SQLPage documentation

The two most important concepts in SQLPage are components and parameters. This page documents all the components that you can use in SQLPage and their parameters. Use this as a reference when building your SQL application.

components

alert

A visually distinctive message or notification.

card

A grid where each element is a small card that displays a piece of data.

chart

A component that plots data. Line, area, bar, and pie charts are all supported. Each item in the component is a data point in the graph.

csv

A button that lets the user download data as a CSV file. Each column from the items in the component will map to a column in the resulting CSV.

datagrid

Display small pieces of information in a clear and readable way. Each item has a name and is associated with a value.

dynamic

A special component that can be used to render other components, the number and properties of which are not known in advance.

form

A series of input fields that can be filled in by the user. The form contents can be posted and handled by another sql file in your site. The value entered by the user in a field named x will be accessible to the target SQL page as a variable named $x. For instance, you can create a SQL page named "create_user.sql" that would contain "INSERT INTO users(name) VALUES($name)" and a form with its action property set to "create_user.sql" that would contain a field named "name"."

hero

Display a large title and description for your page, with an optional large illustrative image. Useful in your home page, for instance.

http_header

An advanced component that can be used to create redirections, set a custom caching policy to your pages, or set any HTTP header. If you are a beginner, you probably don't need this component. When used, this component has to be the first component in the page, because once the page is sent to the browser, it is too late to change the headers. Any valid HTTP header can be used as a top-level parameter for this component. HTTP headers are additional pieces of information sent with responses to web requests that provide instructions or metadata about the data being sent — for example, setting cache control directives to control caching behavior or specifying the content type of a response.

list

A vertical list of items. Each item can be clickable and link to another page.

shell

Personalize the "shell" surrounding your page contents. Used to set properties for the entire page.

steps

Guide users through multi-stage processes, displaying a clear list of previous and future steps.

table

A table with optional filtering and sorting. Unlike most others, this component does not have a fixed set of item properties, any property that is used will be rendered directly as a column in the table.

text

A paragraph of text. The entire component will render as a single paragraph, with each item being rendered as a span of text inside it, the styling of which can be customized using parameters.

The "form" component

Top-level parameters

action

An optional link to a target page that will handle the results of the form. By default the target page is the current page. Setting it to the name of a different sql file will load that file when the user submits the form.

TEXT

method

Set this to 'GET' to pass the form contents directly as URL parameters. If the user enters a value v in a field named x, submitting the form will load target.sql?x=v. If target.sql contains SELECT $x, it will display the value v.

TEXT

title

A name to display at the top of the form. It will be displayed in a larger font size at the top of the form.

TEXT

validate

The text to display in the button at the bottom of the form that submits the values.

TEXT

Row-level parameters

name

REQUIRED. The name of the input field, that you can use in the target page to get the value the user entered for the field.

TEXT

description

A helper text to display near the input field.

TEXT

label

A friendly name for the text field to show to the user.

TEXT

max

The minimum value to accept for an input of type number

NUMBER

min

The minimum value to accept for an input of type number

NUMBER

placeholder

A placeholder text that will be shown in the field when is is empty.

TEXT

required

Set this to true to prevent the form contents from being sent if this field is left empty by the user.

BOOL

step

The increment of values in an input of type number. Set to 1 to allow only integers.

NUMBER

type

The type of input to use: text for a simple text field, number for field that accepts only numbers, checkbox or radio for a button that is part of a group specified in the 'name' parameter. This is set to "text" by default.

TEXT

value

A default value that will already be present in the field when the user loads the page.

TEXT

Example 1

A form that asks the user for a parameter named "component", and then posts the results to another page named "documentation.sql". That file could contain a sql statement like "SELECT * FROM documentation WHERE component_name = $component" to display the documentation for the component the user selected. Or it could contain a sql statement like "INSERT INTO components(name) VALUES ($component)" to allow users to create a new component.

SELECT 
    'form' as component,
    'documentation.sql' as action;
SELECT 
    'component' as name;

Result

Example 2

A user registration form.

SELECT 
    'form' as component,
    'User' as title,
    'Create new user' as validate;
SELECT 
    'First name' as name,
    'John' as placeholder;
SELECT 
    'Last name' as name,
    1 as required,
    'We need your last name for legal purposes.' as description;
SELECT 
    'Birth date' as name,
    'date' as type,
    '2010-01-01' as max,
    '1994-04-16' as value;