Your data live … in a web interface

January 21, 2021 4 min read

As a 4D developer, you may have dreamed of visualizing your data immediately and easily while you update/create it. Or maybe you’re a 4D administrator and you need to quickly find a record that causes an error due to inappropriate data. This has been possible with 4D’s built-in query interface and output form, but it can take time to customize this form and you may need a more responsive tool.

How about a modern and user-friendly web interface to view your data? And for a cherry on the top, what if this interface comes with a powerful query engine? Dream no more! All this is now a reality thanks to Data Explorer, a new tool provided as a Preview for you to evaluate it and give us your feedback.

Of course, it will be enhanced in future versions.

Let’s discover it now!

Get started with the data explorer

useful to know

The Data Explorer is nothing more than your data published as a web interface via a web server. But which web server? Well, the web admin component server.

Once this web admin server is started, the Data Explorer is available in web browsers (preferably Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge).

start the data explorer locally in 4D

The following is the smoothest way to start the Data Explorer.

Once your database is opened:

On 4D mono: go to the Records menu and select Data Explorer
On 4D Server: go to the Window menu and select Data Explorer

Note: If the web admin server is not started, you’ll get a suggestion to start it.

The OS will open your default web browser on the Data Explorer page. Congratulations! You’re now ready to discover the Data Explorer.

provide remote access to the data explorer

To provide safe remote access to the Data Explorer, the web admin settings offer to set an HTTPS port for the web admin server. (The HTTP protocol is allowed only on localhost).

Then open your database and start the web admin server.

In a web browser, enter the Data Explorer URL: IP: port/DataExplorer/

IP: the IP address of your machine where the database is open
port: the HTTPS port

Because this is a safe and protected remote access to the Data Explorer, you’ll be asked to enter the access key configured in the web admin settings.

Then you’ll be redirected to the Data Explorer page.

let’s go into details

behind this there’s … ORDa

Data Explorer relies on ORDA concepts. The query interface expects ORDA queries, and we’ll talk about dataclasses, entities, etc.

Note: Only tables referenced in the datastore object are visible in the Data Explorer. (i.e., tables without a primary key and tables with composite primary keys are not visible).

overview

The Data Explorer is composed of these main areas:

The principle is very simple:

In the Dataclasses area, you can select any dataclass to view its data.
In the attributes area, select the dataclass attributes you want to display in the data grid.
In the data grid, you can view the data of the selected dataclass.
If needed, select a line in the data grid to view the whole entity in the Details area.

We’re sure you’ll appreciate that any update in your data model (e.g., adding a table) or in your data (e.g., updating entities) will be automatically visible with a simple refresh of the Data Explorer page!

more details

If you want to search for specific data, use the search area. Two modes are available:

Search by attributes mode
Query mode

Search by attributes mode:

Enter attribute values and get the matching data in just a few clicks. The query corresponding to the values of the attributes is launched.

Note: An @ wildcard is put at the end of each attribute value and an AND operator is applied between attribute values

Query mode:

Click on the <> icon, enter your ORDA query as a string, and get the result.

That’s it!

stay tuned

We’ll publish more details demonstrating how powerful and useful the Data Explorer is. So stay tuned to work with your data in just a few clicks. Meanwhile, join the discussion on the 4D forum and let us know what you think about the product so far.