Thread: Postgres and LibreOffice's 'Base'

    I have postgres tables (with data) for a specific application but have
not found the time to learn django to make it an application that my clients
can use. It occurs to me that the most parsimonious approach is to use
LibreOffice's Base for the UI with postgres as the dbms-engine. While I work
in only linux (and unixODBC is installed), my clients all use various
flavors of Windows, but the three critical software applications (LO,
PostgreSQL, and ODBC) are available for Microsoft, too.

    I've scanned the Base portion of the LO User Guide and it looks to be a
practical solution to quickly providing clients with working database
applications.

    As this is completely new territory for me I'd like is to learn from
those who've done this before. As examples, What can/should I do as stored
procedures using PL/pgSQL? Can queries be created and tested using psql
before being imported into Base?

    All tips and gotcha's for a new user are certainly welcome.

TIA,

Rich

On 12/04/2016 07:41 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
>    I have postgres tables (with data) for a specific application but have
> not found the time to learn django to make it an application that my
> clients
> can use. It occurs to me that the most parsimonious approach is to use
> LibreOffice's Base for the UI with postgres as the dbms-engine. While I
> work
> in only linux (and unixODBC is installed), my clients all use various
> flavors of Windows, but the three critical software applications (LO,
> PostgreSQL, and ODBC) are available for Microsoft, too.
>
>    I've scanned the Base portion of the LO User Guide and it looks to be a
> practical solution to quickly providing clients with working database
> applications.
>
>    As this is completely new territory for me I'd like is to learn from
> those who've done this before. As examples, What can/should I do as stored
> procedures using PL/pgSQL? Can queries be created and tested using psql
> before being imported into Base?

Base is basically a GUI over the database. You can still do whatever you
want in Postgres via psql or any other client for that matter. That
being said my experience with Base is that is not up to the task. It
worked for me early on, but development on Base lagged relative to the
other modules in LO. My recent attempts have been less successful. Exact
examples on why, will have to wait on me dredging up the memories.

>
>    All tips and gotcha's for a new user are certainly welcome.
>
> TIA,
>
> Rich
>
>
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:

> Base is basically a GUI over the database.

Adrian,

   That's what I assumed it to be.

> That being said my experience with Base is that is not up to the task. It
> worked for me early on, but development on Base lagged relative to the
> other modules in LO. My recent attempts have been less successful. Exact
> examples on why, will have to wait on me dredging up the memories.

   I'm very open to suggestions what to use for the UI. I'm not a
professional coder and learning SQLAlchemy or Django takes too much time
away from my business.

   My clients all run Windows about which I know nothing. Is there a GUI for
postgres that works on all platforms and suitable for someone like me?

Thanks,

Rich

On 12/04/2016 08:47 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:
>
>> Base is basically a GUI over the database.
>
> Adrian,
>
>   That's what I assumed it to be.
>
>> That being said my experience with Base is that is not up to the task. It
>> worked for me early on, but development on Base lagged relative to the
>> other modules in LO. My recent attempts have been less successful. Exact
>> examples on why, will have to wait on me dredging up the memories.
>
>   I'm very open to suggestions what to use for the UI. I'm not a
> professional coder and learning SQLAlchemy or Django takes too much time
> away from my business.
>
>   My clients all run Windows about which I know nothing. Is there a GUI for
> postgres that works on all platforms and suitable for someone like me?

That is why I ended up learning Django, I could not find a GUI that was
cross platform and had the capabilities I needed. Others might have
suggestions. It would help though if you could list what you want in a
GUI platform:

1) Form/report designer?

2) Widgets beyond the basics?

3) Programming language bindings?

4) Anything else you can think of.


>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:

> That is why I ended up learning Django, I could not find a GUI that was
> cross platform and had the capabilities I needed. Others might have
> suggestions. It would help though if you could list what you want in a GUI
> platform:

   OK. I spent a lot of time over the past few years looking for a simpler
solution and they just don't exist.

   I'll learn django and take it step-by-step.

Thanks,

Rich

On 12/04/2016 09:59 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:
>
>> That is why I ended up learning Django, I could not find a GUI that was
>> cross platform and had the capabilities I needed. Others might have
>> suggestions. It would help though if you could list what you want in a
>> GUI
>> platform:
>
>   OK. I spent a lot of time over the past few years looking for a simpler
> solution and they just don't exist.
>
>   I'll learn django and take it step-by-step.

The important questions that forgot to ask before, is how do you plan to
deploy this:

Are you looking at having clients remotely access a site/database on
your machine?

Or are you looking to deploy a front end/database combination to each
client?

