Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 10:46:16 +0200
From: David Schweikert <dws@ee.ethz.ch>
To: pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Gedafe 1.2.0
Message-ID: <20030927084616.GC26731@ee.ethz.ch>
Mail-Followup-To: pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i

Tobias Oetiker, David Schweikert, Fritz Zaucker, Adi Fairbank, and
Freek Zindel are proud to announce:
                _        __        _   ____    ___
  __ _  ___  __| | __ _ / _| ___  / | |___ \  / _ \
 / _` |/ _ \/ _` |/ _` | |_ / _ \ | |   __) || | | |
| (_| |  __/ (_| | (_| |  _|  __/ | |_ / __/ | |_| |
 \__, |\___|\__,_|\__,_|_|  \___| |_(_)_____(_)___/
 |___/
          #### Gedafe (the Generic Database Front-End) 1.2.0 ####


Introduction
------------

    Gedafe (Generic Database Front-End) is an application independent
    end-user web front-end for databases. Application independant means,
    that the front-end doesn't have any information about the structure
    and contents of the database.

    The idea behind Gedafe is to put all the application logic into the
    database, along with meta-information on how to present the data.
    The front-end then gathers this information and uses it to build the
    user interface. This approach greatly reduces development time since
    you only have to develop the application at the database level and
    the web front-end comes for free.

    And there is more:
  
    * Gedafe uses a flexible templating system. It allows you
      customize the look of the user interface to a large degree.

    * Gedafe generated interfaces support "deep linking". This
      means that you can bookmark every page as it is presented.

    * At the moment Gedafe works only with PostgreSQL. But the
      structure of the application does not depend on PostgreSQL.

    * Gedafe is *NOT* yet another database-administration front-end
      with table editing ability. It is a real user interface.

Release Notes
-------------

  * PearlReports have been integrated with gedafe. It is now possible
    to write perl modules (pearls) which will be picked up by gedafe
    and presented in the "Entry" screen. The idea is to use this
    facility for generating complex, structured (multi-level) reports.
    Pearls have access to gedafes Webform generator as well a to the
    database handle.

  * More widgets: the 'widget' attribute of the meta_fields
    can now specify more widgets and widgets can now have parameters.
    For example with 'idcombo(combo=...)' another combo-box can be
    selected instead of the one chosen by Gedafe.

  * Blobs (files) can now be inserted into bytea columns if you have
    Postgresql >= 7.2

  * Referencing large tables can now be done trough a java applet
    instead of a html select widget. This makes large (>100 rows or a
    few kb) tables more easy to use.

  * Dates can now be entered with a special 'date' widget.

  * Data can now be scanned for tokens resembling web objects (e.g.
    e-mail addresses, http urls), and automatically marked up to be
    hyper links. Set the 'markup' attribute to 1 in meta_fields for the
    desired column.
  
  * Gedafe can now count the total number of results returned from the
    database.  This is helpful for seeing the number of items found by a
    search, and in skipping to the beginning end or of a result set.
  
  * If you have the Text::CSV_XS Perl module installed (available from CPAN),
    gedafe automatically detects it, and gives the option of exporting data
    either in CSV format (comma-separated-values), or in tab-delimited format.
    CSV format is useful for data with embedded newlines characters.

  * The meta_fields attribute 'align' can be used to change the alignment
    of a coulumn.

  * The buttons in the list view (with the arrows for navigation and 'ADD' to
    add a new record) can now also appear at the top before the list.

Availability
------------

    Gedafe is released under the GNU General Public License.
    Read more about it and download at

    >> http://isg.ee.ethz.ch/tools/gedafe <<