mySiteMaker

mySiteMaker is a collection of CGI tools written in Perl that rapidly create web interfaces to MySQL or PostgreSQL database tables. It started out as a "Lite" version of phpMyAdmin, which may sound silly and pointless because phpMyAdmin is such a great tool for administrators, BUT sometimes phpMyAdmin is overkill; especially when you want a web front end to a database and the intended users are the general public and not administrators. Since its beginning, however, many, many useful features have been added that make mySiteMaker an entirely different beast.

Features
Homepage
Demo
Download
Dependencies
Install
To Use
Notes
Bug Reporting

Features

Web based configuration.
Automatically generates Search, Results, Add and Edit HTML screens.
The search screen is very simple, easy to use and does not require the user to have any knowledge of SQL.
The user can select which columns they want to view or export.
Searches can be based on the contents of files that the user can upload. For example, the user might have a list of employee numbers in a file and, instead of having to run a separate search for each number, they can just upload the file that contains the numbers.
Searches can be refined by allowing searches within result sets. This effectively lets users append AND style clauses to their searches without complicating the user interface and without requiring the user to know SQL.
Data can be viewed or exported in a variety of ways:
- as HTML pages
- as CSV text files
- as tab delimited text files
- as MS-Excel files
- as RSS
The administrator may specify columns in the database that contain only URLs or email address and they will appear in the results screen as hyper-links.
When combined with MySQL Import and MySQL Users, you can easily create a new on-line database from a simple spreadsheet in a matter of minutes. See the Tool Suite for an example.
A great way to create a rough sketch of a web interface to a database which can then be easily customized to your specific needs.

For a list of added features and changes since mySiteMaker's initial release, check the CHANGELOG

Homepage

http://www.itlab.musc.edu/mySiteMaker/

Demo

See the creation/configuration page.
See and play with some output from mySiteMaker.

Download

The latest version can be found at: ftp://ftp.itlab.musc.edu/pub/toolbox/mySiteMaker/.

Dependencies

Besides the obvious requirement of having a database, MySQL or PostgreSQL and a webserver installed, mySiteMaker requires:

DBI Module (DBI-1.13 or higher have been tested)
HTML::Template
CGI::Session
DB_File
Sys::Syslog
DBD::mysql, if you are using mySQL
DBD::Pg, if you are using PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL support is iffy right now.

The following are required if you want to be able to export CSV and Excel:

Install

Untar the tar.gz file:

shell> tar -xzvf mySiteMaker-X.X.tar.gz

Change directories to the mySiteMaker-X.X directory:
```
shell> cd mySiteMaker-X.X
```
Make the Makefile:
```
shell> perl Makefile.PL
```
Make yourself root:
```
shell> su root
```
Run the install script:
```
shell# make install
```
The install script will ask you several questions about where it should set up and install files.

Use

Once you install mySiteMaker, you can start using it by following the link printed at the end of the install. This link usually looks like this:

http://localhost/mySiteMaker/new_site.html

Notes

See the FAQ for general concerns.
If, while using mySiteMaker, you are getting errors like:
```
ERROR 1045: Access denied for user: 'username@localhost' (Using password: YES)
```
then it is possible that the permissions on the MySQL server will need to be configured to accept connections to the database you want to make a front end for from the computer you installed mySiteMaker on.

For mySiteMaker to work, you need to have a MySQL user that has SELECT privileges for the table that you want to create a web interface for. A simple, web-based, method for creating users with limited permissions can be found at: MySQL Users.
SECURITY NOTE: The usernames and passwords to do the searches (not the adding or editing) are stored in text file in WORLD READABLE text files in the cgi-bin directory. Thus, you may want to make sure that the username and password that you use for each database table has only SELECT privileges. Or make them readable only to the Apache user, but that is a risk as well. Web server security is not a focus of this document; please make sure you know what you are doing.

Bug Reporting

If you run into a problem that you think might be a bug, feel free let us know by filing a bug report. mySiteMaker continues to improve through help from users.