Обсуждение: My user experience with pgAdmin 4.
Every day, whenever I want to administrate my PG databases, I click the pgAdmin 4 icon in the Taskbar. This causes a splash screen to start loading for a very long time (if it's the first time since the computer was started for the day) and eventually opens my normal browser (Firefox, which I don't even like, but it's the least horrible one left) with a new tab for pgAdmin 4.
Now, even after disabling the "master password" stuff, I'm always forced to enter the password and pointlessly click the "remember" checkbox, only to be greeted with the same prompts every single day. This is because I (like any sane human) clears all browser data in Firefox many times a day. Which means pgAdmin 4 keeps forgetting the credentials, because it's piggybacking on Firefox and storing its settings in whatever manner Firefox does it, and then it's cleared constantly when I perform my routine privacy task.
Even if it didn't do this, it would still be very awkward and bad for a multitude of reasons to have the database administration GUI as part of my normal web browser. It just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Whenever you need to restart the browser or clear all data/tabs, you lose your "state" in pgAdmin 4 and have to connect to it once again, starting all over. It truly cripples me.
I get that it's *easier* for the developers to just ignore this fundamental problem, because they apparently don't use it themselves, or have very different "work flows", and everyone seems to be taking the "easy" way out these days, observable in virtually every aspect of life, but it doesn't make it less obnoxious for the user. At least for this user.
I honestly have no idea who the pgAdmin 4 developers are, so it's nothing personal against them, but every day when I'm subjected to things like this, a certain hate grows within me toward whoever is responsible for making the bad decisions which affect me negatively. If the program had its own GUI and didn't harass me in all kinds of ways, I would instead constantly feel positive feelings toward the authors.
The only reason I still care about pgAdmin 4 is that there is no alternative. I've spent countless hours researching the so-called "alternatives", and they all have some major show-stopper about them. This one at least feels like a "kind of" official project. I just wish it didn't make dealing with my PostgreSQL databases feel like such a chore.
On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:51 AM <tutiluren@tutanota.com> wrote: > > Every day, whenever I want to administrate my PG databases, I click the pgAdmin 4 icon in the Taskbar. This causes a splashscreen to start loading for a very long time (if it's the first time since the computer was started for the day) andeventually opens my normal browser (Firefox, which I don't even like, but it's the least horrible one left) with a newtab for pgAdmin 4. > > Now, even after disabling the "master password" stuff, I'm always forced to enter the password and pointlessly click the"remember" checkbox, only to be greeted with the same prompts every single day. This is because I (like any sane human)clears all browser data in Firefox many times a day. Which means pgAdmin 4 keeps forgetting the credentials, becauseit's piggybacking on Firefox and storing its settings in whatever manner Firefox does it, and then it's cleared constantlywhen I perform my routine privacy task. > > Even if it didn't do this, it would still be very awkward and bad for a multitude of reasons to have the database administrationGUI as part of my normal web browser. It just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Whenever you need to restartthe browser or clear all data/tabs, you lose your "state" in pgAdmin 4 and have to connect to it once again, startingall over. It truly cripples me. > > I get that it's *easier* for the developers to just ignore this fundamental problem, because they apparently don't useit themselves, or have very different "work flows", and everyone seems to be taking the "easy" way out these days, observablein virtually every aspect of life, but it doesn't make it less obnoxious for the user. At least for this user. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. You have basically written an email that says that your workflow cannot align with a browser based UI. There is not much to do here other than change your workflow or change to a UI that isn't browser based. All the downside and problems you have mentioned aren't product problems, they are tech restrictions that come from using a browser. If the need for a browser were dropped and pgAdmin was rewritten as a native client app then a different person could come in and simply write a similar email about all of the downsides inherent with a native app. > > I honestly have no idea who the pgAdmin 4 developers are, so it's nothing personal against them, but every day when I'msubjected to things like this, a certain hate grows within me toward whoever is responsible for making the bad decisionswhich affect me negatively. If the program had its own GUI and didn't harass me in all kinds of ways, I would insteadconstantly feel positive feelings toward the authors. > > The only reason I still care about pgAdmin 4 is that there is no alternative. I've spent countless hours researching theso-called "alternatives", and they all have some major show-stopper about them. This one at least feels like a "kind of"official project. I just wish it didn't make dealing with my PostgreSQL databases feel like such a chore. The question I have is; understanding that this is a browser based application. What could be done to improve your workflow? -- Rob
