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Present a database 'view' as if it were a table?

+8 votes

Filtered rows would be nice but really not essential. A pure stand-alone table like view which allows sorting and filtering of results as you do now would do the job perfectly.

One thing I just remembered is that Access asks which field is to be used as a key when it is linked. Perhaps dbFront could do something similar. Just a thought :)

in Features (Todo) by (360 points)
recategorized by
This would be a good feature to include in the software.   Currently for views, were using Grafana to show as a table, but being built into dbfront directly would be more useful.
I would also like to see this as sort of a standing report.  since reports cannot join in more than one child table at a time.  this combined with export button would solve a few problems for us.
You could use a Stored Procedure based report instead of a View based report if you want.  https://dbfront.com/runprocedure#results, far more flexible and powerful since you can provide inputs and it can run conditional logic.

1 Answer

0 votes

Thank you for your request. There are situations where this makes the best sense.

At the same time those asking for view support might be missing a much better alternative.

Stand-alone views are largely divorced from the underlying data structure. This means that dbFront can't automatically generate lookups, use indexes or bring in other related tables.

In addition, it is very difficult to implement the ability to update data through a View, even if the view itself is considered updateable. Part of the issue is the need to identify the appropriate PK for the table and field that is being edited.

For example, if you want your users to look at a specific table:

  • possibly filtered,
  • with the related data expanded,
  • some summary information,
  • and allow editing of the primary fields...

... then you would be MUCH MUCH further ahead by creating and joining a small view to the current table to supply any extra or summary information. dbFront can then provide all of the other functionality for free.

ORACLE: Update/Insert through views
SQL Server: Update/Insert through views

NOTE: Please vote on this Feature Request if it interests you.

by (64.3k points)
edited by
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