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Hi Folks,
Anyone know of a service which allows easy creation of a database for "plug and play" inclusion into websites? It needs to be something a client with no understanding of SQL or relational tables can use to create, populate and search. I'm brainstorming at this point, so no suggestion is a bad one :)
I'm just googling around, and so far havn't found much (just baseportal so far)
Thanks!
I'd also like to know if there is someone to do a similar thing. I understand MySQL myself but the person in my team I want to do this task doesn't so it's find a source or train them.
I don't understand. I'm not suggesting databases are easy, but I think you need to learn to use them if you want to use them... right?
Databases are conceptually simple, though not entirely intuitive. But regardless of how they are accessed, designing a good database requires understanding the logic behind them, so whether or not they're doing it in a "technical" way, they need to understand the concepts.
Using command line tools can certainly be hard, so maybe using something like PHPMyAdmin would be a good solution. That's very common on servers.
If none of that works, then you will need to create a custom solution using PHP (or another serverside language) using forms, data processing and MySQL management that creates a user friendly front end for a specific task. This will not allow for full database management or creative tasks, but it can certainly work well for a specific site. If you did make something all inclusive it would become similar to PHPMyAdmin and other database management options like that, so you might as well use them.
To think of this another way, clearly everyone can manage to use facebook and that's run from a database. So you can choose to make something user friendly like that, with lots of things "hard coded" by an expert, or you can allow them more freedom with someone like PHPMyAdmin.
And maybe if you want to post more information about the project there could be an alternative solution. For example, using a CMS like word press might be a simple solution that they could handle.
Essentially what I'm wanting is to find some sort of CMS database. You know, with a blog script you don't need to know HTML to publish web pages, so with this, you don't need to know SQL to include a database into your site. My client wants to be able to add a classifieds section to his website with very detailed parameters. A good example would be a used car classification section where there are lots of individual details which can be used to refine a search.
Maybe some of the bigger CMS systems already have a database component/add-on?
Thanks for any ideas.
As I explained, you can use a CMS (either an existing one or something you make yourself) but that will only allow limited creativity for the user; if you want to be able to manage (create, modify) databases, then you'll need to actually interact with the SQL.
Again referring to Facebook, Facebook does run from a database but it's easy to use because you don't need to manage the database directly; but that means that everything is coded for you and you don't really have control of anything; at best you can hide or show fields, and of course add values to them. If you could do the same sort of thing for the cars (or whatever else you may want) that's fine. But you can't allow them to use SQL (creatively, independently) without actually using SQL.
Of course you could try to build a simplified database manager like PHPMyAdmin with fewer controls, but that would be difficult to do and would still require an understanding of those controls you do include.
I also came up with Trackvia, Zoho and Formidable Pro. Those we're what I had in mind for this particular customer.