>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:

> The important questions that forgot to ask before, is how do you plan to
> deploy this:

> Or are you looking to deploy a front end/database combination to each client?

   This way. I've no interest or expertise in maintaining a web site (my ISP
does this for mine). I would provide some guidance on installing necessary
software, but it's theirs to use as they choose.

Rich

On 12/04/2016 12:01 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Adrian Klaver wrote:
>
>> The important questions that forgot to ask before, is how do you plan
>> to deploy this:
>
>> Or are you looking to deploy a front end/database combination to each
>> client?
>
>   This way. I've no interest or expertise in maintaining a web site (my ISP
> does this for mine). I would provide some guidance on installing necessary
> software, but it's theirs to use as they choose.

Well that sort of negates the benefits of Web front end. You will now be
responsible for setting up a database server, a Web server and the
Django code that ties them together on each client.

What is this application going to do?

>
> Rich
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On 04/12/16 11:59, Rich Shepard wrote:
>
>    OK. I spent a lot of time over the past few years looking for a simpler
> solution and they just don't exist.
>
>    I'll learn django and take it step-by-step.

Not tried it myself but have you seen
https://www.kde.org/applications/office/kexi/

And if that's no good http://flask.pocoo.org/ is simpler than Django.

Martin

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Martin Collins wrote:

> Not tried it myself but have you seen
> https://www.kde.org/applications/office/kexi/
>
> And if that's no good http://flask.pocoo.org/ is simpler than Django.

Martin,

   The problem with kexi is that it does not run on Microsoft OSes which is
what my clients use. Long ago I looked at flask; that might be worth a
second look. I'm also seriously looking at peewee, which is an ORM simpler
than SQLAlchemy, and the Phoenix toolkit for the UI.

Thanks very much,

Rich

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, John McKown wrote:

> I'm not really sure what ".. make it an application that my clients can
> use. ..." really means.

John,

   It has to be simple and useful to naive users.

> I guess it means that you have some code for an application (which uses
> PostgreSQL as it's data repository), but it is difficult for many of your
> users to use easily. I also don't know how much effort you want to put
> into this. Would using C++ be acceptable? If so, then perhaps you should
> look at QT from TrollTech. This started out as a cross platform (UNIX,
> Windows, MAC) windowing system which has really grown. https://www.qt.io/
> is a nice site where you can get started. But you would need a commercial
> license if your software is not licensed as "open source".

   I'm familiar with Qt.

> A possible alternative to QT is GTK+ (https://www.gtk.org/)​. It is
> both GPL & LGPL licensed, so you can freely use it in commercial software.

   I migrated from C to Python a number of years ago so I've looked at
Python-based web frameworks (flask, django). I have developed a number of
applications in Python2 using wxPython; writing the UI takes most of the
time. But, I'll look again at the Python3 version called Phoenix and Peewee
(a lighter ORM than SQLAlchemy).

> Sorry if I went off into left field on this.

   That's fine. All ideas are always welcome.

Regards,

Rich

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016, Johann Spies wrote:

> Web2py is another (and maybe simpler) alternative to Django.

Johann,

   Thank you. I'll look at it.

Rich

On 04/12/16 17:54, Rich Shepard wrote:
>
>    The problem with kexi is that it does not run on Microsoft OSes which is
> what my clients use.

There is a Windows package in the works, apparently. Version 3 already
builds on Windows.

> I'm also seriously looking at peewee, which is an ORM simpler
> than SQLAlchemy, and the Phoenix toolkit for the UI.

Flask has a simple SQLAlchemy wrapper now. It is also based on bootstrap
though I don't know how the widget set compares with Phoenix,

Martin

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016, Martin Collins wrote:

>>    The problem with kexi is that it does not run on Microsoft OSes which is
>> what my clients use.
>
> There is a Windows package in the works, apparently. Version 3 already
> builds on Windows.

Martin,

   However, it is highly unlikely that my clients (all large industrial
companies) would install anything other than what they buy from Microsoft.
Unfortunate, but true.

> Flask has a simple SQLAlchemy wrapper now. It is also based on bootstrap
> though I don't know how the widget set compares with Phoenix,

   Based on advice from someone who builds postgres applications for a living
I decided that for my purposes as a non-professional application developer
the most parsimonious approach is to simplify to postgres (model),
wxPython/Phoenix-3.0.2.0 (view), and Python3 (controller) with SQL embedded
in the appropirate methods. This will result in a stand-alone application
that can be packaged for easy installation and use by clients.

Thanks very much for your suggestions,

Rich