A Visual Database Management Interface Based on GOOD
We present various tools that are part of a visual interface for a database management system. All tools are based on the GOOD language, a graphical data deenition and manipulation language. The language allows us to build a consistent set of visual tools for both naive and experienced users. In this paper we mainly focus on the programbuilder, which is a tool for writing GOOD programs and can be used to perform a wide range of database tasks, such as querying, updating and schema manipulation. The main principles of this tool are, direct manipulation of objects; syntax support through conditioned graphical editor facilities, although not limiting exibility of speciication; reusability of programs; allowing the use of views; backtracking facilities and support of the conceptual eeect of the operation by showing the result on the schema. We also brieey introduce the view and browse tool. Finally, we give some technical aspects of the visual interface.