dataMiner - Data Administration
dataMiner is a PHP application for manipulating data stored in a database. Table metadata is loaded internally by PHP, leaving configuration minimized to bare essentials. Features like file upload handling, image thumbnails, advanced form controls w/ javascript, data importing / exporting, a popup calendar, WYSIWYG editor, and css themes are included.
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What is it?
data - a collection of information
miner - one who mines; to dig into...
dataMiner - one who digs into a collection of information
How does it work?
dataMiner is a set of PHP classes used to browse, search, and manipulate data stored in a database. dataMiner does NOT manipulate the database itself, or the database table. It only handles the data.
The dataMiner core consists of three (3) components. A browser, an editor, and a detailer.
1. dataBrowser (the lister) - with the browser, we're able to view all records in the table with plenty of digging options such as search and page links.
2. dataEditor - the editor gives us the ability to modify a record.
3. dataDetailer - the detailer shows us the details of a specified record in a print-friendly page format.
Configuration Rules
The "magic" of dataMiner is it's rule-based plugin architecture for handling special fields in your table in specific ways. For example, if your table as a one-to-many relationship with another table, you may want to display a HTML select when editing this field. This HTML select would consist of values from your related table. Instead of displaying many ID's (or primary keys), you may want the "title" field from the related table to populate your select box. This is what the "xref" rule does.
dataMiner includes many rules which you can apply to specific fields in your database table. Example rules are cross-referencing (xref rule), file uploading (file rule), thumbnail generation, (thumbnail rule), and many more. See the sample script included in this distribution for examples of each type of rule.
As for the database, dataMiner currently only supports MySQL, but it uses a generic DBI class which allows for more RDBMS support in the future.
dataMiner is written in PHP4 with a little JavaScript. Any server running Apache, PHP 4, and MySQL should work without problems.
dataMiner is licensed under the GPL. See the LICENSE file for details.
Why use it?
While there are other web-based database administration package available, I was unable to find one that fully suited my needs. Unlike other web-based database administration packages, dataMiner handles only the data and not the administration of the database itself or the tables. This is great for many data manipulative uses.
How do I install it?
Since dataMiner is meant to work with your existing database tables, installation is a snap. Simply copy or move the contents of the dataMiner archive to a directory in your document root, and edit index.php to reflect your database settings and configuration preferences. Read the comments in that file for furthur details. You may then point your browser to the dataMiner directory, and dataMiner should appear browsing your defined table.
Out of the box, dataMiner is configured for a business directory. If you'd like to see it in action, there is a sample.sql you can load into your database. The data contained within the sample database was included for demonstration purposes only.
Screenshots
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Browsing all entries in a database table |
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Editing an entry |