[Web4lib] RE: Looking for an open source PHP/MySQL database...a clarification

[John Fereira]

At 06:15 PM 10/25/2005, Jonathan V.Williams wrote:
>David,
>
>Have you looked at PHPMyAdmin?  It's really a tool more for 
>administering databases than for applying business rules to the 
>data, but you can view and edit data with it.  Its available under 
>the GPL, I believe.  I've not used it personally, but I know its 
>fairly widely used, and people seem to like it.
>
>http://www.phpmyadmin.net

I've used a number of tools for administrating MySQL databases.  Even 
if the patron interface is PHP based there is no particular reason 
that it needs a PHP based administration tool.  Of the gui interfaces 
that I've used I particularly like DbVisualizer 
(http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/) .  It not only provides an admin 
interface for a MySQL database it supports other database vendors as 
well.  I've got database connections to about 8 different systems 
with MySQL databases (a few which have mutliple database instances), 
two systems running Oracle databases (including the Voyager catalog), 
and a couple running Postgresql.  I can access any of the databases 
from the single client, create and save queries, display the database 
schema graphically, create bar graphs/pie charts of the results and 
much more.   The other GUI admin tool I use is for MySQL databases 
DbDesigner (http://www.fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/).  It provides much 
of the same functionality as DbVisualizer but also has a nice 
database design interface.  Working from a graphical representation 
of the database tables I can add/modify/delete tables or columns to 
existing tables and it provides a round-trip editing of the actual 
database.  Other than the better data modeling of DbDesigner   I 
prefer DbVisualizer.

The basic version of DbVisualizer is free but a more complete version 
can be purchased (it's quite reasonable).  DBDesigner is free.



John Fereira
jaf30 at cornell.edu
Ithaca, NY