Database Front-End?

#1

Yet another random software query. This time I’m checking out a simple web-based front end to a database. So far, I’m liking these two, though I haven’t tested much:

DaDaBIK: http://www.dadabik.org/
Ministry of Truth: http://mot.sourceforge.net/

I basically want to maintain a database via the web; allow ok’d site users to easily input data, allow anybody to search it with a simple interface, and hopefully build small static HTML snippits out of it to include in other pages via ssi (yes, I could access the DB directly via a script, but I’m not going there right now).

Nothing fancy; only a few fields, relational would be nice but not necessary, and it’s only going to include a few thousand records.

Anybody have experience with either of these scripts, or with something better?

#2

were you aware that DH has phpMyAdmin installed to admin databases already? Just type in your db hostname in a browser’s address bar and that should get you there.

Sorry if I’m off base here, hope it helps

[color=#0000CC]jason[/color]

#3

Hi jason -

[quote]were you aware that DH has phpMyAdmin installed to admin
databases already? Just type in your db hostname in a browser’s
address bar and that should get you there.

[/quote]

I was going to suggest this too, but I think he was thinking more along the lines of an interface that allows the general public to access the database, without having all of the extra ‘stuff’ that phpMyAdmin has. It’s a great tool (which is why we support it), but it’s not a very good interface for quick and easy data entry by non-technical people.

  • Jeff @ DreamHost
  • DH Discussion Forum Admin
#4

Jeff is right; phpMyAdmin is great, and I use it myself, but it’s not at all what I need–I just want users to be able to easily input records into the database via a simple web front-end, and do simple searches.

After spending more time trying to get things installed, I like DaDaBik for its simplicity, but it may be a bit too simple–I’m begining to think relational-ness would be a major plus, and it doesn’t offer any protection of data as-is–anybody can add or delete records. Perhaps with some hacking it’ll do what I want, though… but at that point, I wonder if rolling my own wouldn’t be almost as easy, which I’d really rather not do.

MOT sounds closer to what I’m wishing for, but I can’t seem to get it inistalled on DH after an hour or so of fiddling. Is there a way to run PHP as CGI and turn off magic_quotes_gpc at the same time, without building my own PHP? I can get one or the other to happen via .htaccess, but not both.

#5