As mentioned in the
outline of my Lectures App,
I couldn't find a way to create a
UML diagram of an
sql schema (or the opposite). So here is my pitch.
The Idea
Create a website that prompts a user to upload an sql schema. Immediately, the
page would refresh with the UML diagrams. The user could then customize the
style/colour scheme, and then download it.
In order to make it downloadable, and to even represent it in the first place, I presume the diagrams would need to be created in GD, ImageMagick or a similar library.
The file could then be saved to Amazon S3, and the link presented for hotlinking or downloading.
Usefulness
Would this change my life? Nope, but it'd make it really nice to be able to visualize a schema I created programtically, or to present it to someone else.
Schemas are intrinsically very dry and obtuse, and being able to visualize data-sets relationships, column types (eg. through colour coding) and indexes could be very powerful as a learning tool.
The Opposite
Creatying a WYSIWYG would be pretty rad
too, but would be a rather large scope. Specifically, a user could create
tables, columns, column types, indices, and primary keys, and have these
exported to an sql file that could then be executed against a database (MySQL)
engine.
I don't know if I would use that as the SequelPro interface is simply (but powerful) enough to do so already, but it's an idea.
Business Model
Don't really care. Make something useful, people will pay, but alas, I'll address it:
- Charge to have them downloadedable
- Limit the number of UML diagrams that can be generated per account
- Show the first 5 tables, require a membership to view the rest
I would pay for this (albeit, a little; maybe $5/year), but it may be more valuable to larger businesses.