Re: Visual query builder for PosgreSQL?

Many, many (many) years ago, while working at DIGITAL EQUIPMENT (before it bellied up), I worked with a relational DB they created called "RDB". Someone at DEC wrote an sql development gui in Xwindows called "InstantSQL". It was really great. All the tables of the DB were icons, you could drag the ones you wanted into the main workspace, open them up, graphically select the cols you wanted to "select" and join tables by click-dragging a line from one col of one table to another. You could build your predicate by dragging out search criteria boxes frmo the colmns, filling them in with the criteria, changing the logical operators, etc... . It supported aggregate functions, order by, and manual editing of the resulting SQL if you wanted to. The users LOVED that thing. They would build their queries, run them and redirect output to a file. Then "save" the query for future use. They would also use it to prototype sql which they would then cut/paste into scripts. Very intuitive to use and very user friendly.

Other guis allow you to do some simple things in a gui, like join tables, but I've yet to see something that let the user do it all in the gui. The single gui approach had some advantages, the most important of which (IMO) was ease of use and being so intuitive.

When Oracle "acquired" RDB, InstantSQL died with the DB (after the canabalized it). Haven't seen InstantSQL since. They're probably just sitting on the patent. I just wish good-ole InstantSQL was still out there. Your users, like mine of the past, would probably love it.

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Satoshi Nagayasu
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 8:53 PM
To: Adrian Klaver
Cc: Kevin Grittner; pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Visual query builder for PosgreSQL?

(2013/02/09 0:41), Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 02/08/2013 07:33 AM, Kevin Grittner wrote:
>> Satoshi Nagayasu <snaga(at)uptime(dot)jp> wrote:
>>
>>> Of course, I can write ad-hoc queries by myself. However, I'd like
>>> to allow non-tech people to issue ad-hoc queries with using some
>>> visual query builder.
>>
>> You should probably take a look at http://htsql.org/
>>
>> It is free open source software intended for "accidental programmers"
>> -- people who want to pull summarized data from a database without
>> learning SQL or needing rigorous training. Its development was
>> partially funded by grants from foundations, including the National
>> Science Foundation. It does support PostgreSQL and most definitely
>> support counts, sums, etc. In fact, it can automagically give you
>> pretty summary graphs with the ability to drill down to supporting
>> detail.
>
> I second this. I have been trying it out and it is proving quite useful.
> The interesting part is that if you use the HTML interface you can get
> the SQL sent to the server, helps you learn that also.

Very interesting.

If non-tech people can learn a simple query language for their analytics purpose, it would be worth trying.

I think some "abstraction layer" is needed between non-tech users and DBMS to allow them to issue queries themselves.

I think some query builder could be one of the solutions, and also some simple query language could be another solution.

I will look into it.

Regards,
--
Satoshi Nagayasu <snaga(at)uptime(dot)jp>
Uptime Technologies, LLC. http://www.uptime.jp

--
Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general