Hello Admin
I have suggested this before and I run the risk of incurring the wrath of the gods yet again. I believe that j-cook builds a very good component; however, I also subscribe to the idea that the process can be made faster if the builder allows the submission of a create table statement.
CREATE TABLE `#__usergroups` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT COMMENT 'Primary Key',
`parent_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' COMMENT 'Adjacency List Reference Id',
`lft` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' COMMENT 'Nested set lft.',
`rgt` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' COMMENT 'Nested set rgt.',
`title` varchar(100) COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `idx_usergroup_parent_title_lookup` (`parent_id`,`title`),
KEY `idx_usergroup_title_lookup` (`title`),
KEY `idx_usergroup_adjacency_lookup` (`parent_id`),
KEY `idx_usergroup_nested_set_lookup` (`lft`,`rgt`) USING BTREE
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=12 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
I am not at all saying that you allow this statement to run on your platform. I am saying that since it is structured, it can be easily parsed into:
1. Table name
2. Field name
3. Field type
4. Field length, etc.
These can then be safely mapped to cook data types and the tedium of entering each field of each table can be removed from the j-cook landscape. A developer would be afforded much more time to customize the resulting creation.
If the parsing process fails to result into clear data types, the entire statement can be refused and the user asked to follow the required format.
Even if table linking is initially manual this type of automation would be an awesome addition.
I suggested this years ago to j-cook and another site. Support on the other site thought it was an interesting suggestion but said they would need more request to really consider allocating the resources. Years later I returned to find that the site does offer SQL table input but the component they build is no way near the quality of j-cook.
I think you are aware the developers who work with cook have bought into the framework and want to see it grow and become the best builder available anywhere on the planet.
I leave this suggestion with you for your consideration and refinement.
Warm regards
vlemos