Well, there are many, many MySQL front ends out there. I’ve used a bunch of them. The one I like the most is called MySQL front. It’s not very expensive at all and it’s really a powerhouse of a MySQL GUI. However there are a lot of free ones out there. MySQL cc is a free one that is offered on MySQL’s website.

It’s really important to have a front end for MySQL, because working with MySQL at the command line interface can take up a lot of time. One of the best things about using a front end is that some of them can generate your SQL statements for you. In fact there’s another one out there named MyDB Studio, which is just that. It’s a query generator. It’s the best I’ve seen so far, and nevertheless, its main focus is generating queries for PHP scripts. There are a few other generators like EMS MySQL Manager, but it isn’t really geared toward PHP specifically like MyDB studio is, not to mention it may have a lot of nice features, but they don’t really make EMS MySQL Manager as useful as MyDB Studio is. MyDB Studio will generate select, insert, update, and delete statements for you then even generate PHP that connects to the database and runs the query.

On the other hand, sometimes I find that with smaller, less complex queries it’s easier to just code them by hand. Also it’s really nice to have your own little SQL class in another PHP document that you can just include into your project, so that you can just call a class set some parameters and, BOOM, instant SQL connection. I’ve even seen a class available in forums that will build queries for you all you have to so is send the parameters to it.