Database Dilemma(s)

Freeway
1

I have two database related questions that relate to a content heavy web design (text, audio, and video) with content accessed/suggested via an expert system (tags, filters, and feedback).

From what I’ve gathered in my research so far, PHP and MySQL seem to be the way to go — though I’m certainly not locked into anything.

Question 1: Is there anything similar to Freeway in the PHP/MySQL world to simplify design?

Question 2: Is there anything similar to Freeway in terms of a report writer for formatting database driven reports?

Thanks,
Robert

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2

On May 28, 2011, at 1:41 PM, Robert wrote:

I have two database related questions that relate to a content heavy
web design (text, audio, and video) with content accessed/suggested
via an expert system (tags, filters, and feedback).

From what I’ve gathered in my research so far, PHP and MySQL seem to
be the way to go — though I’m certainly not locked into anything.

Question 1: Is there anything similar to Freeway in the PHP/MySQL
world to simplify design?

Freeway spoils us pretty badly! There was an application I was on the
beta team for years and years ago, called JaneBuilder or something to
do with Jane Can Code (I think that was the company name, anyway),
that tried to go down that road. It was never completed or released as
far as I know. Most of the other things I have seen are more like
IDEs, where there are code-completion tools and syntax checkers, but
nothing to actually generate the code for you from an abstract or
visual model.

Not unless you go all the way into it with a large programming
framework like CakePHP – then there’s an application called
ModelBaker which tries to take the example of Apple’s WebObjects
developer tools and apply it to application design and modeling.
Please note – this system is not a designers’ plaything, meant to
turn “hey look at this pretty page” into “hey, look at this deeply
complex web app” without a complete grounding in computer science and
object-oriented programming theory. Yes, you could probably do the
Hello World demo using it without lessons, but you would find yourself
deeply in the shrubs–beyond the weeds–unless you had the
aforementioned theoretical and practical understanding of how to do
what you want to do. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Question 2: Is there anything similar to Freeway in terms of a
report writer for formatting database driven reports?

One that I have used in the past is Navicat, but you’ll have to write
SQL queries in order to do anything besides sort and filter the raw
data. You may be able to do more with Filemaker Pro – last I heard,
it had a way to connect to a SQL server and allow you to create a view
into that data with all the formatting and layout tools that FMP is
famous for.

Walter

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3

Do you control the CPUs where your sites will sit? Here is an vendor of a integrated set of applications (http://www.tenon.com/) that should be run on a dedicated CPU running “Client” Mac OS-X. Why waste a copy of Server.

I have a love/hate relationship with Tenon but they do have a very adequate product in iTools9.05i. Here is a listing of iTools and some of it’s package members. iTools 10 for Mac OS X & Mac OS X Server

There is a 14 day full license for testing purposes. And an email to Tenon will get you a 2nd 14 days.

I see on Tenon’s home page they have a Facebook account? My absolute biggest gripe was the help forum is sanitized by the Tenon Staff. Sometimes you can ask for help twice a day for two weeks and NONE of your forum posts will make it out to the forum subscribers, And then sometimes it only takes 2 or 3 hours for your request to be posted to the group.

Tenon FTP has historically been weak if it gets under load and even Tenon does not use it on their site.

And one last item is the moment Mac OS 10.7 is release so will the next version of iTools. Therefore there will be a new something to look at.

Dale Josephson
Dale Josephson Consulting
Apple Developer & Support

On May 28, 2011, at Saturday10:41 AM, Robert wrote:

I have two database related questions that relate to a content heavy web design (text, audio, and video) with content accessed/suggested via an expert system (tags, filters, and feedback).

From what I’ve gathered in my research so far, PHP and MySQL seem to be the way to go — though I’m certainly not locked into anything.

Question 1: Is there anything similar to Freeway in the PHP/MySQL world to simplify design?

Question 2: Is there anything similar to Freeway in terms of a report writer for formatting database driven reports?

Thanks,
Robert

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options