I think that the fundamental issue is that pgAdmin 3 was a stand-alone app, and, as such, supported a set of features. Thebig one here is isolation; the pgAdmin environment was unaffected by much outside of it. For good or for ill, the decision was taken to write a new admin program as a web page. To the extent that this requiresrunning the admin in the “system browser”, isolation takes a big hit. It should be possible, desirable even, to builda fork of Chrome or Firefox that is dedicated to browsing pages from the admin server. That could certainly be doneindependently of the core pgAdmin 4 product. But that would be a pretty big project in itself. One easier suggestion would be to embrace the psql app. It is certainly not “the same thing”, that is true, but it is verypowerful, and very useful, and is completely unaffected by whatever nonsense is going on in my browser. For some tasks,it is *much* easier than a GUI. And it starts up instantly. Just a thought. Sent from my iPad On Aug 4, 2019, at 4:43 PM, Robert Eckhardt <reckhardt@pivotal.io> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:51 AM <tutiluren@tutanota.com> wrote: > > Every day, whenever I want to administrate my PG databases, I click the pgAdmin 4 icon in the Taskbar. This causes a splashscreen to start loading for a very long time (if it's the first time since the computer was started for the day) andeventually opens my normal browser (Firefox, which I don't even like, but it's the least horrible one left) with a newtab for pgAdmin 4. > > Now, even after disabling the "master password" stuff, I'm always forced to enter the password and pointlessly click the"remember" checkbox, only to be greeted with the same prompts every single day. This is because I (like any sane human)clears all browser data in Firefox many times a day. Which means pgAdmin 4 keeps forgetting the credentials, becauseit's piggybacking on Firefox and storing its settings in whatever manner Firefox does it, and then it's cleared constantlywhen I perform my routine privacy task. > > Even if it didn't do this, it would still be very awkward and bad for a multitude of reasons to have the database administrationGUI as part of my normal web browser. It just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Whenever you need to restartthe browser or clear all data/tabs, you lose your "state" in pgAdmin 4 and have to connect to it once again, startingall over. It truly cripples me. > > I get that it's *easier* for the developers to just ignore this fundamental problem, because they apparently don't useit themselves, or have very different "work flows", and everyone seems to be taking the "easy" way out these days, observablein virtually every aspect of life, but it doesn't make it less obnoxious for the user. At least for this user. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. You have basically written an email that says that your workflow cannot align with a browser based UI. There is not much to do here other than change your workflow or change to a UI that isn't browser based. All the downside and problems you have mentioned aren't product problems, they are tech restrictions that come from using a browser. If the need for a browser were dropped and pgAdmin was rewritten as a native client app then a different person could come in and simply write a similar email about all of the downsides inherent with a native app. > > I honestly have no idea who the pgAdmin 4 developers are, so it's nothing personal against them, but every day when I'msubjected to things like this, a certain hate grows within me toward whoever is responsible for making the bad decisionswhich affect me negatively. If the program had its own GUI and didn't harass me in all kinds of ways, I would insteadconstantly feel positive feelings toward the authors. > > The only reason I still care about pgAdmin 4 is that there is no alternative. I've spent countless hours researching theso-called "alternatives", and they all have some major show-stopper about them. This one at least feels like a "kind of"official project. I just wish it didn't make dealing with my PostgreSQL databases feel like such a chore. The question I have is; understanding that this is a browser based application. What could be done to improve your workflow? -- Rob
For what it's worth,
I try to mitigate the isolation issue by letting pgAdmin4 have it's own dedicated browser. I have a Chromium installation that is only used for pgAdmin4. I've adjusted the browser command to: "chromium-browser %URL%". In that way, whenever I start pgAdmin4, or ask for a new window, I'll always get that Chromium install.
It's a bit overkill I know, but with pgAdmin4 not having it's own UI, it's the least I can do to keep it away from the rest of my browsing/developing.
Perhaps it might help you as well.
rik.
On Sun, Aug 4, 2019 at 11:36 PM Bill Evans <billev2k@gmail.com> wrote:
I think that the fundamental issue is that pgAdmin 3 was a stand-alone app, and, as such, supported a set of features. The big one here is isolation; the pgAdmin environment was unaffected by much outside of it.
For good or for ill, the decision was taken to write a new admin program as a web page. To the extent that this requires running the admin in the “system browser”, isolation takes a big hit. It should be possible, desirable even, to build a fork of Chrome or Firefox that is dedicated to browsing pages from the admin server. That could certainly be done independently of the core pgAdmin 4 product. But that would be a pretty big project in itself.
