Thoughts on Xataface-like app

[eluser]ururk[/eluser]
The premise of this post is that I'm developing an http://xataface.com/ like app, based off CI. I have doubts, worries, and don't know if I'm wasting my time.


I've developed two CI 'apps', CMS and xataface-like clone. I reuse the CMS-variant from time to time. It is a general-purpose CMS, for managing content types and data tables. It requires manual creation of all admin forms, etc... but is effectively a duplicate/search+replace type of system. The front-end needs to be built from scratch -> the system is intended for sites with a single-purpose in mind... such as a magazine publishing system, or sites which need a lightweight tool to manage a simple data type (eg, news management, and so forth). I use WordPress or Drupal for full-blown CMS's where appropriate.

The second app is in development, and not quite ready to deploy, but is almost there. This app is similar to xataface, but nowhere near xataface's configurability. At this point I have the ability to point it at a specific DB, and it will do CRUD on any table (for a specific prefix only). I also have a Schema table which allows configuration of *every* field in every table (it does not replace phpmyadmin, or other SQL utilities that create columns/tables). I have created specific widgets (radio buttons, textarea, text, etc...) which output the fields in a specific way. I can also specify validation rules. All utilizing CI's form helper, validation, etc.. It consists of one controller, one model, one library, one view, one helper, and a config file, though right now relies on extra controllers, models, etc... for authentication.

So... it is 1/4-1/2 of the way there, and doubts keep creeping into my mind.

1) I'm able to handle Parent-child relationships, but I feel like there should be a better way to go about this. I also need to have an intelligent way of specifying a relationship like Xataface does. That is, Xataface allows you to specify a relationship, and any time the table is queried, the relationship is utilized as part of the query. I'm not too sure how to implement this and still utilize active record.

2) I'm not doing any caching. Xataface caches the generated code, while I create it each time. I keep wondering if I should cache the page content. Page generation times are around .09 seconds.

3) I keep thinking I'm wasting my time.

4) I don't know how to inject special formatting or code for a specific field. That is, if I have a date field, and only want to allow Month and Year, jQuery UI doesn't provide this functionality -> I need two drop-down menus. How do I specify this without creating a special data type, or writing php code?


Sorry if this is long winded. I keep having doubts, then I think I can build it, then I have doubts, etc...