CIDER (Configuration Interface for Database Editing and Relational viewing) is an attempt to replicate DBE within a fully Pythonic interface. The tool allows for browsing and modification of configurations with a text-based (but mouse-navigable) interface written in Python. This is not intended to be a full production ready solution and is purely a proof of concept!
Open database editor with textual_dbe [-f/--input-file input/file/path] . This will open a splash screen displaying a blank logger + footer bar which contains a list of shortcuts. If input file is provided it will instead sip straight to the file file loaded screen.
In order to start editing configuration databases we first need to open a file! To do this press o which will open the following popup. Currently the browse option is not implemented so the full (or relative) file path to a database file is required instead.
Once this has been loaded in the screen should update. The editor is split into 3 segments:
The navigator can then either be closed gracefully with ctrl+q
Configuration objects can be browsed via the navigation menu which has two views. The first breaks down configuration objects by class allowing for easy navigation without showing the underlying structure of the configuration. Note that all derived classes will be included as well for each category. For example component will include all segment objects.
The second "relationship" view will display the relationships between configuration objects. In addition "top level" objects are separated into Sessions and Non-Sessions. These non-session objects are effectively dangling and aren't used by anything within the configuration. If objects are related to multiple other objects within the configuration they will be displayed multiple times.
If an object in the navigator menu is selected it will be treated as active and its attributes will be displayed in the configuration object attribute table.
Any objects that inherit from component can be disabled by selecting them + pressing d`.
The configuration table displays the values of attributes of the currently active configuration object. The values for these attributes can be modified by clicking on the row of the table which contains them. Type checking is very limited so this should be treated with caution
After an object has been modified, it can then be saved by pressing ctrl+s or saved with an additional message with shift+S.
By pressing ctrl+m a series of dropdown menus will appear. These allow for relationships to the selected configuration object be added/removed.
Pressing ctrl+a allows for a new config object to be added. This requires both the class and uid to be set. Note: This will break if you don't correctly setup required relationships and attributes!
Pressing ctrl+d will delete the currently selected object. NOTE: There is no undo button so be careful!
Logger simply displays warnings/updates. Not everything is fully logged and there are no verbosity levels.
