Re: PGadmin4 - Mailing list pgadmin-support

Hi Murtuza,

This is in regards to pgadmin4 2.0 on Mac (I've been unable to use 
pgadmin4 on linux for quite some time, the installation process is a bit 
of a nightmare, and I'm not the only one who feel this way)

I too have workflow issues that pgadmin4 does not meet.  I continually 
use pgadmin3 and put up with the bugs and constant crashes.


Cons and Major lacks of functionality:
- Metadata population is considerably slower than pgadmin3.   For a DB 
on the local lan it can take as many as 10 seconds to get into the 
database list.  Whereas on pgadmin3 this is nearly instant

- Multiple windows??  This is a HUGE missing part of going from pgadmin3 
-> pgadmin4.  Each window can hold about 10 tabs without becoming a 
management problem.  6 of those are fixed, the 
'Properties/Dashboard/SQL/etc' tabs.  So you're left with 4 spaces for 
your own tabs.  What DBA only has 4 tables/functions/queries/etc open at 
a time?  Of course you can open more than 4 and then scroll, but who 
wants to deal with that?

- More on multiple windows... I haven't really looked at the pgadmin4 
code at all, save for just trying to get it working on linux... but I 
have a feeling that from the design of a web-shim, loading a web 
html/css type application, building in multi-window support is going to 
be a major pain.

- Tab management.  Have more than two queries/tables/etc open as tabs 
and then management becomes a complete nightmare and the program is just 
about unusable. (Tabs are force-named to Query-1, Query-2, etc.  Who 
knows what is what?

- More tab management.  If you've connected to your databases, opened up 
everything you need to work on, and then say, accidentally drag one of 
the multi-tabbed ancillary windows, you're either in the situation where 
you need to drag four tab-windows back to where you got them from, one 
by one, or you might be in a situation where the interface wont let you 
drag them back at all and they are left floating forever.  So your stuck 
with either working on a sub-optimal layout, or being forced to 'restore 
layout' which restarts the app and you lose all your window management, 
connections, and open queries that you've painstakingly set up.

- More tab  management. Unable to change text labels on tabs... Say you 
have your 4 tabs open and you're working on four functions... which one 
is which?  So now I have to mentally keep track that the first 'Create 
script' tab is function Z and the second 'Create Script' tab is function 
A.  The same goes for query windows.  Which one of the 7 query windows 
is the query for selecting * from foo?  Who knows... you have to either 
remember them all, or click through each one until you find it.

- Table Data copy/paste... What happened to the ability to be able to 
select a cell value and then paste it into another window?  Or select a 
whole group of rows/columns and then paste that somewhere?

Pros and nice features:  The dashboard is pretty cool, to show you database activity.  I'll 
usually have my actual work being done in pgadmin3 and keep an eye on 
databases with the dashboard.

With pgadmin3-lts now supporting up to Postgres 10, there's absolutely 
no reason to use pgadmin4.  pgadmin3 is the clear winner in terms of 
usability and functionality despite the crash-happy nature of the app.

I remember a rant/post earlier in the year, or maybe it was last year by 
another user and it listed out a good number of lackings of pgadmin4 
that limit its use of real-world workflow.  I'm sure I'm missing dozens 
of other missing items... but I think I got the major ones out of the way.

More Cons:
I'm just frustrated  and annoyed that I've probably spent about 20 hours 
getting pgadmin4 2.0 going in linux just to try it out.  I'm sure I'm 
not the only one.


I completely understand that a *huge* amount of work... thousands of 
man-hours went into pgadmin4 using the latest whizbang technology, but I 
think it's a shame that it seems like it was developed for the sake of 
just 'modernizing' it, versus providing a better user-experience and a 
better application. It's a shame that those thousands of hours weren't 
focused on pgadmin3 and improving the core, and even if major portions 
needed a rewrite because it was "just that bad", it would have been more 
value added to spend those thousands of hours doing just that versus a 
complete from-scratch application that's a far cry in functionality from 
the original it's supposed to replace.



On 11/12/17 1:20 AM, Murtuza Zabuawala wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Would you like to share what's not working in your environment?
> It might help us improve the product.
> 
> Thanks,
> Murtuza
> 
> On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 3:44 PM, Nicolas ROLLAND <NROLLAND@grandlyon.com 
> <mailto:NROLLAND@grandlyon.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Just to inform that every task we could do with PGad3 do not work
>     with PGad4.____
> 
>     Here at Metropole de Lyon we all uninstall version 4 to reinstall
>     version 3 which work perfectly.____
> 
>     So please keep version 3 available.____
> 
>     Thanks____
> 
>     __ __
> 
>     Nicolas ROLLAND____
> 
>