Question

I have a database that I need to distribute to users (it’s a directory of contact details) probably on CDs.
Users have varying platforms (OS and device wise – I’m willing to target desktops hence CDs).

I was thinking of some kind of deployable webapp that would provide a nice interface and a sqlite database. Does some kind of db interface exist with a highly customisable ui? Or does someone have a better way of doing this?

Answer 1

How big is the database? One simplistic option would be to generate a “contacts” webpage and burn this to the CD. Users can then search this from their browser or perhaps you could do it for them using javascript.

If you really need a DB then you’re looking at an embedded database of some sort, however, since you’ve suggested sqlite I suspect you know this already and are looking at user interface options.

You have not specified a technology, so I’ll just list several frameworks designed to develop database backed webapps:

• Grails (Groovy/Java)
• Rails (Ruby)
• Django (Python)

All the above operate in a development mode that uses an embedded database (H2 or Sqlite). Your only challenge will be to ensure their runtime environments are properly configured, or shipped on the CD as well.

In conclusion, I pretty certain this has been done before. Have you also considered just shipping an installer for your webapp, rather than worry about the complexities of getting something to run from CD? For example you might wish to support more than one platform: Linux, Windows, Mac, etc.

Update

Someone has thought of doing this:

• http://www.benjysbrain.com/misc/cdsite/