Overview of online database features, using Caspio Bridge as an example
1. What is an online database?
An online database is often a web application that allows you to store, manipulate and publish data, without any knowledge of programming and web design. By publication, we mean automatic generation of HTML pages for searching / viewing / editing data stored in the database. Applications in this category, again, are most often based on SaaS and PaaS models. To work you need only a modern browser. In other words, any housewife, having basic computer skills, can create, for example, a recipe directory and publish it on her homepage. With the ability to search, sort, edit, download results.
But housewives, of course, are not typical users of such applications. The main task of online databases is data storage and publication of this data on the Internet. A typical user is a journalist writing articles in an online newspaper. This type of application has a number of advantages, but there are some nuances. The user gets the opportunity for 5-10 minutes to publish information on the Internet, but he pays for it with one interesting limitation: you cannot use the application to do what the application does not know how to do :). Those. there may be a need for some very individual buns that cannot be solved with the help of online databases. Some readers may say: “In the century when programming, gradually, turns from art into a craft, when programmers become more and more every year, why another bike? Why do we need these online databases of yours? Say, you need to get data from the database and display it on a web page? Do it yourself. It is not difficult. What you can not program? Hire a programmer. The task is trivial, and it is implemented quite simply. " And, of course, something will be right. They are right, because it is often better to write something yourself, take into account your own needs, and if necessary, make the necessary changes yourself, rather than use the finished product. No platform, online database is perfect. No platform will provide you with the functionality that you need. Applications written for their own needs, always (at least for a very long time) will have advantages over boxed versions of programs. And yet, online databases have tremendous potential. What are the advantages of this approach? The advantages include the lack of need for any administration and programming. User data is stored on the servers of the company that provides this service. And that means: no need to buy or rent expensive servers, buy licenses for software, think about creating backup copies of data, pay for hosting. In the end, you do not even need to write something yourself, or invite a programmer. Is everything ready. It is enough to import the data if they are not already in the database, create a search page, and publish this page on your blog. The whole process will take 10-15 minutes. With all the advantages of this approach, there is, of course, its own fly in the ointment. And not even one. Data is not stored on its own server. All anything, but you do not have direct access to your own data. Only through the application interface, or support service. There is no possibility to get additional functionality. You cannot change the default behavior of the application. Based on your data, you will receive already fully formed HTML markup. Obviously, each approach (self-development of the site and use of an online database) has its own advantages and disadvantages. In conclusion of this part, I would like to list and review some of the online databases: Backpack , Caspio Bridge , Dabble DB , HostedDatabase , Google base , QuickBase , LazyBase , Logiforms , Qrimp , TrackVia , Wufoo , Zoho reator
Revue:
Review: 4 online databases let you structure and share your data
Caspio Offers Flexible Online Database Development for Business Users
Archive for Shareable Databases
Choosing data driven app? Jump start from the right foot.
What is your system key feature?
2. Caspio Bridge
Caspio Bridge (hereinafter Bridge) is a platform for creating custom web applications without programming knowledge. For example, Caspio 2008 Voter Guide and Caspio Recipe Guide . Actually, the motto of Caspio is “No more programming”. Typical users of Bridge are people who often are not programmers: journalists publishing their articles in online publications, corporate users who need to quickly create any search forms, etc. People who are more or less familiar with programming may have some additional benefits. Namely: the ability to work with data using a Web service, the ability to add your own JavaScript and additional HTML markup, access to styles in advanced mode, and modify existing styles using CSS.
All pictures in the article are clickable.
')
Well, for the sake of completeness, and that the topic would not be considered advertising :), I would like to cite several arguments of the journalist Derek Willis (Derek Willis), on the topic “What is better for a simple American journalist: use the online database, or program it yourself, in particular, use Django and Ruby on Rails. ”
Trial by caspio ;
Six Reasons To Look Past Caspio ;
Caspio dustup ;
Delivering data: Which solution fits best?
