Avin,
Let me start by saying;
grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes.png
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 3:43 AM Avin Kavish <avinkav...@gmail.com
<mailto:avinkav...@gmail.com>> wrote:
They weren't aimed directly at anyone in particular. They were
suggestions for go-getters who like to take control of their own
fate and instead of waiting for the randomness of the universe to
deliver unto them what they seek. Maybe I should have put a warning
saying "not for the faint hearted, requires effort and reading docs
to accomplish"
Your missive appeared directed at the fella who was complaining
about the problems that pgAdmin4 relying on a browser was causing
him, especially in regards to password management. I apologize if I
misunderstood.
so he would need to install nodejs, npm, nativefier, either open a
command line/terminal every time he wants to start pgAdmin4 or write
a batch/shell script to start it. He would also have to remember to
start the pgAdmin /server/ separately and forget about using the
"New pgAdmin window" function. To add insult to injury, he'd have
to have separate scripts/commands if he should want a tray icon or
to run it full screen.
^ With the way you word things, even standing up sounds hard. It's
all perspective, it's accomplishable with a bit of effort. While it
may not be possible to get nativefier to behave as described above,
because it's an automated tool, you can script electron to do all of
the above for you.
That depends on the person, for some people /putting in half a dozen
stitches /is accomplishable with a bit of effort (heck I've done it
myself, painful but surely doable). I would still recommend someone
who's sliced themselves open go to the emergency room, or at least
see a doctor. But I guess it's all a matter of /perspective/ 😉.
To add insult to injury,
^ There are no insults nor injuries mate, surely nothing physical.
It leads me to believe that you are referring to emotional injury.
Which then leads me to conclude that you are too emotional about
this whole business of administering a database thing. Or maybe you
are a fan of hyperbole, I don't know. Tone is up to interpretation
in written communication.
Actually that's called /a figure of speech /[ *no end users were harmed
in the writing of the previous email*].
quite often actually. I have /lots/ of work to do that doesn't
involve a web browser.
^ Sure, do that work and also keep the web browser open? How does a
web browser window interrupt your work? How is it any different from
having a dedicated window open? Do you run out of RAM or something?
Do you accidentally start browsing memes when you have a browser
open? What's the problem? Be explicit about what's wrong with the
browser.
In my case, I don't need it, and yes I *do* run out of RAM or
something (Can I have just a /little more RAM sir? )😋./
pulling the tab out wouldn't do *anything* toward solving his
problem, which revolved around password management
^ It wasn't meant to solve the password problem but needing a
standalone window problem, which is also mentioned in the write up.
In fact, this email wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. It is a
general write up with a few suggestions for all the standalone
window needs I've seen over the past few days. I haven't directly
addressed anyone. I'm not sure you who you are referring to by
"his". I'm just a developer sharing my knowledge in hopes that
someone would benefit from it.
I don't know, but I am pretty sure /most/ people these days (with the
possible exception of my over 70 father) know how to either pull off a
tab, or start another instance of their web browser. '/His/' was the
person who wrote the initial email complaining about pgAdmin4 running in
a browser and making a mess of his password management.
Personally I have my own issues with the decision to write pgAdmin4
as a /web app/ running in it's own self contained web server.
However I don't think that there is much of a desire among the
/official/ dev team to change this
^ pgAdmin4 cannot be changed from a client-server architecture to
anything else. It is too late. A re-write would be required, which
is a breaking change. The only possibility is to affect the design
decisions of pgAdmin5 or 6. If anyone makes a factual and formal
presentation of why the existing client-server architecture should
be replaced with something else rather than improving it, we could
have a serious discussion. But I doubt it, I think everything can be
improved within the current architecture.
Yes, as a developer I realize the work it would take at this stage
to create an actual client program as opposed to the embedded web
server that it is now. Which is why I wrote that I don't see much
of a desire among the official dev team to change things. If you,
or any member of the dev team wants to have a serious discussion
about the merits and limitations of the current architecture with a
goal of possibly changing things, I'm all for it. Unfortunately it
appears that the design and road map have already been determined by
the current dev team. With the exception of reported bugs, or
unforeseen issues, they don't appear to be open to any substantial
changes.
One thing I don't see in these emails is any credible facts and
arguments against browsers, just a statement of personal unhappiness
at the change of status quo. Maybe, if arguments based on facts that
affect user experience, security or performance were provided, the
team would do something about them, as they have been doing since
the start. Instead, I see complaints. I don't see constructive
feedback on possible improvements on this topic. I don't see
solutions. I don't even see real problems.
Hmmm.. where to begin.
* not all browsers are supported (as evidenced by a bug report where I
was told that Chromium isn't a /supported/ browser)
* you have to run the UI as a separate program from the program itself
* you have to worry about collisions between a /particular/ browser's
short cuts and another's (Chrome is different from FireFox is
different from Edge, etc.)
* context (or right-click) menus aren't typical of a desktop program
(no copy / paste option in the query window for example)
* you are limited to a single /window /(tab)
* you don't have true pop-ups/dialog boxes/notifications
* if you detach a query editor panel, you can't reattach it (though
that's hopefully just an unresolved bug)
* your /session/ is now open to attacks from malicious plugins or
random people across the internet (it's a /browser/ after all)
* your user / password management is effected by your particular
browser's cache or policy
* you're limited to the sand boxed security restrictions of the
particular browser you happen to be using (try loading a 10 GB file)
* disruptions of the connection between the application and the UI,
timeout's etc. occur (long running pgAdmin4 sessions can cause the
UI to freeze under kubuntu).
