New UI released - db<>fiddle - TopAnswers

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New UI released

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Jack Douglas

db<>fiddle now has a new UI but a few missing features (for now)

The new UI is:

* written in Node.js and served from a 100% serverless AWS environment for ease of maintenance (CloudFormation, lambda, S3, CloudFront, RDS Aurora v2 Postgres)
* built around [CodeMirror 6](https://codemirror.net) which has better mobile support
* shorter urls by default (old urls should all still work though)
* fixes a few long-standing quirks
* cleaner and looks nicer (at least to my eye)

As with any major rewrite there are bound to be some problems, so please let me know if anything breaks and I'll try and fix it as soon as possible. Any other feedback is also very welcome, positive or negative. There are a few of things I know aren't working yet: 

* integration with TopAnswers
* ~~SQL Server optimizer plan diagrams~~
* collapsible result tables when many rows are returned

I'm planning to work on these over the next few days and weeks but which order I do them in may depend on feedback here so let me know if you miss any in particular. I also have a very long list of new features I'd like to add but didn't want to do on the old codebase, for example:

* new language support for non-RDBMS engines, starting with PHP
* new firecracker engines, eg MariaDB 10.7+
* perhaps take advantage of the new markdown output, eg for [charts](https://github.com/chuyun/markdown-it-charts) or [diagrams](https://github.com/tylingsoft/markdown-it-mermaid) - mermaid might be suitable for plan visualisations
* daily updating postgres sample databases with db<>fiddle and TopAnswers data (like data.stackexchange.com)

comments

transcript

Vérace replying to Jack Douglas

They're lining up! :-) I'll send in a couple of more "niggles" tomorrow! Again, not that it's not great as is, just a few thoughts.

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

It's fine to hit me in chat but for anything that might need debating you can just 'Ask' a question here per the [about page](https://topanswers.xyz/fiddle?q=2035) and give it the `feature-request` tag

Vérace

Does what I wrote above not constitute a feature request? Where should I put in feature requests if this is not the place? I could ask on the Heap and see how the wind is blowing there. AFAIC, it would be a "nice to have" but a) maybe that's just me and b) it's hardly mission critical!

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

if you post it as a feature request and it's clear that most people agree I'll likely implement it in the end - I like the short urls for posting to twitter, and also because they make markdown and the rendered result track more closely. I have no idea whether most people care more about seeing the engine in the url or keeping it short!

Vérace replying to Jack Douglas

Firstly, thanks again for all the effort you are putting in on behalf of the community - it's very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback carping from the sidelines - I hope you don't think that's me - I am humbly offering suggestions. `https://dbfiddle.uk/PG14.3/9VR7JCG2`, `MySQL.23`, `Ora18.xxx` - I don't know if that's too onerous? Why is a (slightly) longer URL a problem? Again, what you're doing is great - and if I don't have the extra bit in the URL, I think I'll think I'll manage to survive without it! :-)

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

I think (hope) that the shorter urls are a feature but I see what you mean. The old-style urls still work via a 301 but they aren't exposed anywhere by default. I don't think I want to make the urls longer again, but I could perhaps expose the old-style url in a hidden element if that would help. I'm not sure it would be convenient enough for your use-case though?

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

thanks it's very useful to have this stuff pointed out. I've fixed that bug now, but also (and perhaps not everyone will like this) added the command status messages that postgres returns. in some cases these are basically noise and in other cases very useful.

Vérace

And then Rust/Go/Clojure/Trendy_language_of_choice...

Vérace replying to Jack Douglas

Ditto that!

Vérace

Another point which has come to mind is that now, in the fiddle URL, there is no indication as to from which server the fiddle originates. Now I have in the past posted comparisons between either different versions of, say PostgreSQL, and/or comparisons between PG and MySQL (or whatever - PG being my server of choice). Being able to distinguish the servers via the fiddle made such comparisons far easier when copying and pasting between fiddles and dba.se or wherever. Would it be possible to add a string with server and version in front of the anonymous string?

Vérace

I'm going to continue to post bugs (well, more niggles really - at least so far) here - if there's a better place, please let me know. Very simple fiddle with MySQL (https://dbfiddle.uk/9VR7JCG2) - notice how the empty table still returns the field name with no records, whereas in this PostgreSQL fiddle (https://dbfiddle.uk/MFltThn2), on `SELECT * FROM test;` (test is empty), no field name(s) are shown. This is potentially confusing (have I really created the table?) and inconsistent with MySQL behaviour (correct IMHO) and also inconsistent with prior behaviour.

Jack Douglas

I think I need to learn C though!

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

I guess with the embedded version I'd need it linked to whatever language I'm using for the script that processes the fiddle (I'm not a C programmer - FireBird is currently PHP and some of the other engines are node)

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

lol :)

Vérace replying to Jack Douglas

Looks like the full server to me. The embedded one is called libEngine13.so/.dll (or similar) - it would be like SQLite - might use fewer resources - although with the number of FB queries, it's probably not mission critical!

Vérace replying to Jack Douglas

Matthew 7:7–8 :-) - thanks!

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

definitely my fault! All fixed now though you need to re-run any fiddles to get the nulls to appear as *null* (I did the one you linked to)

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

can you tell from the [dockerfile](https://github.com/jacobalberty/firebird-docker/blob/master/Dockerfile)? I don't think so but I'm far from expert at this 'build from source' stuff

Vérace

Are you using embedded Firebird?

