# Database Retrieval - user interface - is there a ?gem? that already does this?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/database-retrieval-user-interface-is-there-a-gem-that-already-does-this/154634>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 2, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/database-retrieval-user-interface-is-there-a-gem-that-already-does-this/154634 "2008-12-02T13:23:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![southside\_bruce](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@southside\_bruce](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/southside_bruce)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/database-retrieval-user-interface-is-there-a-gem-that-already-does-this/154634/1 "2008-12-02T13:23:32Z")

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Hi,

although I have about 25 years in the software/IT business as a  
Federal Government employee, somehow I have avoided Web development  
all this time… until now… I have an application at work that I  
want to tackle, and decided it would be a fantastic time to learn Ruby  
and RoR - for my continuing adult education…

I was first exposed to Ruby at an Open Source conference in Portland 2  
years ago - saw the PickAxe authors give a brief intro to Ruby and  
RoR… that was very exciting/stimulating/interesting… Bought the  
PickAxe book but only read a portion of it and never used it… Been  
doing quite abit of perl programming lately, but not Web apps…

I recently bought and am going through the Simply Rails 2 book… like  
what I am reading/seeing, trying to understand/etc… although it is  
abit daunting due to my very limited knowledge of Web programming/etc  
(no prior PHP, JavaScript, etc experience)…

At any rate, that is all background stuff…

What I am wondering is if anybody has built a ??gem?? that gives you  
most of what you need to get a user front-end to a database  
application in place…

What I picture is something that first asks the user which table (if  
there are multiple ones that are linked up/ready to be used in the RoR

- that is defined in a yml file, I guess) to use - from a drop down  
list… this could also default to a commonly use one, etc…

Next the user is given a choice of first (most popularly used - known  
in advance by the programming/me) column in the table to retrieve from

- using a drop down list… Based on the characteristics of the field,  
the user is given choices of operator - for int/number columns choices  
like “\> , \<, \>=, \<=, etc”, for dates choices like “within a range,  
before, after”… the user is given a field to enter their criteria…  
now the user can execute that retrieval, OR - they can choose to add  
to the retrieval - with an AND or an OR - I guess another checkbox,  
and/or dropdown menu… And they go ahead and build a query that way  
(a column at a time/etc), and execute it… they can modify the  
entries in this query and/or save the query… It would allow for  
parenthesized booleans - to allow the user to build advanced  
queries…

This seems to be very basic database retrieval stuff - and I am  
guessing that others have implemented something that gives you this  
functionality already and would prevent me from reinventing the wheel  
to get this sort of useful/slick interface using RoR…

So that is my question to the group…

The other question is if the Aptana Studio and RadRails (free  
versions) are a good/recommended IDE to use… Or should I use Eclipse  
(already have a version downloaded) with the RadRails plugIN? I like  
the idea of IDEs - and had a small bit of experience (mostly in a Java  
course I took) using Eclipse with Java in my last job… And before  
that, decades ago - Borland Turbo Pascal and Turbo C…

thanks TONs for any assistance!!,  
Southside\_Bruce