This is just a private opinion of the authors, which is shared by no means all. Caspio's clients include small businesses and non-profit organizations, as well as corporations in the Fortune-500 ranking, digital media companies, government agencies and educational institutions. The company claims that over 70% of the largest American newspapers use the Caspio Bridge. The company was founded in 2000 by Frank Zamani (Frank Zamani), who is now the president and CEO. The first version of Caspio Bridge was released in 2001. The company's headquarters is located in Mountain View (California).
3. Opportunities
Bridge offers such features as: web – forms for adding / editing data, automatic email notifications when data changes, search pages, loading and storing files, downloading search results, creating authentication based on user data, exporting and importing data, localization CSS-based styles, creating WML input forms for mobile devices, ascading lookups, CAPTCHA, searching for records at a given distance from a given point, and much more. The features that have appeared in the latest version can be found here . Pages created in Bridge are called datapages (in fact, they are web forms). Datapage is the end product of Bridge. Bridge interface is multi-user. Permissions to read, modify, delete objects can be assigned both to a single user and to a group. This approach allows you to work in Bridge department, having only one account, especially given the fact that the number of users is not limited.
System requirements:
In order to start working with Bridge, one of the following browsers and a broadband Internet connection is sufficient. High-speed connection is needed only to work with the Bridge interface. For work with generated Datapages, the connection speed is not critical.
Bridge UI supported browsers:
Initially, Bridge was conceived as some kind of analogue of Microsoft Access, only for the Web. As a result, the Bridge interface is made in the style a la Access'97.
4. Usage
Some ready-made solutions based on Caspio Bridge can be found online: one , two , three , four , five . How can Bridge help when publishing data to the Web? As they say "it is better to see once ...". Several additional videos are available in the Training and Resources section. Consider a small example. The journalist wrote a review of the new book. This book, after a while, should appear in libraries. To make it easier for the readers of the article to search for a book, the author decided to create a search form to search for address data of libraries. The list of libraries is stored in the MS Access file. The whole process of publishing data can be divided into three stages: data import, page creation, publication.
a) Import tables with library addresses (Libraries). This table contains a list of American libraries and their addresses. It is assumed that the user already has a table with geo-coordinates for each ZIP code (ZipCodesUSA), and the Libraries table contains the ZIP code for each library. This is not a standard case, and most likely the geo-coordinates for the data he needs, the user will not. In this case, you can order an additional service to determine the coordinates for given addresses.
b) After importing, go to the creation of our page (some steps of the wizard are omitted). Open the DataPage wizard. In the first step of the wizard, you can specify: the type of page to be created, the data source for the page, the name of the page, the style and localization of the page.
In the next step, select the fields that will serve as the search criteria. Also, pay attention to the calculated fields "Distance search". When you add one of these fields, you will be able to search for records that are at a given distance. With the help of the Logical operator, we can indicate whether all search conditions should be met or at least one.
In the next step, we can configure how the fields should appear on the page. The screenshots show the configuration of “Cascading ListBox” and “Distance search”.
Each field can be displayed as some HTML element.
After configuring the search page, proceed to creating the results page.
There are three types of displaying search results: Tabular, List, Grid.
Two steps are missing: adding fields to the results page, as well as configuring these fields.
In the conclusion of the settings of the results page, you can add the ability to download filtered data or detailed information on the selected record, in the form of a CSV or MS Excel file; set the number of records returned; the ability to add, change or delete entries; enable sorting; set the number of entries per page.
If desired, it is possible to add a link to the page, with more detailed information for each entry. Configuring a page with detailed information is omitted. Let me just say that you can display static data or allow the user to change the information.
If the user will change the data, you can add automatic alerts by e-mail, after changing the record.
After setting the alert text, save the changes.
c) We proceed to the process of publishing the created page. There are several ways to publish: Embeded, Direct, Frame. Direct is just a link, with a parameter that identifies the requested page. Frame is the same as Direct, but instead of a link, a piece of HTML markup with an iframe tag is provided. Embeded is a JavaScript script for integrating a data page into your existing web page. Here you can specify the type of connection (HTTP / HTTPS), specify that you need to block unencrypted connections.
