[Qgis-developer] DBManager plugin for QuantumGIS (GSoC 2001)

[Radim Blazek]

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Giuseppe Sucameli
<brush.tyler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We have to add support for other providers to
>> QBrowser anyway. It does not make sense to have another similar UI
>> just for databases, implemented in a different way. Currently QBrowser
>> is a stand alone application but it will be integrated also to QGIS
>> main application.
>
> QBrowser it's implemented as a C++ standalone application to browse files and
> show information about layers, but those are the same infos you can get using QGis.

No. QBrowser is just one use of QgsBrowserModel which was developed
also as model for possible substitution of various "select layer"
dialogs. It does not support many providers at moment, so we did not
want to push it to QGIS yet, we are waiting also for user's reactions.
Definitely it is not only file browser. You can also view WMS servers
and manage them directly in QBrowser (if you select WMS root item).
Databases can be managed in a similar way.

Important is the QgsBrowserModel and support for the model in
providers. Another dialog with a tree view only can be easily created:

  mModel = new QgsBrowserModel( treeView );
  treeView->setModel( mModel );

The QBrowser is not intended to be a data viewer, the preview may be
useful to get quick info, for example _before_ you add a layer to
QGIS.

> The manager would make easy the use of databases in QGis, but not for QGis use
> only. Ok, we can show preview, load a layer in canvas, but also run queries,
> create/edit/drop tables and views, ... pretty different from the QBrowser aim!

Create/edit/drop tables and views is exactly what I would like to have
also in QBrowser. But not only tables! I would like to have a
possibility to move/copy layers between various databases, files or
other resources, e.g. drag a WMC layer to RasterLite. Why queries
could not be done in QBrowser or something similar? IMO the QBrowser
and the PostGIS Manager are very similar. A tree on the left + tools
to work with data. QBrowser currently for OGR,GDAL,GRASS, WMS and
PostGIS Manager for PostGIS. It seems natural to me to merge them into
one tool.

The QBrowser / QgsBrowserModel is still work in progress, we don't
have exact ideas how it should look like, it can go in various
directions.


Radim