Feedback request: Mathesar v0.2.0 #4206
Replies: 2 comments 7 replies
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I have just installed Mathesar to test it on a legacy database. It would be helpful to import an existing database via a URL connection. However, my testing stopped at the connection stage due to an error during the mandatory schema creation needed for Mathesar. Altering the existing database to manage it is not an ideal practice; metadata should be stored in a centralized database rather than in the database being managed. I also attempted to connect to a local database without a password, but the form does not allow this. Unfortunately, I can’t proceed any further due to these issues. |
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Hi @sbusso, agreed on the need for login without a password. I have an existing issue for that here: #4061
Would you be able to expand on what the error was? This info could be really useful to the maintainers. Thanks for taking the time and effort to try to install Mathesar! |
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@sbusso Thanks for the feedback! The schemas that we install on the database are not just for metadata; they're necessary to make Mathesar function. For what it's worth, our schemas are completely isolated and never touch any other data. We use them to store our DB functions and custom data types. The functions are what lets us reflect the latest DB state in the UI in real-time without worrying about schema migrations or adding a bunch of reflection queries to each API call (which would make the UI much less responsive). We need them installed somewhere in the database. Our custom data types (e.g. email, URL) are just available for convenience. If you don't have any columns that use those types, then you'll never need to deal with them. |
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This is a postgres 11, which is not compatible with your schema. attgenerated does not exists there |
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In most cases, I doubt that installing a foreign schema on a production database for management purposes will be permitted, especially with the addition of functions. This limitation is a significant drawback compared to other clients, not even considering the limitations of compatibility. Instead of having a client connect and query, this installation will require an assessment and might be avoided by larger enterprise organizations. Take the scenario of a DB upgrade and keeping compatibility. Should we not migrate or, in my case, migrate a database to keep it compatible with Mathesar? The answer will be no. This is my opinion, based on my experience in various organizations of different sizes and handling requests for software installation on infrastructure.
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This is the first version I've tried, so far I'm impressed and very hopeful for the future! I'm new to postgresql but have used sql before. I work for a small manufacturing company and we'r looking for a simple and effective way to handle our company's database (patient-data, orders, contacts, billing and so on), while using an interface that allows even the "not so interested" employees to handle simple lookup and data input. We have used our current DB-system for over 20 years and are now forced to look for other solutions when the company behind the infrastructure choose not to support it any more. As it is closed software we can't take over the hosting and the stored data in the DB is fractured in a way that makes recovery very frustrating. This situation is what we want to avoid in the future! To that point my main reasons for considering Mathesar over competitors, even in it's current state, is the fact that you seem intent on keeping everything open source and my data within easy reach. Being in the medical industry, the ability to self-host without any data leaving the building is very important to us. I do also really encourage keeping the database (as in the user created DB and connections) as clean as possible (that is: separated from mathesar specific data) which is to my knowledge exactly how it works atm. As a completely new user I really enjoy the interface - everything is self-explanatory. I found my way around it very fast and hade several postgres-servers hooked up and working within sekunds. All of this is very well done! It invites you to try things out and is very sleek! The database functions that are there seems to work very well, even things like "self-referential foreign key"-links (i think that is the technical term for linking to the same table 😃 ) are clear and useful! Regarding features I'd like to see, these all fall in a broad category of postgresql functions. More datatypes, generated data, more defaults and so on. This also feels, to me, as the most needed additions in the current state of the project. The interface and workflow seems well thought-out, now I'd like to be able to use it more! 😄 |
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This is all really great to hear, @nozense! Thanks for writing this up 😄 You said:
Any examples you could give would be helpful to us. What data types? How would you work with them? How would you want them to function within Mathesar? What exactly do you mean by "generated data"? Being able to generate single values at a time for cells of data? Or entire rows? Or entire tables? We're keen to prioritize improving Mathesar for early adopters like you! |
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With data-types I was mostly after uuid to store longer unique identifiers, in a real world application this would be good for keeping individuals anonymous while also having a shareable identifier that (statistically) won't cause problems if used in one of our partners databases. I can of-cause store uuid's in any string format, but it seems really neat to have a specialized type <- and that would also make the generation of uuid as id possible 😄 But i also (without knowing the wording for it) mean functions and triggers. This is a lot more complicated than I actually am able to wrap my head around 😄, I haven't done this in any database (I'd use python or php depending on where i interact with the db). What I want to accomplish is, for example: Working in my "orders"-table I want to fetch the price for a product from a table of price-lists depending on what price-list is assigned to the customer and what product I'm adding to the order - and add that price to the order. To explain it in other words, I want to make one or several SELECT, with data from the record currently being inserted, before INSERT. This, I think, can be done with TRIGGERS and FUNCTIONS - but i have no idea if that is the best way. A popup (like the one when entering data in a reference column) but with custom SELECT querys for the choices might be better. |
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Thanks @nozense this is helpful! |
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We are excited to announce the release of Mathesar 0.2.0. This marks our transition from alpha to beta, which means the project is now more stable, thoroughly tested, and ready to work with production PostgreSQL databases.
We've been working hard to incorporate user feedback, improving Mathesar’s performance, security, and usability to better support your data workflows. The interface is now significantly faster, ensuring a smoother and more responsive experience for everyday use. We've also transitioned our access control system to PostgreSQL roles to enhance security and reduce deployment risks. There are also many quality-of-life improvements, including support for exporting tables and improved documentation. See the full release notes here.
How to Install
See our installation instructions for Docker Compose and from scratch.
Feedback request
We’d love for you to try this release and share your thoughts on how Mathesar is working for you. Let us know what you think of the improvements and what features you'd like to see next. You can also send us an email at hello@mathesar.org if you'd like to send us private feedback, or open a GitHub issue for any bugs.
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