After clicking the “Deploy” button, the page will be published.
Let's see what we did. Since our page was created in an authenticated folder, you will need to enter credentials the first time you access it. Login: Habr. Password: Habrahabr.
Open the page and enter the user credentials.
After authentication, the search page will open. Search for trouble by state and city. Please note that you can search by distance by entering the ZIP code and the desired distance. Moreover, if you specify only the index, all records and distances to each of them will be shown.
Next page with the results.
If necessary, you can view more information about the library and edit the phone number.
5. Caspio ExpressDB
Just a few words, I would like to say about another Caspio application - ExpressDB . The video is here . ExpressDB is a reliable database service for all interactive forms. Any web form can be connected to ExpressDB in just a few clicks. This means that all data sent by users of your page will be saved to the database without any involvement on your part. Or such an example. The man has no website at all. For example, this is a baker. Every morning, he needs to receive orders for baking bread, cakes and croissants from local residents. It is inconvenient to take orders by phone, or ask customers to enter the bakery on their own. Using ExpressDB, you just have to solve this problem. Baker creates a new table in ExpressDB, for storing orders. Moreover, for convenience, you can create separate tables for houses / streets, if we assume that the bakery has many customers. He then creates a PDF file with an order form, the data from which will be sent to his spreadsheet, and sends this file to customers. Now, in order to place an order, the client only needs to fill out and send the form, and in the morning the baker will review received orders. ExpressDB has much less functionality than Caspio Bridge. In fact, all several tasks are put before this application: save the data transferred by the user, provide the ability to view and download data from the server.
Conclusion
Reading Habr, I have not seen articles on online databases. I wanted to fill this gap, and write an article that would help, to make the first idea about this direction of software.
An online database is often a web application that allows you to store, manipulate and publish data, without any knowledge of programming and web design. By publication, we mean automatic generation of HTML pages for searching / viewing / editing data stored in the database. Applications in this category, again, are most often based on SaaS and PaaS models. To work you need only a modern browser. In other words, any housewife, having basic computer skills, can create, for example, a recipe directory and publish it on her homepage. With the ability to search, sort, edit, download results.
But housewives, of course, are not typical users of such applications. The main task of online databases is data storage and publication of this data on the Internet. A typical user is a journalist writing articles in an online newspaper. This type of application has a number of advantages, but there are some nuances. The user gets the opportunity for 5-10 minutes to publish information on the Internet, but he pays for it with one interesting limitation: you cannot use the application to do what the application does not know how to do :). Those. there may be a need for some very individual buns that cannot be solved with the help of online databases. Some readers may say: “In the century when programming, gradually, turns from art into a craft, when programmers become more and more every year, why another bike? Why do we need these online databases of yours? Say, you need to get data from the database and display it on a web page? Do it yourself. It is not difficult. What you can not program? Hire a programmer. The task is trivial, and it is implemented quite simply. " And, of course, something will be right. They are right, because it is often better to write something yourself, take into account your own needs, and if necessary, make the necessary changes yourself, rather than use the finished product. No platform, online database is perfect. No platform will provide you with the functionality that you need. Applications written for their own needs, always (at least for a very long time) will have advantages over boxed versions of programs. And yet, online databases have tremendous potential. What are the advantages of this approach? The advantages include the lack of need for any administration and programming. User data is stored on the servers of the company that provides this service. And that means: no need to buy or rent expensive servers, buy licenses for software, think about creating backup copies of data, pay for hosting. In the end, you do not even need to write something yourself, or invite a programmer. Is everything ready. It is enough to import the data if they are not already in the database, create a search page, and publish this page on your blog. The whole process will take 10-15 minutes. With all the advantages of this approach, there is, of course, its own fly in the ointment. And not even one. Data is not stored on its own server. All anything, but you do not have direct access to your own data. Only through the application interface, or support service. There is no possibility to get additional functionality. You cannot change the default behavior of the application. Based on your data, you will receive already fully formed HTML markup. Obviously, each approach (self-development of the site and use of an online database) has its own advantages and disadvantages. In conclusion of this part, I would like to list and review some of the online databases: Backpack , Caspio Bridge , Dabble DB , HostedDatabase , Google base , QuickBase , LazyBase , Logiforms , Qrimp , TrackVia , Wufoo , Zoho reator
Revue:
Review: 4 online databases let you structure and share your data
Caspio Offers Flexible Online Database Development for Business Users
Archive for Shareable Databases
Choosing data driven app? Jump start from the right foot.
