downloadable, formatted, run on-demand. Even a pretty basic one is pretty handy, as they only take a day or two. I hadn't got round to adding variables, I like the solution.
One of the things I added is that you could add column formatting in the field names, so a $c would turn it into a currency field, there was one to turn it into boolean checkbox, etc.:
SELECT o.amount, p.price [price$c], p.price * o.amount [total$c]
FROM orders o
JOIN products p