One easier suggestion would be to embrace the psql app. It is certainly not “the same thing”, that is true, but it is very powerful, and very useful, and is completely unaffected by whatever nonsense is going on in my browser. For some tasks, it is *much* easier than a GUI. And it starts up instantly.
Just a thought.
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 4, 2019, at 4:43 PM, Robert Eckhardt <reckhardt@pivotal.io> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:51 AM <tutiluren@tutanota.com> wrote:
>
> Every day, whenever I want to administrate my PG databases, I click the pgAdmin 4 icon in the Taskbar. This causes a splash screen to start loading for a very long time (if it's the first time since the computer was started for the day) and eventually opens my normal browser (Firefox, which I don't even like, but it's the least horrible one left) with a new tab for pgAdmin 4.
>
> Now, even after disabling the "master password" stuff, I'm always forced to enter the password and pointlessly click the "remember" checkbox, only to be greeted with the same prompts every single day. This is because I (like any sane human) clears all browser data in Firefox many times a day. Which means pgAdmin 4 keeps forgetting the credentials, because it's piggybacking on Firefox and storing its settings in whatever manner Firefox does it, and then it's cleared constantly when I perform my routine privacy task.
>
> Even if it didn't do this, it would still be very awkward and bad for a multitude of reasons to have the database administration GUI as part of my normal web browser. It just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Whenever you need to restart the browser or clear all data/tabs, you lose your "state" in pgAdmin 4 and have to connect to it once again, starting all over. It truly cripples me.
>
> I get that it's *easier* for the developers to just ignore this fundamental problem, because they apparently don't use it themselves, or have very different "work flows", and everyone seems to be taking the "easy" way out these days, observable in virtually every aspect of life, but it doesn't make it less obnoxious for the user. At least for this user.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this.
You have basically written an email that says that your workflow
cannot align with a browser based UI. There is not much to do here
other than change your workflow or change to a UI that isn't browser
based.
All the downside and problems you have mentioned aren't product
problems, they are tech restrictions that come from using a browser.
If the need for a browser were dropped and pgAdmin was rewritten as a
native client app then a different person could come in and simply
write a similar email about all of the downsides inherent with a
native app.
>
> I honestly have no idea who the pgAdmin 4 developers are, so it's nothing personal against them, but every day when I'm subjected to things like this, a certain hate grows within me toward whoever is responsible for making the bad decisions which affect me negatively. If the program had its own GUI and didn't harass me in all kinds of ways, I would instead constantly feel positive feelings toward the authors.
>
> The only reason I still care about pgAdmin 4 is that there is no alternative. I've spent countless hours researching the so-called "alternatives", and they all have some major show-stopper about them. This one at least feels like a "kind of" official project. I just wish it didn't make dealing with my PostgreSQL databases feel like such a chore.
The question I have is; understanding that this is a browser based
application. What could be done to improve your workflow?
-- Rob
"What could be done to improve your workflow?"
This is the definition of arrogance... My "workflow" isn't what is abusing my browser. Don't even try to make this about me "doing something wrong".
tutiluren, I think you’re being a little thin-skinned here. I don’t think he was accusing you of misusing the browser, butI think you should admit that the root of most of the problems being described here is the necessity of clearing yourbrowser history often, due to bad players who take advantage of the browser history to do bad things — that’s not thefault of the pgAdmin4 developers. But it is one factor in deciding whether to use a browser-based UI. There are many factors,such as the number of platforms they want to support, and the limited programming and testing time available forall of these platforms. Every solution has it’s downside, so don’t act as though they made the only choice that wouldinconvenience you. I believe you would have the option of using one browser for outward browsing, and clearing it’s cache and history as oftenas you want, and using another one for pgAdmin4 (and whatever apps you trust) where you don’t clear the browser everyday. Or maybe you can use a browser that is more secure than the usual suspects (I believe they exist do not have anypersonal experience with them). Or maybe you can help organize complaints to those who build the insecure browsers tomake them more secure. And certainly, putting your two-cents in about their UI choice in pgAdmin4 is also certainly withinyour rights. But don’t act as though they made their UI choice in order to upset you, or that they don’t care thatyour workflow is cumbersome because of decisions they made. It’s just that the reasons they had for deciding to be browser-basedprobably outweigh your inconvenience. And you can always vote with your feet. > On Aug 6, 2019, at 5:24 PM, <tutiluren@tutanota.com> <tutiluren@tutanota.com> wrote: > > "What could be done to improve your workflow?" > > This is the definition of arrogance... My "workflow" isn't what is abusing my browser. Don't even try to make this aboutme "doing something wrong".