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Show HN: Base, an SQLite database editor for macOS

(menial.co.uk)
676 points __bb | 1 comments | 25 Aug 25 14:17 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I recently released v3 of Base, my SQLite editor for macOS.

The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app.

The coolest features are

- That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite.

- It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon.

This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing.

I'd love to hear any feedback or answer any questions.

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packetlost ◴[25 Aug 25 15:05 UTC] No.45014671[source]▶
What does this offer over sqlitebrowser? https://sqlitebrowser.org/
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__bb ◴[25 Aug 25 16:01 UTC] No.45015293[source]▶
To my (biased) mind the advantages are:

- It fits with the system better and behaves more like other macOS apps

- I believe Base has better create/alter table support

However Base doesn’t (currently) have support for SQLCipher.

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cosmic_cheese ◴[25 Aug 25 16:08 UTC] No.45015382[source]▶
Just to expand on the “behavior” bit, there’s a truckload of little things that native AppKit apps get you that nothing else will, not even other “native” toolkits like Qt. Things like Option-clicking a disclosure triangle in a nested list expanding/collapsing all children recursively, which one comes to use frequently and misses when absent. Foreign toolkits have spotty coverage of that kind of thing if they implement any at all.

As much as visually fitting in is important, behavior is perhaps bigger. Anybody who’s working on the Mac port of a cross platform toolkit would do well to replicate those little bits.

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1. harikb ◴[25 Aug 25 16:32 UTC] No.45015673{3}[source]▶
Wow! I just discovered option-click in Finder -- unrelated to sqlite :o . Thank you! thank you!