Help a stupid noob find a good MySQL GUI program

February 18, 2007 3:49 PM

Stupid MySQL noob question: is there a free/free (or at least free-as-in-beer) win32 MySQL frontend that will show graphical representations of tables, allow drag-and-drop editing of their relationships, actually import all of my data, and use MySQL vocabulary and syntax for its queries?

I have a MS Access database I've been trying to port to MySQL. After a rather fruitless weekend googling and experimenting, I'm tired of trying this on my own and would like advice. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I'm still missing it.

For whatever reason, the MySQL migration kit is truncating table data at about the 300th row. So I've switched from using that to the (tedious) process of exporting each table as a .csv through Access, then trying to import each table one by one.

Webyog/SQLyog will not import my data. I've started with the largest table, with the rows titled correctly and in the correct order, with the Excel/.csv-friendly delimiters, and it always returns the message that it either skipped or deleted 2600 rows.

I have found articles talking about using Access as a frontend to a MySQL database. That sounds interesting, but the trouble is that I don't yet have a MySQL database because I haven't been able to import all of the data in any of the tables. A second trouble is that Access uses different SQL syntax than MySQL and I want to use MySQL syntax so I don't have to take on a second hosting plan.

What I want is a GUI/frontend to MySQL which will a) import a .csv file (not a hard requirement, you'd think), b) not cost me any money, c) show a graphical representation of relationships, d) allow the user to edit relationships by dragging and dropping rows in that graphical representation, and e) use MySQL syntax.

I'd keep banging away at this but I need this project off the ground sooner rather than later. And I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I'm still missing it. Where is this program? I know it exists.

posted by Tuwa to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Response by poster: P.S. It's the MySQL 5.0 GUI toolkit which unsuccessfully migrates my Access database.
posted by Tuwa at 3:50 PM on February 18, 2007

Have you tried OpenOffice.org? It appears that you can use it to connect to MySQL.
posted by cog_nate at 4:00 PM on February 18, 2007

Have you tried the command line? it's really not as scary as it sounds.

The other way I'd look into doing this (not that I have) is to connect access and mysql via an odbc connection, and directly copy the tables across
posted by cschneid at 4:06 PM on February 18, 2007

Response by poster: cschneid, I'm not sure that's the solution I'd want; the articles I found about it seemed to imply that doing it that way would limit me to using Access syntax on the queries. It's (always) possible I've misunderstood what was meant though.

cog_nate, thanks. I knew two years ago that OpenOffice could do this, and sometime since then I'd forgotten it. I'll look into that and report back on how it goes.
posted by Tuwa at 4:20 PM on February 18, 2007

Have you taken a look at any of these deleted/skipped rows? Perhaps they have a common theme (ie: bad character encoding, unescaped commas, etc).
posted by sbutler at 4:41 PM on February 18, 2007

I'm not sure it has all the features you want, but HeidiSQL is useful.
posted by Manjusri at 4:55 PM on February 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Have you tried dbdesigner?
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:23 PM on February 18, 2007

I like Navicat ... but you have to pay for the full monty (I think)
posted by GatorDavid at 11:38 PM on February 18, 2007

Here's an earlier similiar question.
posted by weston at 10:38 AM on February 19, 2007

Response by poster: sbutler, after a couple of days of frustration I found the common theme. Jakob Nielsen might call it "bad user interface design"; I'm more inclined to call it PEBKAC. SQLyog has a checkbox near the top of a table which says "Show All." If you have a table with more than 300 rows, it shows only the first 300. That box is most likely not checked by default since some people will be using databases with tables much larger than mine.

Manjusri, thanks for the suggestion. If there's a way to edit relationships visually in that one, I didn't find it. In its absence, I'm tempted to stick with SQLyog, since I figured out the other main sticking point on it.

GatorDavid, Navicat doesn't seem to be free-as-in-beer, though I appreciate the suggestion.

Weston, it looks like most of those answers don't apply here: I don't need Access, I already have the SQL Query tool, and AquaStudio seems to be for-pay.

Working in OpenOffice is tempting, though I have to admit that when I save and see only ".odb" as an option I'm no longer sure if it's saving it in native format. Eh.
posted by Tuwa at 8:07 PM on February 20, 2007

Response by poster: Also, I got OpenOffice to work briefly but now it's always complaining about the driver. Not sure what that means or why it's no longer okay when it used to be.
posted by Tuwa at 8:09 PM on February 20, 2007

Response by poster: I haven't forgotten this thread; I just still haven't found anything that both works and fits the needs.....
posted by Tuwa at 7:49 PM on March 10, 2007

Response by poster: Huh. This is still open. I've been using SQLyog, though it doesn't have the ability to edit relationships graphically, or even to show all the tables and relationships already established. I would switch to OpenOffice if a) it would quit complaining about the driver and b) it were clear that it can open, and save as, .sql. Seeing only .odb as an option is offputting.
posted by Tuwa at 8:28 PM on July 13, 2007