Back in Feburary I took a look at the open-source database tool Sequel Pro and compared it against the commercial tool, Querious. Querious had the winning edge at the time, despite being for MySQL 5 only and costing money. It was only Sequel Pro’s support for MySQL 3 and 4 that provided any feature advantage. However, Sequel Pro 0.95 was released yesterday, and this release continues the steady pace at which Sequel Pro is catching up to the features and polished nature of Querious.

The version of Sequel Pro I previously looked at was 0.93, and in the two versions since then the whole feel of the application has lifted from a ‘rough open-source app’ to that of a ‘polished professional tool.’ They have added and enhanced functionality that was previously lacking, and tweaked the UI here and there to give a smoother user experience — which makes the important difference between an app that is functional, and an app that is enjoyable to use.

The general look and feel of the application is polished in the details and has more of the Mac sleekness that we have come to expect from great OS X software. The buttons on the main interface have all been tweaked, both in terms of style and the icons used to depict the action. The preferences dialog has also been redesigned and offers many new customizations and time saving options. There are lots of other little UI tweaks that help the application look like it belongs in OS X.

There is also finally a much improved query editor, with line numbers, full syntax highlighting and expanded code completion (press escape to bring this up). You can also right-click on keywords (such as WHERE or INSERT) and look up the MySQL documentation for that keyword in your browser with just one click. Editing query favorites is also easier with an improved favorites editor.

The output console log can now be hot-filtered with a live search term, making finding what you want easier than ever, too.

Just as importantly, there are many more tweaks and changes behind the scenes that results in a better user experience, including performance improvements and lots of bug fixes. With the speedy rate of development going on, the Sequel Pro team have their sights set on a 1.0 release with improved printing, user privileges management functionality and an enhanced Import/Export interface. This is exciting to watch — when open-source software gets solid momentum behind it, awesome things can happen. You can download Sequel Pro 0.95 from here, while the full release notes documenting all changes can be found here.

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A few weeks ago I took a detailed look at two MySQL database tools Querious and SequelPro, comparing their feature set. These are by no means the only two options for accessing MySQL with a shiny UI — so here is a quick look at eight more MySQL front ends that are available for OS X.

Mac-Only

SQLGrinder
SQLGrinder is all about running queries for any database natively on OS X. As expected from a query runner, it supports syntax highlighting and query history (although there are no keyboard shortcuts to go back in your history) which is only persistent while the app is running, however you can create saved favorite queries. Copying records from a query gives you CSV text in the clipboard, and importing and exporting is also done via delimited text.

While it lets you browse a database and view the table structure and indexes, there is no UI to modify the tables. SQLGrinder does support AppleScript and Growl, giving a tidy OS X experience. SQLGrinder supports MySQL, Oracle, SQLServer 2005, Sybase, FrontBase, OpenBase and PostgreSQL. It costs $59 and a trial is available (can be run 20 times). For a query runner that can talk to anything, it does its job well.

YourSQL
YourSQL is a free open-source MySQL client for OS X that allows full database creation, modification, browsing and query running with an intuitive (albeit, a bit cramped) UI. It also allows importing data from CSV or Tab or SQL and exporting to CSV, Excel or SQL, while copying records to the clipboard gives tab delimited text. The query runner is strong, with syntax highlighting and full query history that can not only be navigated with keyboard shortcuts, but persists from one application session to another. This is quite a capable basic tool, with a great price tag of nothing.

PGnJ
PGnJ, like SQLGrinder, just runs queries. PGnJ supports syntax highlighting and query history (although the history is only for the current session, it is not persistent when the app is closed) with full keyboard shortcuts throughout, so everything can be done quickly from the keyboard. Table definitions are easily viewable, to aid with building your queries. An SQL Library (with variable support) is present, although this feature is buggy. Common templates (such as create table, alter column, etc) can be selected if you can’t remember the appropriate syntax. Only one database can be viewed at a time, and you have to know the database name — you can’t browse a list of all databases on a server. Copying query results is also limited to the current cell or record — you can export query results to a file however, in SQL, XML, CSV/Tab & HTML formats.

