Tpda3

Tpda3 is a classic desktop database application framework and run-time, written in Perl.

News

The old site on the s2i2.ro domain is closed, this is the new temporary (I hope…) home for the Tpda3 project.

The latest release is v0.98.8 (download link). It’s a bug-fix release and a kind of a anniversary - the release number 50 on GitHub.

Description

The graphical user interface is based on PerlTk. There is also an early, experimental, support for wxPerl.

Tpda3 should work on any OS where Perl and the required dependencies can be installed, but currently it’s only tested on Windows® XP/7 and GNU/Linux. Feedback and patches for other operating systems are welcome.

True Rapid Application Development (RAD), the Tpda3::Devel application module can be used to create a basic working application in a few minutes.

Features:

• Simple and intuitive GUI;
• Powerful search;
• Report screens
• UTF-8 support;
• OS independent;
• Support for document generation from templates using LaTeX;
• Report Manager integration;

Supported relational database management systems (RDBMS):

• Firebird (using DBD::Firebird or DBD::ODBC)
• PostgreSQL
• SQLite
• CUBRID

Adding support for any other RDBMSs that have a Perl DBD module or is supported by DBD::ODBC is trivial.

Here are two screenshots of a custom application built with the Tpda3 framework.

    <img style="max-width:100%;height:auto;" src="/images/tpda3-persactiv-ecran-pa.png"  />

    <img style="max-width:100%;height:auto;" src="/images/tpda3-persactiv-ecran-cursuri.png"  />

Framework development

The Tpda3 system is composed of the framework and runtime part and the application part.

The framework and runtime part has three main functions:

• Database interaction;
• Configuration management;
• Graphical user interface management;

The application part has two main components:

• The screen modules;
• The screen configuration files;

The development of the framework takes place currently on GitHub

Application development

The steps required to create a new Tpda3 application are summarized below. Create a new Tpda3 Application Perl module. Create a configuration file for each table in the database that requires CRUD operations and the corresponding screen.

A screen in TPDA terminology is a Perl module that creates a form in the main window of the application with widgets bound to the fields of the database table.

There is no documentation, yet, for these steps, but there is an (experimental) application module that can be used to automate the creation of a basic Tpda3 application: Tpda3::Devel. The README.md file in the module contains brief instructions for the usage.