
Show HN: Sql Data Viewer (Free) – my first attempt at a product offering - timabell
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.timwise.co.uk&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;18&#x2F;looking-for-beta-testers-for-my-new-free-sql-data-viewer-tool&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.timwise.co.uk&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;18&#x2F;looking-for-beta-teste...</a><p>I hope you find this useful &#x2F; interesting. I&#x27;ve not shared this on any sites like this before so I&#x27;m a bit nervous!
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shervinafshar
Some very random comments:

– Although not intended to be a viewer tools like your product, you might get
some good (and bad) ideas about UI/UX by taking a look at PHPMyAdmin [1];

– the pages don't declare any character encoding settings and language is
declared on `html` tag. It won't be a bad idea to check some of i18n good
practices [2][3]. This is specifically important for the non-latin script
content you know the language of them [5]

– be prepared for bad parameters passed [4];

– some field types (like date/times) could benefit from reformatting in the UI
for readability and time-zone-awareness;

– use BCP-47 language codes; `zh-Hant` vs. `zh-cht`

– some minimal effort on typography.

[1]: [https://demo.phpmyadmin.net/](https://demo.phpmyadmin.net/)

[2]:
[https://validator.w3.org/i18n-checker/check?uri=demo.sqldata...](https://validator.w3.org/i18n-checker/check?uri=demo.sqldataviewer.com%2Ftables%2FSalesLT.CustomerAddress%3F_rowLimit%3D100#validate-
by-uri+)

[3]: [https://www.w3.org/International/techniques/developing-
specs...](https://www.w3.org/International/techniques/developing-
specs?collapse)

[4]:
[http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.Customer?_rowLi...](http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.Customer?_rowLimit=999999999999999999)

    
    
         http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.Customer?_rowLimit=999999999999999999999
    
         http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.Customer?_rowLimit=-100
    

[5]:
[http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.ProductDescript...](http://demo.sqldataviewer.com/tables/SalesLT.ProductDescription?ProductDescriptionID=1888)

~~~
timabell
Thank you so much for taking the time to look and provide this superb
feedback. I'll work through it and I'll see what I can do! You have no idea
how much it means to me to get my first feedback from beyond my direct
contacts.

Do you have any thoughts on whether you would have a use for it in any of your
work? Is there a particular feature that's missing that is a showstopper for
you? Or is there some other reason you wouldn't use it?

Thanks again!

~~~
shervinafshar
You are very welcome.

The use-cases for such a tool, as you mentioned on the website, is when the
user doesn't want to get involved with a querying language like SQL. I somehow
disagree with the premise that writing SQL is "tedious and low value",
specifically for a generalist software engineer. So although I'm not an ideal
user for your product, but I could imagine a whole category of users who might
need to find data in an instance of SQL Server (or any other RDBMS). Putting
myself in their position, what I would like to have in such a tool is:

– not only use the full power of browser (tabs, etc.), but also benefit from
code which runs on client-side and improves the interactivity of the tool;
i.e. more JavaScript to allow users to dig and drill deeper into the data
without leaving the page or even the browser tab. The foreign key reference is
a good example for that.

– export the data I'm looking at for further processing and filtering in an
spreadsheet; integration with in-browser spreadsheet tools such as Google
Sheets would also be nice.

– improved UX; e.g. I know that the links in "referenced by" column of
`Customer` table should point the address, etc., but the presence of the link
doesn't necessary mean that there is a recorded address for a customer. The
user shouldn't have to click on the link and open a new tab just to find out
that there is no address for a customer.

\- allow the user to save their customized views of tables or joins and come
back to them easily; e.g. she is the head of customer support for your company
and doesn't want to see `PasswordHash` and `PasswordSalt` for the customers.
All she needs to know is a view into this table with customers' contact
information or in more advanced use-cases, number of orders in the past year
for each customer in a separate column.

\- more advanced users might like to be able to pass SQL through your tool and
get the results as the table format offered.

Hope these help.

~~~
timabell
That's very useful! Thanks again for your generosity with your time.

I'll change the text about tedious SQL to something else, you make a good
point. What I had in mind is where someone without access to the db has to ask
a dev or dba to run a 'select * from xx' for them. Most SQL work certainly has
great value and is far from dull!