In addition to MySQL, PGnJ can also connect to PostgreSQL, Oracle and SQLite databases and costs $49 (a 15 day trial can be downloaded). This application has a lot of potential to be a killer query runner, but has some rather rough edges that need ironing out before it is worthwhile.

SQLEditor
Unlike the other tools here, SQLEditor does not let you administer your database, or run queries — it is a design and ER modeling tool, supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle. This lets you design your database with an excellent UI, and then export the resulting SQL to file, or directly into a database. You can also import directly from SQL or from a database — allowing easy diagramming of an existing database. SQLEditor is $79 with a 30-day trial.

Cross Platform

MySQL Query Browser and MySQL Administrator
MySQL Query Browser and Administrator are available freely from MySQL itself. Together they allow full browsing, modifications, query running and database maintenance. While the tools are cross-platform, the UI is relatively OS X friendly and doesn’t seem out of place (I’ve found this unusual for cross-platform apps).

Supporting syntax highlighting and code completion, the query runner has a query history (unfortunately there are no keyboard shortcuts) and works well. There is not a way to copy records to the clipboard, however the query results can be exported to CSV, HTML, XML, Excel XML or a property list file. Along side these tools is MySQLWorkbench, which is currently feature complete, but still in first beta. This compliments the administration tools with a DB design and ER modeling tool.

NaviCat
NaviCat is a powerhouse of a cross platform database administration application. There are three varieties, one for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, with the MySQL version costing between $79 and $119 depending what feature set you want. A fully featured 30-day trial can be downloaded.

NaviCat has a horrible, Windows-like UI, but is incredibly featured, allowing pretty much everything from table modifications to stored procedures, views, event triggers, backups, user maintenance and scheduling maintenance tasks. The query runner has syntax highlighting with full code completion, and a UI based query builder. Copying query records to the clipboard results in Tab delimited text, while you can Import and Export in almost any format, including SQL, XML, CSV, DBF, XLS and even import from ODBC. Despite its price and horrid UI, it is one of the most powerful and functionally complete MySQL tool available for OS X.

RazorSQL
RazorSQL is a java-based cross platform browser and query runner that boasts support of 29 databases, including MySQL. A 30 day trial is available, with the full version costing $59.95.

Like NaviCat, RazorSQL is fully featured allowing browsing and modifying table, stored procedures, views, triggers and users. Query running supports syntax highlighting and basic query history (no keyboard navigation). There is no code completion that I could find, although it has a UI-based query builder. The UI has the typical cross-platform windows look and feel. Clipboard copying gives Tab delimited text, however you can export in CSV, Tab, XML, HTML, XLS or text and import in CSV, Tab, XLS, fixed width text or SQL. If you need a cross platform fully featured tool to access almost any database, this does the job fine.

Aqua Data Studio
Aqua Data Studio is a java-based cross platform database IDE supporting 11 databases, including MySQL. It requires Java 1.6 and a 64bit Intel Mac. A 14 day trial is available, with the full license costing $399 per user. This price could be possibly justified however, as compared to all the other apps listed here, this is much more than a database administrator. Aqua Data Studio also lets you do full database comparisons, version control (supporting SVN and CVS) and a full ER modeling tool.

If you need a complete package for an enterprise-level supporting role, this could be your one-stop solution. Otherwise it’s complete overkill for basic MySQL administration.

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Administering databases is not generally an exciting task, it’s right up there with TPS reports and their cover sheets. So why then, are you using the command-line MySQL client to administer your MySQL databases when you have a nice shiny user interface provided by OS X at your disposal?

The people behind Querious and Sequel Pro asked the same question, and have come up with two different answers. Neither are yet at a ’1.0′ release (Querious is close at 1.0beta2, Sequel Pro is at 0.9.3), however both are extremely functional and stable.

