Design Goals

We designed Data Tool to help us maintain a cloud-based MySQL server containing multiple identically structured databases. As such, we followed three design goals to help us with this responsibility.

  1. Generate and Show the SQL Statements: We didn't want to just run tasks abstractly using a GUI that generates the SQL statements unseen and submits them to the database. We wanted to verify and learn from the statements being generated. Therefore, we wanted the generated statements displayed very much in front of us. For the most part, we put the generated statements in the lower half of each editor or task dialog. The SQL statements can be easily reviewed prior to copying them into the console window for running.
  2. Handle Identical Databases: To help us maintain identical databases (schemas), we added a "Scope" tab to most of the editor dialogs. This "Scope" tab contains a listbox of the databases on the connected server. The changes or settings selected in the first tab will be applied to all the databases selected in the second - the "Scope" - tab. (Most SQL statements generated per database are separate statements. However, SELECT statements generated in the Apply Snippet dialog can be UNIONed together.)
  3. Generate Scripts: Database developers are often called upon to do more than just program or tune SQL indices and procedures. A database developer may be asked to put together small intranet applications quickly, such as a front-end to a patch database or reports for maintenance tracking tables. For this purpose, we added two simple dialogs to generate PHP scripts: one for generating very simple PHP apps and another for generating delimited file import scripts.

How to Sign In & Execute a Query

  1. Open Data Tool and sign into a MySQL database. It will probably be more convenient to save your credentials for later by clicking 'Save'. Remember that any changes that you make will not be saved automatically; you'll always have to click 'Save' to store any changes.

    2. Sign-in Dialog

    Note the "SSL" tab in the Sign In dialog. We tested this feature by generating certificates and key files using OpenSSL on a test server. In our testing, we've only needed to fill out the (client) Key File and check Use SSL. But the other fields are there if you need them. By the way, to see if a server instance is supporting SSL, look at the SSL variables: 

    show variables like '%ssl%';

    If 'Have_SSL' is 'YES', then SSL is available. And to see if your client has successfully connected with SSL, you can look at the status: 

    show status like 'Ssl_cipher';

    If the 'Ssl_cipher' status has any value, then SSL is active.

  2. When you first open an SQL Console window, notice that the object list displays the tables inside the default database. You can change the database by selecting an item in the database popup menu, the second popup from the top. You can also select to look at different object types (procedures, triggers, views, etc.) by selecting an item from the object type popup, the third from the top.

    3. Main Windows

  3. Enter a SELECT statement in the textarea at the bottom of the window. You can actually drag a table from the object listbox into the textarea to generate a SELECT statement.
  4. Click the green arrow icon just above the SQL textarea to execute the statement. The result set will be displayed in the grid above.

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