Am I overthinking this generic database management tool?

[Nielk1]

I've been poking at my LB database with some general C# code for a little bit now and I realized it might be a good idea to pack up some of my code for it into general libraries.  Somehow, this spun rapidly out of control into this... thing...

Can I get any opinions on if it's worth pursuing the development of such a complex tool?  You need to use actual code to use it so it's pretty ugly.

[DOS76]

I'm not sure if you are over thinking it but I'm afraid I've found that you have under explained it to the rest of us.

[Zombeaver]

I'm with @DOS76 haha 

I'm sure you know what it is/does, but chances are 99% of the rest of us are gonna be scratching our heads just based on those screenshots.

With that said though, as a general rule I would just say "Do you find it useful? Is it something that would help you in some way?" If the answer is yes, then chances are that it will help someone here at some point... even if it goes over most of our heads

[Nielk1]

It generally does everything, and nothing.  It's like having a lot of strings that connect to things like the library, or another data source, or another file, or another thing, and needing to put all the knots in yourself to bind it all together.

[DOS76]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Zombeaver]

6 minutes ago, Nielk1 said:

put all the knots in yourself to bind it all together

...and in the darkness bind them? 

In all seriousness though, what exactly is the theoretical use scenario for this (in a basic sense)? What is it that you're intending to use it to do? Is there some sort of functionality that's provided here that would allow people to do something they couldn't normally? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but what's the practical application?

[Nielk1]

Well, I did use this really basic script with it to set all my items with no Series set to be in the "~Not Set" series:

using System;

using System.Data;

using System.Linq;

using System.Collections.Generic;



namespace GameLibraryManager

{

    public class Query

    {

    	public DataTable Exec(Dictionary<string,LibraryDataSource> DataSources)

        {

            LaunchBoxDataSource lb = (LaunchBoxDataSource)DataSources["LaunchBox Library:0fa2a340-03c7-4c71-a932-3d44931310d5"]

            lb.Get("Game")

                .Where(dr => dr.GetField<string>("Series") == null || dr.GetField<string>("Series").length > 0)

                .ToList()

                .ForEach(dr => dr.SetField("Series","~Not Set");

            lb.Save();



            return null;

        }

    }

Theoretically you could do stuff like combine it with other data sets and apply changes or inserts.  I'm still trying to simply the interface of the code but I'm wondering if the whole thing is just too complex for anyone to use anyway.

[Jason Carr]

I think it's definitely worth sharing @Nielk1. Worse case scenario is scripts could be created for it which would allow some data management scripting. It looks awesome to me. Heck, I might even use it at some point.

[Nielk1]

OK, I'll keep at it.  I need to standardize interfaces and come up with a way to make up for the lack of intellisense.  You'll probably see this pop up in the tools section at some point.

[Jason Carr]

Awesome, thanks @Nielk1.