Vérace

Not sure if this is your fault (knowing MySQL, I know where I'd put the blame for pretty much anything) but NULLs don't appear in MySQL fiddles (https://dbfiddle.uk/2TeFoCuS). If it's the fault of the server, would there be any way of "intercepting" the response and "inserting" the string "NULL" - works for PostgreSQL.

Vérace

Wow - deadly!

Jack Douglas

firecracker does what it does really well imo

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

yes running a fiddle triggers a firecracker process to be created and it is killed after it returns. There is a bit more info here if you are interested: https://topanswers.xyz/fiddle?q=2070

Vérace

Is every server running on a different instance of firecracker? How do you find it to use?

Jack Douglas replying to Paul White

the original query plan diagrams are now back on new dbfiddle Paul

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

I build a rootfs for the firecracker micro-vm from the official dockerfile: https://hub.docker.com/r/jacobalberty/firebird

Vérace

What did you install for FB4?

Vérace

You must have a mind-reading module in your code somewhere! :-)

Jack Douglas

![blob](/image?hash=f16b56c8d74c42661f2998d90c01fdbe1868947d2f470b0e74bc0df3201b5356)

Jack Douglas

https://twitter.com/dbfiddleuk/status/1552950729639337985?s=20&t=AHHdFLkdtspJn2ftUVX2uw

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

Firebird 4 is already on db<>fiddle :)

Vérace

You may remember some time back, I requested Firebird 4 (a sadly underrated system IMHO) and you said you'd like an official RPM - I went to their lists and they don't apparently release same. I could send you my own build and perhaps you could include it with a caveat - only if you're interested - you may not wish to pollute your system with the humble offerings of urchins such as myself.

Paul White replying to Jack Douglas

Yeah I also use an iPhone. It's possible to run a fiddle and make small edits, but scrolling around and seeing everything doesn't always work as well as I'd like. Perhaps I just need to avoid fiddles on phones though.

Jack Douglas replying to Paul White

yes I think so, and that seems to be working ok (at least on iPhone which is all I've tested)

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

It's a pleasure, and please feel very free to post any feature requests - small or large :)

Vérace

Hi Jack - just hitting the Control-Return works for me - I very rarely use the button in any case. And, Oh, Joy of Joys, hitting Ctrl-Retn now drops one back into the snippet from whence one came - before one was put into some sort of limbo and had to click back into the snippet - even more deadly! :-) As to whether the latter (remain in snippet using button) is possible, would it not be possible to just leave the cursor where it was/is at the point of hitting the return button? (p.s. know nothing about webdev so please forgive any ignorance on my part). Also really (really!) like the fact that brackets are no longer doubled when one types `(`. I'm a touch typist and it was a pain having to go to the arrow key to type, say, the semi-colon after creating a table. You really are firing on all cylinders with these new features! Just one small feature request which would be the icing on the cake with cherry and sprinkles! :-) But wait, it's already done! When one types into a snippet, a new one opens below it - this is perfect! I'll obviously be using the system regularly over the next while - I'll be sure to report back here with anything I find - and again thanks for all your work on behalf of the community. Slán go foill...

Paul White

\* No one according to me

Paul White

At least to read, run, and make small changes. No one in their right mind will be creating brand new fiddles on mobile.

Paul White

Making db<>fiddle somehow useable on mobile might be a higher priority?

Paul White replying to Jack Douglas

No clue. It was a drive-by comment and the opinion of one person only. I think it looks fine, personally.

Paul White replying to Jack Douglas

I like mermaid myself and used it for an article just recently. Maybe it would be better than nothing? Certainly a step back from what we had before, unless I simply lack imagination. If it's easy, try it out. Otherwise, make export/integration with PtP easier?

Paul White replying to Jack Douglas

Difficult because I didn't know about *triple*-click 😀  
Other sites provide a button to click for clipboard copy (e.g. Paste The Plan)

Jack Douglas

do you know if 'colour' refers to the syntax highlighting or the site background colours? I'm unlikely to want to tinker with the former as they come from CodeMirror and not something I'm going to want to get into maintaining. Im happy to switch an engine to another highlighting scheme as long as someone else maintains it :) - the engines do mostly have their own individual highlighting schemes

Jack Douglas replying to Paul White

I'd be interested to hear more about the fonts - at the moment I'm just using the browser default. Happy to switch to something else—maybe DejaVu Sans and Source Sans Pro but idk if that will make everyone happy, what do you think?

Jack Douglas

@Paul can I also pick your brains about the plan visualisations? what features of the old implementation are the most useful for a fiddle (bearing in mind you'll always still be able to copy/paste to www.brentozar.com/pastetheplan for more detail) - I'm happy to try and reimplement the same visualisation as before, but I am tempted to try and use something simple and generic. How much use would a simple flowchart be (https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/examples?id=basic-flowchart)?

Jack Douglas replying to Paul White

in what way difficult, can you triple-click the cell and Ctrl+c to copy?

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

@Vérace I've re-implemented that feature but it only currently works for Control-Return not if you use the mouse to click the 'run' button. The latter is probably possible but a bit more tricky and I'm not sure it matters, what do you think?

Jack Douglas replying to Vérace

@Vérace (and @Paul) thanks, I really had no idea whether the code completion was a good thing or not so I thought I'd leave it in and see. I've now removed it completely.

Paul White

> I don't like it. It's hard to read in the new colour and font scheme, the code completion doesn't work properly, and the auto formatting is worse. On the other hand it's clearly being maintained by someone who cares about it, so guess we should be grateful and not whinge.

Paul White

Some anonymous feedback from elsewhere: