SQLPage v0.25.0 documentation
If you are completely new to SQLPage, you should start by reading the get started tutorial, which will guide you through the process of creating your first SQLPage application.
Building an application with SQLPage is quite simple. To create a new web page, just create a new SQL file. For each SELECT statement that you write, the data it returns will be analyzed and rendered to the user. The two most important concepts in SQLPage are components and parameters.
- components are small user interface elements that you can use to display your data in a certain way.
- top-level parameters are the properties of these components, allowing you to customize their appearance and behavior.
- row-level parameters constitute the data that you want to display in the components.
To select a component and set its top-level properties, you write the following SQL statement:
SELECT 'component_name' AS component, 'my value' AS top_level_parameter_1;
Then, you can set its row-level parameters by writing a second SELECT statement:
SELECT my_column_1 AS row_level_parameter_1, my_column_2 AS row_level_parameter_2 FROM my_table;
This page documents all the components provided by default in SQLPage and their parameters. Use this as a reference when building your SQL application. If at any point you need help, you can ask for it on the SQLPage forum.
If you know some HTML, you can also easily create your own components for your application.
components
The "shell" component
Personalize the "shell" surrounding your page contents. Used to set properties for the entire page.
Top-level parameters
css
description
favicon
The URL of the icon the web browser should display in bookmarks and tabs. This property is particularly useful if multiple sites are hosted on the same domain with different site_prefix.
fixed_top_menu
font
font_size
footer
icon
image
javascript
javascript_module
language
layout
link
manifest
The location of the manifest.json if the site is a PWA. Among other features, serving a manifest enables your site to be "installed" as an app on most mobile devices.
menu_item
norobot
refresh
rss
search_target
search_value
social_image
theme
title
Example 1
This example contains the values used for the shell of the page you are currently viewing.
The menu_item property is used both in its simple string form, to generate a link named "functions" that points to "functions.sql",
and in its object form, to generate a dropdown menu named "Community" with links to the blog, the github repository, and the issues page.
The object form can be used directly only on database engines that have a native JSON type.
On other engines (such as SQLite), you can use the dynamic component to generate the same result.
You see the page layouts demo for a live example of the different layouts.
select
'shell' as component,
'SQLPage' as title,
'database' as icon,
'/' as link,
JSON('{"title":"About","submenu":[{"link":"/safety.sql","title":"Security","icon":"lock"},{"link":"/performance.sql","title":"Performance","icon":"bolt"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/SQLpage/blob/main/LICENSE.txt","title":"License","icon":"file-text"},{"link":"/blog.sql","title":"Articles","icon":"book"}]}') as menu_item,
JSON('{"title":"Examples","submenu":[{"link":"/examples/tabs.sql","title":"Tabs","icon":"layout-navbar"},{"link":"/examples/layouts.sql","title":"Layouts","icon":"layout"},{"link":"/examples/multistep-form","title":"Forms","icon":"edit"},{"link":"/examples/handle_picture_upload.sql","title":"File uploads","icon":"upload"},{"link":"/examples/authentication/","title":"Password protection","icon":"password-user"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/SQLpage/blob/main/examples/","title":"All examples & demos","icon":"code"}]}') as menu_item,
JSON('{"title":"Community","submenu":[{"link":"blog.sql","title":"Blog","icon":"book"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/sqlpage/issues","title":"Report a bug","icon":"bug"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/sqlpage/discussions","title":"Discussions","icon":"message"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/sqlpage","title":"Github","icon":"brand-github"}]}') as menu_item,
JSON('{"title":"Documentation","submenu":[{"link":"/your-first-sql-website","title":"Getting started","icon":"book"},{"link":"/components.sql","title":"All Components","icon":"list-details"},{"link":"/functions.sql","title":"SQLPage Functions","icon":"math-function"},{"link":"/custom_components.sql","title":"Custom Components","icon":"puzzle"},{"link":"//github.com/lovasoa/SQLpage/blob/main/configuration.md#configuring-sqlpage","title":"Configuration","icon":"settings"}]}') as menu_item,
'boxed' as layout,
'en-US' as language,
'Documentation for the SQLPage low-code web application framework.' as description,
'Poppins' as font,
'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/prismjs@1/components/prism-core.min.js' as javascript,
'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/prismjs@1/plugins/autoloader/prism-autoloader.min.js' as javascript,
'/prism-tabler-theme.css' as css,
'Official [SQLPage](https://sql.ophir.dev) documentation' as footer;
Example 2
A page without a shell
SQLPage provides the shell-empty component to create a page without a shell.
In this case, the html and body tags are not generated, and the components are rendered directly in the page
without any styling, navigation bar, footer, or dynamic content.
This is useful when you want to generate a snippet of HTML that can be dynamically included in a larger page.
Any component whose name starts with shell will be considered as a shell component,
so you can also create your own shell component.
If you generate your own HTML from a SQL query, you can also use the shell-empty component to include it in a page.
Make sure you know what you are doing, and be careful to escape the HTML properly,
as you are stepping out of the safe SQLPage framework and into the wild world of HTML.
select
'shell-empty' as component,
'<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>My page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My page</h1>
</body>
</html>' as html;
Examples
Sharing the shell between multiple pages
It is common to want to share the same shell between multiple pages.
Static menu
If your menu is completely static (it does not depend on the database content),
you can use the dynamic component together with the
sqlpage.read_file_as_text function to load the shell from
a json file.
SELECT 'dynamic' AS component, sqlpage.read_file_as_text('shell.json') AS properties;
and in shell.json:
{
"component": "shell",
"title": "SQL + JSON = <3",
"link": "/",
"menu_item": [
{"link": "index.sql", "title": "Home"},
{"title": "Community", "submenu": [
{"link": "blog.sql", "title": "Blog"},
{"link": "//github.com/lovasoa/sqlpage", "title": "Github"}
]}
]
}
Dynamic menu
If your menu depends on the database content, or on special sqlpage functions,
you can use the dynamic component,
but this time with the sqlpage.run_sql
function to generate the menu from the database.
SELECT 'dynamic' AS component, sqlpage.run_sql('shell.sql') AS properties;
and in shell.sql:
SELECT 'shell' AS component, 'run_sql is cool' as title,
json_group_array(json_object(
'link', link,
'title', title
)) as menu_item
FROM my_menu_items
(check your database documentation for the exact syntax of the json_group_array function).
Another case when dynamic menus are useful is when you want to show some menu items only in certain conditions.
For instance, you could show an "Admin panel" menu item only to users with the "admin" role, a "Profile" menu item only to authenticated users, and a "Login" menu item only to unauthenticated users:
SET $role = (
SELECT role FROM users
INNER JOIN sessions ON users.id = sessions.user_id
WHERE sessions.session_id = sqlpage.cookie('session_id')
); -- Read more about how to handle user sessions in the "authentication" component documentation
SELECT
'shell' AS component,
'My authenticated website' AS title,
-- Add an admin panel link if the user is an admin
CASE WHEN $role = 'admin' THEN '{"link": "admin.sql", "title": "Admin panel"}' END AS menu_item,
-- Add a profile page if the user is authenticated
CASE WHEN $role IS NOT NULL THEN '{"link": "profile.sql", "title": "My profile"}' END AS menu_item,
-- Add a login link if the user is not authenticated
CASE WHEN $role IS NULL THEN 'login' END AS menu_item
;
More about how to handle user sessions in the authentication component documentation.
Menu with icons
The "icon" attribute may be specified for items in the top menu and submenus to display an icon before the title (or instead). Similarly, the "image" attribute defines a file-based icon. For image-based icons, the "size" attribute may be specified at the top level of menu_item only to reduce the size of image-based icons. The following snippet provides an example, which is also available here.
SELECT
'shell' AS component,
'SQLPage' AS title,
'database' AS icon,
'/' AS link,
TRUE AS fixed_top_menu,
'{"title":"About","icon": "settings","submenu":[{"link":"/safety.sql","title":"Security","icon": "logout"},{"link":"/performance.sql","title":"Performance"}]}' AS menu_item,
'{"title":"Examples","image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Terrestrial_globe.svg","submenu":[{"link":"/examples/tabs.sql","title":"Tabs","image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Terrestrial_globe.svg"},{"link":"/examples/layouts.sql","title":"Layouts"}]}' AS menu_item,
'{"title":"Examples","size":"sm","image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Terrestrial_globe.svg","submenu":[{"link":"/examples/tabs.sql","title":"Tabs","image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Terrestrial_globe.svg"},{"link":"/examples/layouts.sql","title":"Layouts"}]}' AS menu_item,
'Official [SQLPage](https://sql.ophir.dev) documentation' as footer;