There’s not much in the way of documentation, but the tool is pretty straightforward, and there’s a YouTube video, if you want. To start, just create a new table, giving it a name. The tool will automatically create the autoincremented primary key for each new table. Then you can add other columns and indexes (aka keys). Add more tables as needed, and you can easily indicate the relationships between tables by marking foreign keys. Once you’re done with the design, you can export the SQL. The tool supports many different databases, including MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. The outputted SQL is also nicely broken down, separating, for example, the foreign key statements and table properties (e.g., the character set, collation, and storage engine) into standalone ALTER queries, allowing you to use whatever commands you need when you actually go to create the database in your database application. The generated SQL even provides demo INSERT statements for the tables. Alternatively, you can save the design as XML, allowing you to reload that design in the application for further editing at another time.

I’m always on the lookout for a good database design tool, so was pleased to find this one. It’s particularly useful when I’m not on my primary computer, such as when I’m at a client’s office, and need to whip up some SQL on the fly. Check it out for yourself and see what you think. The price—free—is right!

UPDATE: I’ve just posted the rough table of contents. My apologies for the delay on this and my sincerest thanks to those interested in the book!

First of all, to be absolutely clear, the book will not teach PHP and MySQL, or HTML and CSS. The book will have to assume knowledge of those, making this entire book much more of an application of the technologies kind of guide (like the example chapters in my PHP and MySQL books). However, most readers will likely still learn some aspects of PHP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS that they didn’t know before. Also, this book will not be in Peachpit’s QuickStart or QuickPro series, in which specific topics are introduced, discussed, then demonstrated in step-by-step format. This book will be in New Riders’ Voices That Matter series (New Riders is a sibling publisher to Peachpit). That format does away with the steps and redundancy of showing the code in both step-by-step and entire script formats. This series will allow me to go into more detail on the why’s of the code, as well as include more, and prettier, images.

My hope, depending upon space constraints, is to use two separate examples in order to best describe every step of the way. One example would be content that’s delivered immediately and online. This could be PDFs or just subscriptions/access to content. The other example would be content that’s physical and shipped at a later point. The differences between the two are significant because:

1. You cannot actually charge a user until the item they purchase ships.
2. When that’s the case, additional administrative pages are required to indicate that the order has shipped.

So the online content example would use an immediate payment system and delivery of the content. The physical product example would place a hold on the user’s card, to be charged when the order ships.

The online content would also have a simpler database design; the physical products would be require a more complex design.

I also plan on using two different payment gateways, so you can get a sense of how different gateways work. One would be the popular PayPal, the second is yet to be determined.

My intention is to use only procedural programming, which will be accessible to the largest body of readers. The only exception would be if I decide to use a framework, like the Zend Framework, for one of the examples. If I do go that route, basic OOP would have to be used, although it should still be understandable by most readers.

Of course, being e-commerce, security will be discussed often, at length, and in detail. This includes everything from hosting issues to HTTPs connections to storing data.

I would hope to implement search functionality. As for other features, like customers being able to review items, make purchases without registering, etc., will probably have to be briefly discussed instead of demonstrating. Again, what I’m trying to accomplish is coverage of the most important information from a couple of view points.

So, what do you think? What would you like to see or not see? Any question and comment is welcome and much appreciated, just be aware that I need to approve comments before they appear, for security and integrity reasons. Thanks!