Postico: A Modern PostgreSQL Client for OS X | Hacker News Reader

Postico: A Modern PostgreSQL Client for OS X

eggerapps.at

41 pointsdaviducolo25 comments

Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9075827 around the time it launched.

It's improved since the last time I looked at it, so good work. A couple of issues I ran into:

1) if you have an empty blank line after a query, you get a syntax error

2) an option to expand column widths to match column name would be nice.

3) Perhaps I'm not getting it, but for ad hoc sql queries, I'd prefer a free form text window a la Toad or Squirrel, where the query that the cursor is on is the current query to be executed (via key binding). I switch back and forth between queries a lot, and it's useful to be able view several of them simultaneously. The current interface is feels way too limited and clumsy, imho. Being able to go forward/back in history is nice (though I need to be able to rebind the shortcut, as ctrl-cmd-left/ctrl-cmd-right are both bound to Spectacle), but not sufficient, imho. You need to be able to view multiple queries at a time.

4) An optional 'auto-limit' is an awesome feature of squirrel that allows you to do all sorts of queries quickly without having to always type "limit 1" or whatnot. I had forgotten how much I had relied on it until I tried using this and kept accidentally getting giant result sets.

5) Another nice to have (also in Squirrel) - autocomplete.

6) If you could pull up and instasearch the query history with like cmd-P (like sublime or atom) or something that would be amazing.

7) Essential: allow user to remap/redefine keyboard shortcuts.

Keep going! If one day this is sufficient to supplant Squirrel then I'll definitely buy it.

You could also try SQLPro for Postgres http://hankinsoft.com/SQLProPostgres/

There is a good review available at https://www.compose.io/articles/tooltime-sqlpro-for-postgres...

Disclaimer that I am the dev.

I would buy it immediately if it wasn't for the lack of a graphical schema designer like MySQL Workbench (https://www.mysql.com/common/images/products/MySQL_Workbench...)

That would be a huge thing, considering that there is not a valid tool that has it for pg yet. Maybe Navicat has it, but the price is quite high IMO (~$200).

Looks very good thought, nice UI

I like this one a lot. Just two minor feedbacks:

- I feel like there should be a default behavior (Select top 100 rows) when double clicking a table.

- The app crash when querying a table with no data.

Thanks, I like the idea of the default behaviour for double click. I had never though of that.

Working on fixing the query with no data crash. I've seen it reported a few times, but haven't been able to reproduce it yet. I THINK I know whats going on though.

A lot of nice things here. See my comment above for some similar concerns/desired features that also apply to this.

Thanks! I think the latest build (v1.0.9) has everything you mentioned except #4 and #6.

#3 is not the default though. You need to go into preferences and switch Query Execution mode to be 'execute current query', rather than 'execute all'.

This looks very cool

I nearly bought this when it launched due to how frustrated I get with pgAdmin.

As other posters noted its missing a lot of features. I knew my frustrations would not be solved.

I use IntelliJ's database stuff instead, which I "discovered" as a result for my hunt for the PGSQL admin tool after Postico's announcement. (Until that point I had largely avoided IDE database stuff because they often try to make you do insane things, like use the mouse to design tables.) When I considered the price of purchase for a stand alone PGSQL admin tool and an IntelliJ personal license [including yearly renewals] it became pretty clear what the correct choice for me was.

In terms of the things I need to do as a software engineer in regards to PGSQL, IntelliJ has everything I need; plus in recent versions IdeaVIM works more reliably.

Have you checked out this database admin tool for PostgreSQL and MySQL [0]?

[0] http://datazenit.com/

Yep, I'm really liking IntelliJ 0xDBE. aside from it's name. God that's awful.

I forgot they turned it into its own spin off product. I've always liked the IntelliJ stuff having suffered through a few years of Eclipse.

My favorite postgres gui by far has been Psequel.

http://www.psequel.com/

It's very pretty, but I can't seem to find how to look at and/or modify functions, which are a pretty big part of my current setup. Lots of promise though, but I'm not sure I'd drop this much money on it's current feature set based on my use, especially when Navicat Essentials for Postgres is the same price.

Been using it for some months already and love it. I'm missing some features like being able to dump or upload an entire DB backup from a file (have to use another app for that). Hope I can get all functionality in one place soon.

UI is great and really easy to use. I really recommend it to anyone using PostgreSQL as DB.

Great job from Jakob, the developer behind it.

> dump or upload an entire DB backup from a file (have to use another app for that)

What's the other app that you use?

I really like http://www.sequelpro.com/ for mysql. The lack of a good admin gui for postgres is one reason I preferred mysql over postgres.

Check out Navicat.

I seem to recall there being talk about Sequel Pro adding support for Postgres a while back. Anyone know if that's still on the table?

Just gave it a try but it's stuck in "Opening connection to server..." and never finishes. Doesn't even seem to have any error log window or similar where I would be able to see what the issue is. Also has no timeout it seems.

Am using the SSH tunnel feature btw.

That sounds like a firewall issue. Email me and I'll help debug: jakob@eggerapps.at

Thanks for the offer but it worked after deleting the favorite and restarting the app.

Quick feedback:

- I can't find a way to see indexes or functions, only the basic table structure in terms of columns.

- The results tables seem to make poor choices when it comes to column widths. Some columns with short header and content are very wide while other columns with long header or content are too narrow. You can see this easily by doing an EXPLAIN ANALYZE query - you'll get a single short column that you have to drag with your mouse in order to read anything out of it.

- It would be very useful if one could have several queries (maybe tabs) open alongside each other instead of going through the history.

- Somehow the history doesn't feel as nice as it could be. Someone else already mentioned a Sublime Text like fuzzy matcher. Or a favorites system. The previous point about tabs would help with this problem.

- The execution time on the lower right seems to contain the connection round trip (in my test case about 300ms). It would be nice to see the actual query execution time instead (here 0.014ms).

Looks good. Still, pg doesn't have a client with a good graphical editor yet (to draw tables and their relationships between them).

On the other hand, MySQL has MySQL Workbench which works quite well, even if it has some bugs

I'm happy for this thread, before this I've just the standard Admin app, and it's always been one of the worst parts of using Postgres.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com