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davebic24 post(s)
#29-Jan-21 16:38

Being a newbie to the API world, I would like to integrate my Airtable DB to Manifold. As far as I can tell, Airtable uses Json protocol which is non editable in Manifold without a copy (?). In a perfect world, I would like to be able to edit the DB in Manifold live, updating Airtable. Any suggestions?

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#29-Jan-21 18:22

Try a search for Airtable odbc and connect via odbc. What happens then?

davebic24 post(s)
#29-Jan-21 21:57

Great suggestion and odbc certainly looks like it would work. Unfortunately, a quick bit of research tells me that a odbc driver for Airtable is in the range of $650. Airtable is a very reasonably priced app like Manifold so this blows a giant hole in the model. I will continue to research for inexpensive or free obdc drivers but there are any other possible solutions to my problem please suggest. Thanks for your time.

lionel

995 post(s)
#30-Jan-21 17:36

link to wikipedia AirTable : a spreadsheet-database hybrid.

CData driver price

use cvs file

CData ODBC driver Price 249$/year 649$ one time purchase

CData ODBC Json Driver Price 399$/year 999$ one time purchase

Perhaps google is manifold has access to google database ?

Airtable - Flexible database and organizer - Google Workspace Marketplace

perhaps have a look to jdbc ?


Book about Science , cosmological model , Interstellar travels

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lionel

995 post(s)
#30-Jan-21 17:52

really like find comparison alternative to understand what word mean ( here Airtable)

see Airtable Alternative: Caspio vs Airtable | Try Free

so airTable =MySQL, Amazon S3 and ElastiCache for Redis.

so wikipedia ( no ads..less bull.. ) : S3 Elastic cache redis


Book about Science , cosmological model , Interstellar travels

Boyle surface fr ,en

joebocop
514 post(s)
#30-Jan-21 21:59

You can access your table's rows via their REST API, which returns JSON. Manifold 9 has a "Web Server:jsonserver" Data Source that can read your correctly constructed AirTable API URL.

Once you've got that Data Source component, you can query your AirTable data no problem.

Now, you won't be able to update, of course, unless you get very (very) fancy.

A few options that come to mind, first, you could exploit the AirTable .NET API Client (https://github.com/ngocnicholas/airtable.net) from within Manifold 9.

Otherwise, you could presumably create scripts that are called from SQL functions that generate URLs that do your data updating (again, via the AirTable REST API). Those URLs can then be used to create (again) Webserver:jsonserver data source components, which will actually contain the API's response object returned from your UPDATE URL. EASY! :-)

Attachments:
at_api.png

davebic24 post(s)
#05-Feb-21 14:52

Thanks so much for your input. I don’t think that Airtable is my solution.

I want to build a somewhat simple relational database for Oil and Gas mineral ownership. These tracts have a lot of divergent but connected data such as deeds, tract description (TWP,RGE,SEC,QQ),wells, etc... I realize that Manifold can easily handle all of this data but I need a user friendly form or dashboard for data entry and display - hence going with Airtable. Not being a programmer, what would be an ideal situation is a drag and drop form builder in Manifold. Since that doesn’t exist, I need to build an outside database, preferably hosted on the cloud so it can be accessed remotely that connects read and write with M9 (MySQL?) that can be understood by professionals. Oh, and by the way the program has to be cheap or free. This project is for my own use and I intend to make the template available for free to anyone that would like to use it. I have also looked at Kexi, Libre Base and others but for various reasons they don’t seem to fit my vision.

One promising solution is a startup online spreadsheet/database solution being offered by Grist Labs https://www.getgrist.com/ Right now, they only offer a connection vs API but I spoke with the principal (aren’t startups great?) and he is talking with his programmers about a solution to my quandary. I think it just depends if it helps the overall design of their product. Grist has open source code so I suspect that it could be integrated directly with Manifold tables but that’s way beyond my pay grade.

Sorry about the diatribe but is there any obvious solutions out there that I am missing? Thanks for your input.

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#07-Feb-21 13:38

what would be an ideal situation is a drag and drop form builder in Manifold. Since that doesn’t exist, I need to build an outside database, preferably hosted on the cloud so it can be accessed remotely that connects read and write with M9 (MySQL?) that can be understood by professionals. Oh, and by the way the program has to be cheap or free.

If what you need is a form builder, get a form builder. Anything that can connect to a DBMS using ODBC can connect to a Manifold Release 9 project using ODBC.

I fired up Google in a browser window and searched for

open source form builder for dbms data entry odbc

or simply

open source form builder odbc

That led to plenty of interesting hits. Some like this one, suggesting use of Microsoft Infopath came as a surprise. But the use case in that link sounds similar to what you've said.

There's no reason you couldn't use Release 8 and Release 8 forms as an interface to a 9 project.

Also, if you want to keep your data within a database, why not use something straightforward like MySQL or PostgreSQL? Both are fine DBMS packages that are free with basically unlimited storage. There are plenty of form builders and other utilities that can interact with PostgreSQL, and you can use PostgreSQL as your data store for work with 9.

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