Not an exhaustive listing by any stretch, just what I could come
up with off the top of my head.
so, your final suggestion is that, /if/ he's a javascript developer
he could simply /write his own program/ to fix a perceived pgAdmin4
shortcoming.
^ yeah absolutely, write your own programs without asking other
people to do it for you for free of charge !!!!????? It's open
source software. No one owes you anything. This is distributed
without liability
<https://electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window>. The existence of
postgresql and pgadmin itself are mere courtesies.
😂 No one said that they were *owed* anything. No one is claiming
anyone is /liable/ for anything either. Saying that if you don't like
it you should just write your own is rather short sighted. Unless the
dev team is writing pgAdmin4 *only* for *themselves* then they should
care about what the end users care about. Otherwise they may find that
they are the only ones using it. 🤔
I did not mean write an entirely new admin app, I meant embed
pgAdmin4 in Electron which literally takes 5 lines of code as a
start <https://electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window>. 1. Create a
browser window. 2. Point it to pgAdmin4 URL. 3. Enjoy !!. If you
know SQL, this is definitely do-able. And no it's not like the
normal browser window. It will look like a normal app. Or you could
increase the immersion by creating a frameless window but you may
not be able to close it normally.
https://electronjs.org/docs/api/frameless-window
Here's a starting point. Follow this getting started
<https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/first-app>first and replace
the code in main.js
|const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron') let win function
createWindow () { win = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600,
webPreferences: { nodeIntegration: true } })
win.loadURL('|http://127.0.0.1:45707/browser/') // <--- Fix the port number and
point this address to it.
|win.on('closed', () => { win = null }) } app.on('ready',
createWindow) app.on('window-all-closed', () => { if
(process.platform !== 'darwin') { app.quit() } }) app.on('activate',
() => { if (win === null) { createWindow() } })|
That's all there is to it. Once you have that working, you can take
it a step further by getting electron to launch the pgadmin4 server
if it is not running already by using spawn
<https://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html#child_process_child_process_execsync_command_options>
It's nice that you included the above, but it's not terribly helpful
to the /non/-programmer. I could write the Lorentz transformation
equations to handle relative velocities in special relativity
image.png
but unless you're familiar with differential calculus and special
relativity it's not very helpful.
*Maybe an alternate launch option based on Electron should be an
officially supported feature ?*
Maybe. Though I think it would have to handle the above mentioned
limitations, and be /built in/ for it to help *most* people.
So there, no attacks, insults, or other /negativity. / Just one man's
opinion.
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 1:07 AM richard coleman
<rcoleman.ascen...@gmail.com <mailto:rcoleman.ascen...@gmail.com>>
wrote:
Hi Avin,
My $0.02
On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 2:11 PM Avin Kavish
<avinkav...@gmail.com <mailto:avinkav...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hey,
Here's some unofficial input on the topic.
This request baffles me for two reasons.
a. Why does one need a standalone window when they can have
pgAdmin open in a tab while multi-tasking. Is there ever a
time when the web browser is closed while using a pc in
2019? If you lose tabs you can pin the tab and it will
always be on the left side.
quite often actually. I have /lots/ of work to do that doesn't
involve a web browser.
b. If you want it to run in it's own window, you can drag
and pull the tab to it's own standalone window.
pulling the tab out wouldn't do *anything* toward solving his
problem, which revolved around password management
If that doesn't solve your problem,
You can try Nativefier but you might need to launch pgAdmin
on the same port each time. It basically wraps any web site
in an electron app. Electron fyi allows developing desktop
apps using web technologies. It's based on chromium and
nodejs and renders web apps just like google chrome would.
https://github.com/jiahaog/nativefier
so he would need to install nodejs, npm, nativefier, either
open a command line/terminal every time he wants to start
pgAdmin4 or write a batch/shell script to start it. He would
also have to remember to start the pgAdmin /server/ separately
and forget about using the "New pgAdmin window" function. To
add insult to injury, he'd have to have
separate scripts/commands if he should want a tray icon or to
run it full screen.
Or if you are a javascript developer you can write an
electron app yourself to encapsulate and extend upon the
current functionality. https://electronjs.org/
so, your final suggestion is that, /if/ he's a javascript
developer he could simply /write his own program/ to fix a
perceived pgAdmin4 shortcoming.
Personally, I find it convenient to have it as a tab while
reading docs and other stuff and often prefer it to
switching to my IDE.
I'm glad that you find the current set up convenient,
unfortunately it seems like this is a problem for at least Mark
and tutiluren.
Once again, this is unofficial. I'm not part of the team.
neither am I.
Personally I have my own issues with the decision to write
pgAdmin4 as a /web app/ running in it's own self contained web
server. However I don't think that there is much of a desire
among the /official/ dev team to change this.
rik.
Regards,
Avin
On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 10:51 PM Murtuza Zabuawala
<murtuza.zabuaw...@enterprisedb.com
<mailto:murtuza.zabuaw...@enterprisedb.com>> wrote:
Hello,
I am afraid this is not possible at a moment, pgAdmin4
doesn't have its own UI rendering engine so it is
dependent on the default web browser on the user's system.
-- Murtuza
On Fri, 26 Jul 2019, 21:32 Mark Murawski,
<markm-li...@intellasoft.net
<mailto:markm-li...@intellasoft.net>> wrote:
Hello!
How can I go back to the traditional pgadmin4
interface where it runs in
its own window. I do not want to launch it as a
browser tab.
