I bought mysqldump.com and built this, what ya think? | Hacker News Reader

I bought mysqldump.com and built this, what ya think?

mysqldump.com

18 pointsstaticmaker202343 comments

You could make it more clear that it just generates the dump command; it doesn't attempt a connection.

1. Remove the "Generate" button.

2. Move the "Generated CLI Statement" to the right of the form as a second column (at least on wider screens).

3. Pre-fill the form with dummy data so that the generated statement does not start empty.

4. Immediately update the generated statement when someone edits any form field (with an aria-live region for accessibility).

5. Consider making the password field non-editable, or omitting it but leaving a password in the output.

6. Change "We do not store your credentials. Tasks are done in your browser" to "No data is saved. View source on GitHub." with a link to the source if you feel comfortable providing it.

Great suggestions, I’d agree with all points!

> 6. Change "We do not store your credentials. Tasks are done in your browser" to "No data is saved. View source on GitHub."

Assuming that OP has made it clearer that this website is a CLI command builder and not a dumping tool, I’d find “No data is saved” potentially confusing. To me, it would be unclear whether “data” refers to the credentials or to the underlying database data. It might also raise the concern why a command builder utility would entertain the idea of storing anything in the first place.

Maybe “Your credentials won’t leave your computer” or so?

I would solve this by not asking for the password and just putting a password placeholder in the generated command.

That could also be an option, although an additional manual step might be slightly less convenient, especially in case you want to “debug” the command (i.e., regenerate multiple times with varying parameters).

Another potential benefit of entering the PW in the field is that the generator could take care of proper escaping – think, if the password contains spaces, quotes, asterisks, $ signs, or other bash shenanigans. (That, by the way, doesn’t seem to work right now, @OP.)

Another idea could be to allow entering an env variable name instead of a value.

If you are on a dev machine iterating quickly, just set the basic credentials up in ~/.mylogin.cnf[0] and you don't need to worry about supplying those options on the command line at all.

[0]: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-config-editor....

I'd like to add that it wasn't obvious there was a whole ultimate guide. I think brining in some of that content on the homepage would let people discover more use cases for the command.

that is some valuable feedback!

sure, we will improve the site based on your suggestion.

thank you!

I feel bad giving negative feedback, but I'm not sure the world needs a dedicated site to generating a simple command like this. I'm genuinely not trying to be elitist, but do users really have a need for this?

I suppose if you add support for every single feature you've superbly well documented in "The Ultimate Mysqldump Guide", which is indeed impressive, then perhaps.

But even then, I think users would likely prefer to use PHPMyAdmin or DBeaver etc, where real values can be selected?

Out of interest, what is your motivation for doing it? Are you planning to monetize/banner advertize it somehow?

this is kind of fun side project for me. as a developer, I do have the need to generate mysqldump statement now and then. most of time, I had to search on google.

thanks for your feedback and i am definitely going to add various options.

as for monetization, let's see, nothing particular in mind.

Thanks for your response, fwiw I mainly rely on my shell history :)

I appreciate your good intentions but please don't teach users to type their passwords (not even for localhost, password reuse is a thing) to a random website. Even if everything is local, there are no indicators in the browser that this is so (like a network permission on Android). Even if it's local now, think who will buy the domain in 5 years once you move on and lose interest. That said, if you don't let the user put in a password and just output a placeholder, sure, nice project :thumbs up:.

your valuable feedback is well received!

it seems like everyone is complaining about the "password". we will replace it with placeholders instead.

again. thanks for your feedback.

To make it less scary, don't make the host and password fields editable, just put placeholders in there for the user, like [HOST], so that they understand they will need to change it when executing it in their own environment.

thanks for the feedback!

seems like "password" has been the main concern.

will improve that part.

I get what you're trying to do, but the first impression I get when opening the site is "this site is asking for credentials to connect to my database for me". It doesn't have the look of a "quick utility" website to generate a command. I like crontab.guru as an example of a "quick utility" site that I go to frequently with an intuitive UX. I think if your site had the "generated command" front-and-center, maybe even pre-generated with a command already, the site's goal might feel more obvious upfront.

thanks for the feedback.

we will work on the UI to make it more appear as a script generator.

The generator is avoiding the real complexity of the command. Username and password are easily used, but actually providing support for various other options (mentioned in the guide) will be worth it.

Maybe just don’t ask the password to allay security fears, and put a placeholder password in the generated command. There’s also other methods of authentication.

thanks for the feedback!

seems like "password" has been the main concern.

definitely going to add more available options.

Next up: a command line generator for `cat`. Put the filenames you want to display in a form and click "generate"!

(sorry to be so negative, but it really seems weird when the only arguments of mysqldump it guides you through are the ones that don't require any guidance)

Totally useless as a webapp.

More useful to me would be an UI for mysql_config_editor [1].

I should definitely make myself a TUI tool for it to go along my Go module for reading and writing ~/.mylogin.cnf [2].

[1]: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-config-editor....

[2]: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/dolmen-go/mylogin

I think nobody sane would trust this.

The kind of person that needs a tool to give them a single command line probably would :)

Just use placeholders for everything

you could always throw in a placeholder password

why not? everything is done in browser

Because at the moment someone would need to use mysqldump, if they wanted to be sure that this is browser only app, they would need to evaluate the JS source safety. And even if that was feasible (which it is not), they would have to evaluate it again on every use.

One does simply not trust a 3rd party (random browser) app.

Congrats on the launch, it's always great to launch something. If it's useful to you, happily use it. But don't expect others to do so.

thank you for taking the time to give the feedback.

Just hit F12, Network, click Generate.

You should be aware that an app can change its behavior based on whether the debug tools are open

"Trust me".

It's harder to verify this than to figure out the use of the command directly.

In any case, it would be better if you provided placeholders anyway and let the user replace them outside of the browser.

thanks for the feedback!

There is no point to asking for their password. That immediately sets of alarm bells.

If you just generate the command they will know that they need to provide the password when prompted.

By the way, passing the password on the command line is a bad practice.

I think it's a great idea. I have had an example of use of mysqldump for myself with all the reasonable switches.

I think you should develop it a bit more. Add more options. For dumping just the structure, just the data, limiting, compressing, generating another command to import.

Also as you can see from the comments here, password box makes people uneasy so better remove it and replace with bold instruction on how to add password near the generated command.

I think you can get decent traffic on this site.

thanks for the feedback!

yes, we are launching here to see what could be improved.

definitely going to add those options you mentioned.

thanks again.

I think you need to explain that this is a script generator, not a backup service...

I thought "Mysqldump Statement Generator" was clear enough. Apparently it is not.

Will rewrite the H1.

I think important databases don't have public IP addresses.

what do you mean? we do not connect to any database. It is a CLI script generator.

Add a compress option that will pipe to gzip -9 > ${file}.gz or to similar compressors.

roger that!

i will not be putting a password into this webpage. ever

in that case. it is going away.

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