HomeMySQL Page 4 - Data Management Made Easy Using Nennius: Introducing Nennius
Deleting Records - MySQL
PHP allows for the simple creation of many useful tools, such as creating a contact form. However, creating a data management system in PHP is not so simple. Since many end users are familiar with the Internet, Web developers often find themselves needing to create a Web-based interface to allow for meaningful interaction with data. Nennius is a data management tool that can make this task easier. This article, the first of three parts, provides an overview of this tool.
Nennius also automates the process of deleting records by first prompting the user to verify the deletion before finalizing the delete. During this step, the record is shown in read only mode as you can see below.
Figure 9: Deletion verification screenshot
Nennius may also be configured to check for any record dependencies prior to deleting a record (in the case of foreign key fields). We’ll take a closer look at this feature in part three of this series.
Searching and Sorting Records
One of the most powerful out-of-the-box features Nennius offers is the ability for users to easily search and sort records. Searching is done through the filter bar (previously discussed) and sorting is done by clicking on a column header (once for ascending, twice for descending).
Figure 10: Searching & Sorting screenshot
The simple search shown above filters all news records created between June 1st and June 2nd, and sorts them by their time of creation. If more than one page of results would have been returned, a pagination menu would also be present above the main record area.
Conclusion
We have taken a look at a few of the basic features offered by the Nennius engine. There are also many advanced features that we will be looking at in parts two and three of this series. Before continuing to those parts however, I would encourage any developer interested in using Nennius to try one of the online demo applications available on the Source Forge website, such as the Time Tracker tool (http://nennius.sourceforge.net/online_demo.php).
Once you have logged into a Nennius application, you will see that using it is quite simple and intuitive. Despite the type or amount of data being managed, the same intuitive interface is presented from application to application. Because of this, a single "User Guide" (http://nennius.sourceforge.net/user_manual.php) may be used to help answer questions for any Nennius application. This offers yet another benefit to developers using Nennius, as it reduces the amount of time required to explain a new tool to the user.
Developers may also encourage their application’s users to communicate with other Nennius users if questions arise to further reduce the amount of technical support required. This may be done through the Nennius Users forum (http://nennius.sourceforge.net/phpbb/).
Now that we’ve taken a look at what Nennius is, we are now ready to learn how easy it is to use. Part two of this series will discuss creating a basic Nennius application.
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