Compared to Querious, Sequel Pro has a relative long history, being an open-source project inherited from the now defunct CocoaMySQL. Querious on the other hand, is a brand new offering and is a commercial product costing $25 (a 30 day trial is available for download).

We’ll take a look at each app, pound for pound, and see who comes out stronger.

MySQL Server Version Support

The first, and critically important, difference to note is that Querious will only connect to MySQL 5 servers. This is potentially a big limitation (it is for me as most of the databases I work with every day are still MySQL 3) — so if you also need to connect to MySQL 3 or MySQL 4, Sequel Pro is the only option out of the two.

Concurrent Connections

If you want to work with multiple servers or databases at once, Sequel Pro presents a new window for each instance. Querious gives you the option of using a tabbed interface like Safari, or creating a new window, and is thus more flexible.

Browsing Databases

Sequel Pro lets you pick the database from a drop down list, then presents a flat list of tables for browsing. This is functional but does limit the visual overview to one database at a time.

Querious gives you a tree view with all databases which expand to show their tables. This allows quickly seeing multiple tables from different databases — the difference is subtle but potentially useful.

Both applications let you browse table records, allowing you to easily sort fields by clicking the column headers or filtering a specific field. Querious takes this one step further, allowing full text searches across all fields, or even specifying a custom WHERE clause just for that table.

Table Structures

Viewing and modifying table structure definition is much the same with both apps, allowing easy modification of table fields and indexes. Sequel Pro displays both structure and index on the same screen, while Querious splits these into two. The advantage that Querious has here is that it allows viewing and modifying the table and individual field character encoding. Sequel Pro doesn’t support this. Both have an easy facility to show and copy to the clipboard the corresponding CREATE TABLE query for the table definition.

Queries

At the end of the day, the most important feature of any database tool is how efficiently you can run queries. Almost any database task can be performed via a query, so any UI feature that is missing can be made up for by a strong query runner.

The huge advantage that Querious has over Sequel Pro when it comes to to running queries is syntax highlighting and code completion. The code completion will give you options to complete SQL reserved words and table entities. The syntax highlighting visually distinguishes reserved words from table entities and user constants, allowing you to spot typo errors quickly. Sequel Pro on the other hand, just gives you a plain text box.

Both applications support query histories, allowing you to click and see previous queries you’ve run. Sequel Pro does this with a drop down list to select a previous query. Querious lists these with a datetime stamp — requiring you to click the item before you can see the query — this could increase the time it takes to find that old query you’re looking for. Unfortunately, neither app allows you to go back and forth in the query history via keyboard shortcuts. On the keyboard shortcut note: in Sequel Pro you can type your query and then press enter to execute it. This should work the same with Querious (and does with an external aluminum keyboard) but it just ignores fn-return on my MacBook Pro. This is a minor bug, but is critical for every day use. Keyboard shortcuts are a must-have feature for me to use an app on a daily basis — stopping my work flow to move the mouse constantly just slows things down.

Querious and Sequel Pro also offer ‘Query Favorites,’ allowing you to store commonly used queries. Sequel Pro just uses a single drop down box again to select the query. Querious takes this further allowing multiple collections of favorite queries, giving each one a name. This allows you to group common queries by tasks or databases.

Server Maintenance

Querious allows editing users and allows full user privileges management with a simple point & click interface. Sequel Pro has no specific UI to handle this.

Both apps expose menu options to perform table maintenance such as analyzing, checking, flushing, repairing and optimizing. They also allow you to flush user privileges. The one thing that Sequel Pro can do that Querious can’t, is view the current server-side variables.

Importing and Exporting

Querious and Sequel Pro both allow importing and exporting databases or single tables in SQL or CSV/Tab files. Sequel Pro also allows exporting tables in XML.

Clipboard Support

You can select records (from a table or query) with both applications and copy them to the clipboard. Sequel Pro will copy these as tab delimited text, allowing pasting into a text editor or spreadsheet like Numbers, effortlessly. Querious goes a step further, providing an option sheet when copying, allowing you to specify the format to go into clipboard: CSV, Tab or SQL. The ability to copy records as SQL Insert statements is quite powerful, especially if you want to move specific records to another database or table quickly.