What is your system key feature?
2. Caspio Bridge
Caspio Bridge (hereinafter Bridge) is a platform for creating custom web applications without programming knowledge. For example, Caspio 2008 Voter Guide and Caspio Recipe Guide . Actually, the motto of Caspio is “No more programming”. Typical users of Bridge are people who often are not programmers: journalists publishing their articles in online publications, corporate users who need to quickly create any search forms, etc. People who are more or less familiar with programming may have some additional benefits. Namely: the ability to work with data using a Web service, the ability to add your own JavaScript and additional HTML markup, access to styles in advanced mode, and modify existing styles using CSS.
All pictures in the article are clickable.
')
Well, for the sake of completeness, and that the topic would not be considered advertising :), I would like to cite several arguments of the journalist Derek Willis (Derek Willis), on the topic “What is better for a simple American journalist: use the online database, or program it yourself, in particular, use Django and Ruby on Rails. ”
Trial by caspio ;
Six Reasons To Look Past Caspio ;
Caspio dustup ;
Delivering data: Which solution fits best?
This is just a private opinion of the authors, which is shared by no means all. Caspio's clients include small businesses and non-profit organizations, as well as corporations in the Fortune-500 ranking, digital media companies, government agencies and educational institutions. The company claims that over 70% of the largest American newspapers use the Caspio Bridge. The company was founded in 2000 by Frank Zamani (Frank Zamani), who is now the president and CEO. The first version of Caspio Bridge was released in 2001. The company's headquarters is located in Mountain View (California).
3. Opportunities
Bridge offers such features as: web – forms for adding / editing data, automatic email notifications when data changes, search pages, loading and storing files, downloading search results, creating authentication based on user data, exporting and importing data, localization CSS-based styles, creating WML input forms for mobile devices, ascading lookups, CAPTCHA, searching for records at a given distance from a given point, and much more. The features that have appeared in the latest version can be found here . Pages created in Bridge are called datapages (in fact, they are web forms). Datapage is the end product of Bridge. Bridge interface is multi-user. Permissions to read, modify, delete objects can be assigned both to a single user and to a group. This approach allows you to work in Bridge department, having only one account, especially given the fact that the number of users is not limited.
System requirements:
In order to start working with Bridge, one of the following browsers and a broadband Internet connection is sufficient. High-speed connection is needed only to work with the Bridge interface. For work with generated Datapages, the connection speed is not critical.
Bridge UI supported browsers:
- Firefox 2.0 and higher;
- Gecko based browser version 1.8.1 and higher;
- Safari 3.1 and up;
- Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher;
Initially, Bridge was conceived as some kind of analogue of Microsoft Access, only for the Web. As a result, the Bridge interface is made in the style a la Access'97.
