First look at Xataface - a system for building data-centric applications for PHP and MySQL
Greetings dear habrazhiteley.
A search on Habr for the keywords “dataface” and “xataface” led to an empty page of results, so I consider it my duty to share with honest public my long-time discovery, which until now has remained in the shadows.
Runet is also not aware of such a wonderful thing, which, meanwhile, has existed for more than three years and has a certain popularity in narrow circles.
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Details under the cut.
It all started easy. I received another order for the development of a user-friendly interface to the database. After reading “TZ” I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to work so much for the proposed budget. At the same time, an old idea has emerged in the memory of how to cross laziness with ingenuity, and try to build a smart system that fed data, designed connections, and she builds the rest.
Frankly, I have already done something similar, but under DOS / Clipper 5.2, where it works wonderfully to this day, about 8 years. But PHP + HTML + CSS + JS + AJAX is a slightly more obscure topic with its own nuances and points.
Then there was a completely obvious idea, to try my luck, or maybe someone had already bothered and gave birth to what I needed.
Then there was a watch of persistent googling with different variants of requests. I think it is no secret that the content of the request directly determines what will be found.
And a miracle happened. I found something that vaguely resembled what I needed. The site of a certain Steve Hannah (Steve Hannah) web services developer at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Simon Frazer University.
Actually the owner of the site, he is the developer of the Xataface system. I will not go into the details of the system, because Those who wish can familiarize themselves with the original source, I will describe only my own impressions.
In general, the author declares that his system is necessary for those who want to quickly and without problems organize the user interface for interacting with the database.
Indeed, in the simplest cases, it is possible to literally organize an interface that is quite acceptable in quality and usability in an hour or two, provided that the structure of the database has already been worked out and set up in configs.
In more complex cases, everything is not so rosy, and you have to work a lot with a file.
Nevertheless, the impression about the system as a whole, and the approach, in particular, is positive. The system does exactly what is stated, exactly as stated. Moreover, the system is constantly evolving, patches, fixes, new versions appear.
There is quite extensive documentation in the Wiki format, a forum where the author actively communicates with the users of the system, even a couple of videos, from the category “How to”.
Of course, everything in English, as I wrote above, the Runet does not know anything about this system.
The system is written in OOP style in PHP, using MySQL, the Smarty template engine, MVC, etc. Forms and tables are generated automatically, configs are stored in classic .ini files, everything is pretty transparent and well structured. Plugins and user extensions are supported. There is a system of authentication, authentication, access control, out of the box.
Xataface is not the perfect embodiment of what I would like to receive in the future, but quite workable.
I wish you a pleasant acquaintance with this original novelty.
PS: The order was made using Xataface, on time and within the allocated budget. And yes, I had to work with a file, in particular, when building reports and uploads. The impressions were very pleasant, but in the following projects I preferred to use jqGrid and hand-made forms with a lot of interactive elements and complex logic, and many, many AJAX'a, but this is a completely separate story.
PPS: At the request of workers (4dmonster habrachelovek) links:
A search on Habr for the keywords “dataface” and “xataface” led to an empty page of results, so I consider it my duty to share with honest public my long-time discovery, which until now has remained in the shadows.
Runet is also not aware of such a wonderful thing, which, meanwhile, has existed for more than three years and has a certain popularity in narrow circles.
')
Details under the cut.
It all started easy. I received another order for the development of a user-friendly interface to the database. After reading “TZ” I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to work so much for the proposed budget. At the same time, an old idea has emerged in the memory of how to cross laziness with ingenuity, and try to build a smart system that fed data, designed connections, and she builds the rest.
Frankly, I have already done something similar, but under DOS / Clipper 5.2, where it works wonderfully to this day, about 8 years. But PHP + HTML + CSS + JS + AJAX is a slightly more obscure topic with its own nuances and points.
Then there was a completely obvious idea, to try my luck, or maybe someone had already bothered and gave birth to what I needed.
Then there was a watch of persistent googling with different variants of requests. I think it is no secret that the content of the request directly determines what will be found.
And a miracle happened. I found something that vaguely resembled what I needed. The site of a certain Steve Hannah (Steve Hannah) web services developer at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Simon Frazer University.
Actually the owner of the site, he is the developer of the Xataface system. I will not go into the details of the system, because Those who wish can familiarize themselves with the original source, I will describe only my own impressions.
In general, the author declares that his system is necessary for those who want to quickly and without problems organize the user interface for interacting with the database.
Indeed, in the simplest cases, it is possible to literally organize an interface that is quite acceptable in quality and usability in an hour or two, provided that the structure of the database has already been worked out and set up in configs.
In more complex cases, everything is not so rosy, and you have to work a lot with a file.
Nevertheless, the impression about the system as a whole, and the approach, in particular, is positive. The system does exactly what is stated, exactly as stated. Moreover, the system is constantly evolving, patches, fixes, new versions appear.
There is quite extensive documentation in the Wiki format, a forum where the author actively communicates with the users of the system, even a couple of videos, from the category “How to”.
Of course, everything in English, as I wrote above, the Runet does not know anything about this system.
The system is written in OOP style in PHP, using MySQL, the Smarty template engine, MVC, etc. Forms and tables are generated automatically, configs are stored in classic .ini files, everything is pretty transparent and well structured. Plugins and user extensions are supported. There is a system of authentication, authentication, access control, out of the box.
Xataface is not the perfect embodiment of what I would like to receive in the future, but quite workable.
I wish you a pleasant acquaintance with this original novelty.
PS: The order was made using Xataface, on time and within the allocated budget. And yes, I had to work with a file, in particular, when building reports and uploads. The impressions were very pleasant, but in the following projects I preferred to use jqGrid and hand-made forms with a lot of interactive elements and complex logic, and many, many AJAX'a, but this is a completely separate story.
PPS: At the request of workers (4dmonster habrachelovek) links:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/127304/
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