Verdict

When it comes to MySQL 5 servers, Querious matches and exceeds the features of Sequel Pro with style. If you don’t need to connect to a MySQL 3 or MySQL 4 database, Querious is just more polished and feature-rich than Sequel Pro and is well worth the small price tag. I hope they add MySQL 3 and MySQL 4 support soon, as I will start using it the instant they do so.

Gallery

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For those of you who have dabbled with website design and development, you may be interested to know that OS X is bundled by default with the Apache web server. This allows you to easily develop websites on your own computer without the need to invest in a domain name or hosting package. However, the standard Apache system in Leopard is fairly limiting for those wanting to delve deeper into web based development languages such as PHP and database technology.

Fortunately, there is a remarkably simple way to set up a fully featured server on your Mac: MAMP. We previously mentioned MAMP when it was conceived way back in 2005, but this post will explain in a little more detail exactly how simple it is to install, configure and start using your MAMP installation.

The abbreviation MAMP stands for: Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PHP. These are the four main constituents you need to design and develop a full featured website or application on your Mac.

Downloading MAMP

There are two versions of the server available to download, both of which come bundled in the same 130MB package. MAMP Pro is a configurational program for MAMP, allowing you to set up any number of servers to carry out tests without danger for your live system. It’s aimed primarily at those running a production server on their OS X machine, and at the outset you’ll likely be fine with the free version.

Once installed, it creates a ‘MAMP’ folder in your Applications directory. This contains the entire server along with the directory in which to place your website files (‘htdocs’).

Configuring and Using MAMP

There are three main components installed with MAMP.

• Apache: This is the basic web server, and makes the display of HTML pages possible. You can view your local Apache web pages through the URL http://localhost:8888/.
• MySQL: This is the database server, and comes bundled with a utility for easily adding, editing and removing database tables and records — phpMyAdmin. This is the easiest starting point for getting to grips with MySQL. The default username and password for the database install are both ‘root’.
• PHP: Where HTML is great for displaying content, PHP allows you to process information and connect to the MySQL database to store and retrieve information. MAMP allows you to choose between using PHP4 or PHP5, and the configuration options for both can be found in /Applications/MAMP/conf/.

Starting and stopping all these services can be done through the MAMP application itself, or through the bundled Dashboard widget.

The full list of services bundled with MAMP consists of:

• Apache 2.0.59
• MySQL 5.0.41
• PHP 4.4.8 & 5.2.6
• APC 3.0.14
• eAccelerator 0.9.5.3
• XCache 1.2.0
• phpMyAdmin 2.11.7.1
• Zend Optimizer 3.3.3
• SQLiteManager 1.2.0
• Freetype 2.3.4
• t1lib 5.1.1
• curl 7.18.2
• jpeg 6b
• libpng-1.2.18
• gd 2.0.34
• libxml 2.6.32
• libxslt 1.1.24
• gettext 0.17
• libidn 0.6.14
• iconv 1.11
• mcrypt 2.5.8
• YAZ 3.0.6 & PHP/YAZ 1.0.12

Uninstalling MAMP

If you choose to remove MAMP at any time, uninstallation is as simple as dragging the folder from your Applications folder to the Trash. This makes a huge change from a standard server installation which would historically include a series of complicated uninstall steps. If you are interested in the app on a superficial level it is easy to install it, play around, and remove it with no long-lasting effects on your system.

Going Live

Once you’ve created a world-changing web application on your local machine, you’ll need to search for somewhere to host the site permanently. Unfortunately, even if your ISP offers a fixed IP address, hosting your website ‘at home’ is unadvisable. It’s likely to be considerably slower than a server hosted in a professional data center and can cause some tension between you and your ISP. There are literally thousands of hosting companies offering a professional service, with the one I would recommend personally being Media Temple.

Do you have any experience using MAMP, or are you employing a different tactic to locally test and design websites?

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