I’m trying to get back into PHP and MySQL development since i’ve found out that MySQL now allows stored procedures. I work with these at work on an Oracle database and use PL/SQL developer to create them. I was looking for a similar sort of interface for MySQL and was pointed in the direction of MySQL workbench. I’m using Xampp as my test server setup and would like to link MySQL Workbench to MySQL on this server however I’m stuck at one of the stages in the installation. I’m trying to create a new server instance and have been successful as far as testing the database connection however on the next page it asks me to set the ‘windows configuration parameters’ for this machine and failes to discover a MySQL service. I have ensured that both the Apache server and MySQL services are running in Xampp but do not understand why a MySQL service cannot be found and is not being displayed. Has anyone else encountered this issue when trying to use MySQL Workbench and if so, how did you amanage to get it up and running? I’m using Windows 8 and don’t know if this is the reason a service isn’t being found. I apologise if this is a really simple question with a simple answer however I have only ever used PHPMyAdmin before which is relatively simple to setup.
I have found problems with the packaged *AMP systems. They don’t always install things the way other applications expect. e.g. The MAMP system doesn’t work well with Python. it’s quite easy to install each of Apache, PHP and MySql on Windows (and two of them are already on the Mac and Linux)
If you use the standard MySql install you should have no trouble installing the Workbench, I’ve done it on both Windows and Mac.
I have found it a bit flakey at times, it won’t connect to older server versions and tends to crash when running long scripts. It also doesn’t have a great UI for queries, A good program like PLSQL Developer to TOAD would be nice.