Re: Regarding feature #6841

On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 at 11:29, Thom Brown <thom@linux.com> wrote:

On Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 09:15 Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Adding some notes below to summarise a discussion we had on this in a call...

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 at 08:26, Aditya Toshniwal <aditya.toshniwal@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 7:15 PM Aditya Toshniwal <aditya.toshniwal@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 7:05 PM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Hi

On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 at 14:32, Aditya Toshniwal <aditya.toshniwal@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 6:22 PM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Hi

On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 at 11:56, Aditya Toshniwal <aditya.toshniwal@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Even if you put the cursor on the "SELECT"? If so, that would imply the parser understands the string quoting; e.g. in this case, the Python multiline string. Presumably then it would also understand regular single and double quotes - what about (for example) a heredoc in a pl/sh function?

Yes, the parser understands all the aspects of a SQL query and so it understands what type of token the cursor is based on which it does the syntax highlighting I believe.

Does it? Even EPAS extensions?

I mean only standard SQL grammar.

Standard SQL grammar doesn't help us much - PostgreSQL is probably the most standard compliant dialect there is, but if it deviates from the standard in a few cases, and has a ton of syntax that isn't even in the standard. However, I suspect you mean PostgreSQL-standard, as we are using the PostgreSQL dialect in CodeMirror. But, pgAdmin also supports EPAS....

We'll have to test different scenarios to know exactly what works and what doesn't.

 

 

It sounds like Thom has similar concerns, and I know him well enough to know he wouldn't chime in without good reason.

There are limitations and it won't work correctly apart from standard SQL queries. Like I said, we're adding it as a new button without touching the existing working. If a user chooses to use the new button, he knows that pgAdmin will try to find the query on its own. This is an optional feature.

Additionally, what we could do is when the user hits the button we will show a warning and the user can opt for not showing it again.

Ten minutes later they will have forgotten that warning.

I'm currently thinking that we should display the current query all the time somehow (though I'm not sure how, without taking up a lot of space).

Can't we add some kind of tooltip or popover on hover over the execute query button?

Possibly :-). Let's try a PoC.

OK. I'll ask Anil to create some samples.

 

We gave a thought on how a person would know what the query is when using keyboard shortcuts. So we came up with another suggestion. How about a highlighter on what is the query based on cursor position? Example below. We can disable it from preferences. We still need to check how the performance will be, although we'll add debouncing.

So the plan is:

1) We automatically highlight the "current" query in the editor, similarly to the mockup above.

2) We add an option to Preferences (also exposed under the Edit drop down in the Query Tool) to turn off that highlighting.

3) When the user clicks the "Execute Query Under Cursor" button, it will be executed immediately if highlighting is enabled.

4) If highlighting is disabled, the query to be executed will be displayed in a confirmation dialog to allow the user to review before execution.

5) The confirmation dialogue will have a "Don't show this again" option for those that trust the CodeMirror parser enough.

6) A button above the resultset will be added to allow you to see the query that was executed to generate that resultset in all cases.

A button above the resultset? Do you mean a tab, or an actual button?

A button, alongside the ones that are already there for editing data etc. 

 

I guess I would like to understand the rationale for this feature. Users supposedly want this as described, but what is the precedent? I mean, I've used GUIs for other DMBS's where you select what you want to run, and it just runs the selection, even if it doesn't grab the whole query (e.g. excluding ORDER BY or WHERE predicates).

Other GUIs (for PostgreSQL and other DBMSs) have this functionality, and we've had multiple requests for it.

 

The latter seems more flexible and predictable IMHO. And that way you can dispense with the confirmation dialogue, and there's no need for any additional configuration options because there's probably no need to disable it.

You've been able to do the "Select and run" thing for years. If you select text in the editor and hit the execute button, only the selected text is sent to the server. If nothing is selected, the entire string is sent. This feature will complement that for convenience, but for safety will have a separate button/shortcut.