4. Usage
Some ready-made solutions based on Caspio Bridge can be found online: one , two , three , four , five . How can Bridge help when publishing data to the Web? As they say "it is better to see once ...". Several additional videos are available in the Training and Resources section. Consider a small example. The journalist wrote a review of the new book. This book, after a while, should appear in libraries. To make it easier for the readers of the article to search for a book, the author decided to create a search form to search for address data of libraries. The list of libraries is stored in the MS Access file. The whole process of publishing data can be divided into three stages: data import, page creation, publication.
a) Import tables with library addresses (Libraries). This table contains a list of American libraries and their addresses. It is assumed that the user already has a table with geo-coordinates for each ZIP code (ZipCodesUSA), and the Libraries table contains the ZIP code for each library. This is not a standard case, and most likely the geo-coordinates for the data he needs, the user will not. In this case, you can order an additional service to determine the coordinates for given addresses.
b) After importing, go to the creation of our page (some steps of the wizard are omitted). Open the DataPage wizard. In the first step of the wizard, you can specify: the type of page to be created, the data source for the page, the name of the page, the style and localization of the page.
In the next step, select the fields that will serve as the search criteria. Also, pay attention to the calculated fields "Distance search". When you add one of these fields, you will be able to search for records that are at a given distance. With the help of the Logical operator, we can indicate whether all search conditions should be met or at least one.
In the next step, we can configure how the fields should appear on the page. The screenshots show the configuration of “Cascading ListBox” and “Distance search”.
Each field can be displayed as some HTML element.
After configuring the search page, proceed to creating the results page.
There are three types of displaying search results: Tabular, List, Grid.
Two steps are missing: adding fields to the results page, as well as configuring these fields.
In the conclusion of the settings of the results page, you can add the ability to download filtered data or detailed information on the selected record, in the form of a CSV or MS Excel file; set the number of records returned; the ability to add, change or delete entries; enable sorting; set the number of entries per page.
If desired, it is possible to add a link to the page, with more detailed information for each entry. Configuring a page with detailed information is omitted. Let me just say that you can display static data or allow the user to change the information.
If the user will change the data, you can add automatic alerts by e-mail, after changing the record.
After setting the alert text, save the changes.
c) We proceed to the process of publishing the created page. There are several ways to publish: Embeded, Direct, Frame. Direct is just a link, with a parameter that identifies the requested page. Frame is the same as Direct, but instead of a link, a piece of HTML markup with an iframe tag is provided. Embeded is a JavaScript script for integrating a data page into your existing web page. Here you can specify the type of connection (HTTP / HTTPS), specify that you need to block unencrypted connections.
After clicking the “Deploy” button, the page will be published.
Let's see what we did. Since our page was created in an authenticated folder, you will need to enter credentials the first time you access it. Login: Habr. Password: Habrahabr.
Open the page and enter the user credentials.
After authentication, the search page will open. Search for trouble by state and city. Please note that you can search by distance by entering the ZIP code and the desired distance. Moreover, if you specify only the index, all records and distances to each of them will be shown.
Next page with the results.
If necessary, you can view more information about the library and edit the phone number.
5. Caspio ExpressDB
Just a few words, I would like to say about another Caspio application - ExpressDB . The video is here . ExpressDB is a reliable database service for all interactive forms. Any web form can be connected to ExpressDB in just a few clicks. This means that all data sent by users of your page will be saved to the database without any involvement on your part. Or such an example. The man has no website at all. For example, this is a baker. Every morning, he needs to receive orders for baking bread, cakes and croissants from local residents. It is inconvenient to take orders by phone, or ask customers to enter the bakery on their own. Using ExpressDB, you just have to solve this problem. Baker creates a new table in ExpressDB, for storing orders. Moreover, for convenience, you can create separate tables for houses / streets, if we assume that the bakery has many customers. He then creates a PDF file with an order form, the data from which will be sent to his spreadsheet, and sends this file to customers. Now, in order to place an order, the client only needs to fill out and send the form, and in the morning the baker will review received orders. ExpressDB has much less functionality than Caspio Bridge. In fact, all several tasks are put before this application: save the data transferred by the user, provide the ability to view and download data from the server.
Conclusion
Reading Habr, I have not seen articles on online databases. I wanted to fill this gap, and write an article that would help, to make the first idea about this direction of software.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/68889/
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