Project: gtk library/builder for relational databases interfaces

["Stéphane Popinet" <popinet lmm jussieu fr>]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to start working on a library for creating custom graphical
interfaces for relational database systems. The goal would be to provide
to the average end-user an intuitive way of dealing with the sometime
complex structure of relational databases, while giving to the
developper a consistent framework to quickly develop extensible custom
interfaces (in an ideal world ;) )

While there already exists quite a few graphical interfaces to various
relational databases they are usually targeted at the database
manager/creator more than at the final end-user. They are usually just a
thin wrapper around shell-like commands (mostly SQL) and expose most of
the low-level structure of the database (data types, explicit logical
operators to manage relations between references ...). They usually do
not give any way to consistently define the relational structure of the
database (i.e. which attribute in which tables references which
attribute in which other table). The extensiblity you would need to
support graphically custom data types (for example images, sounds or
whatever you want to store in a database) is generally limited.

On the other hand, various proprietary graphically-oriented database
have been created. They are typically designed to be user-friendly but
they lack the lower level functionality and flexibility (as well as
power) of conventional database systems. In particular they are usually
not relational nor network oriented.

My point of view is that a good library would allow to bridge the gap
between these two types of database systems: the powerful, generic,
standard, demanding system and the proprietary, user-friendly, limited
system.

Practically, it would mean seting up a hierarchy of objects providing:
- a way of defining the relational structure of the database to be
interfaced.
  - links between attributes
  - associations of attributes
  - default conditional selections
- a standard way to intuitively create links between tables->attributes
- a way to define how the user would interact with various types of
attributes (i.e.    how to display/edit an attribute, what to do in case
of deletion/insertion of a  
  particular instance, etc ...). This would be extensible via plugins
etc ...
- a standard interface for conditional selection
- a framework for exporting selected instances to various file formats
or   
  applications.

This would be implemented via a library with a GUI builder eventually
developped as a second phase.

I would be glad to read any comments, criticisms from you all before I
start coding like mad ...

Thanks

Stéphane