Re: My user experience with pgAdmin 4.

For what it's worth,

I try to mitigate the isolation issue by letting pgAdmin4 have it's own
dedicated browser.  I have a Chromium installation that is only used for
pgAdmin4.  I've adjusted the *browser command* to: "chromium-browser
%URL%".  In that way, whenever I start pgAdmin4, or ask for a new window,
I'll always get that Chromium install.

It's a bit *overkill *I know, but with pgAdmin4 not having it's own UI,
it's the least I can do to keep it away from the rest of my
browsing/developing.

Perhaps it might help you as well.

rik.

On Sun, Aug 4, 2019 at 11:36 PM Bill Evans <[email protected]> wrote:

> I think that the fundamental issue is that pgAdmin 3 was a stand-alone
> app, and, as such, supported a set of features. The big one here is
> isolation; the pgAdmin environment was unaffected by much outside of it.
>
> For good or for ill, the decision was taken to write a new admin program
> as a web page. To the extent that this requires running the admin in the
> “system browser”, isolation takes a big hit. It should be possible,
> desirable even, to build a fork of Chrome or Firefox that is dedicated to
> browsing pages from the admin server. That could certainly be done
> independently of the core pgAdmin 4 product. But that would be a pretty big
> project in itself.
>
> One easier suggestion would be to embrace the psql app. It is certainly
> not “the same thing”, that is true, but it is very powerful, and very
> useful, and is completely unaffected by whatever nonsense is going on in my
> browser. For some tasks, it is *much* easier than a GUI. And it starts up
> instantly.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Aug 4, 2019, at 4:43 PM, Robert Eckhardt <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:51 AM <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Every day, whenever I want to administrate my PG databases, I click the
> pgAdmin 4 icon in the Taskbar. This causes a splash screen to start loading
> for a very long time (if it's the first time since the computer was started
> for the day) and eventually opens my normal browser (Firefox, which I don't
> even like, but it's the least horrible one left) with a new tab for pgAdmin
> 4.
> >
> > Now, even after disabling the "master password" stuff, I'm always forced
> to enter the password and pointlessly click the "remember" checkbox, only
> to be greeted with the same prompts every single day. This is because I
> (like any sane human) clears all browser data in Firefox many times a day.
> Which means pgAdmin 4 keeps forgetting the credentials, because it's
> piggybacking on Firefox and storing its settings in whatever manner Firefox
> does it, and then it's cleared constantly when I perform my routine privacy
> task.
> >
> > Even if it didn't do this, it would still be very awkward and bad for a
> multitude of reasons to have the database administration GUI as part of my
> normal web browser. It just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Whenever you
> need to restart the browser or clear all data/tabs, you lose your "state"
> in pgAdmin 4 and have to connect to it once again, starting all over. It
> truly cripples me.
> >
> > I get that it's *easier* for the developers to just ignore this
> fundamental problem, because they apparently don't use it themselves, or
> have very different "work flows", and everyone seems to be taking the
> "easy" way out these days, observable in virtually every aspect of life,
> but it doesn't make it less obnoxious for the user. At least for this user.
>
> I'm not quite sure what to make of this.
>
> You have basically written an email that says that your workflow
> cannot align with a browser based UI. There is not much to do here
> other than change your workflow or change to a UI that isn't browser
> based.
>
> All the downside and problems you have mentioned aren't product
> problems, they are tech restrictions that come from using a browser.
> If the need for a browser were dropped and pgAdmin was rewritten as a
> native client app then a different person could come in and simply
> write a similar email about all of the downsides inherent with a
> native app.
>
> >
> > I honestly have no idea who the pgAdmin 4 developers are, so it's
> nothing personal against them, but every day when I'm subjected to things
> like this, a certain hate grows within me toward whoever is responsible for
> making the bad decisions which affect me negatively. If the program had its
> own GUI and didn't harass me in all kinds of ways, I would instead
> constantly feel positive feelings toward the authors.
> >
> > The only reason I still care about pgAdmin 4 is that there is no
> alternative. I've spent countless hours researching the so-called
> "alternatives", and they all have some major show-stopper about them. This
> one at least feels like a "kind of" official project. I just wish it didn't
> make dealing with my PostgreSQL databases feel like such a chore.
>
> The question I have is; understanding that this is a browser based
> application. What could be done to improve your workflow?
>
> -- Rob
>
>
>
>
>