panaxit / panax

Main Panax Documentation

Contents

• Intro
• Documentation
• PanaxDB
• PanaxUI
• PanaxJS
• PanaxCLI
• Glossary

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Intro

Panax is a framework for generation of business applications based on solid relational data models.

A detailed configuration-driven approach allows a high customization level and complex business-rules.

Every change is reflected immediately in the resulting app, allowing agile prototyping.

Panax' aim is to be agnostic of database vendor, backend and user interface, exploiting state-of-the-art technologies, like Node.js and AngularJS, and allowing high extensibility.

See: Wiki:Panax' Service-oriented Architecture

See: Wiki:Panax' Dataflow

Documentation

Full API documentation available in: http://panax.readme.io/

PanaxDB

PanaxDB is the core technology of Panax, which is an enhancement layer (add-on) for your relational database.

It provides an API to interact with the database adding several super powers:

• Advanced scaffolding
• Metadata heuristics
• Automation capabilities
• Configuration over coding
• .. among others

More info: Wiki:PanaxDB

Panax Entity

A Panax Entity consist of 3 parts:

1. Fields: Contain all the columns' related metadata.
2. Layout: UI representation: order, grouping, displaying, etc.
3. Data: Data model itself.

Example call:

getXmlData @TableName='Employee', @ControlType=formView, @Mode=readonly,
           @Filters='Id=377', @output='json', @getStructure=1, @getData=1

Example XML output:

<Employee ...>
  <px:fields>
    <Id fieldName="Id" Column_Name="Id" isPrimaryKey="1" isIdentity="1" dataType="int" length="10" isNullable="0" supportsInsert="1" supportsUpdate="1" headerText="Id" controlType="default" />
    <Name fieldName="Name" Column_Name="Name" isPrimaryKey="0" isIdentity="0" dataType="nvarchar" length="30" isNullable="0" supportsInsert="1" supportsUpdate="1" headerText="Name" controlType="default" />
    <Joined fieldName="Joined" Column_Name="Joined" isPrimaryKey="0" isIdentity="0" dataType="date" isNullable="0" supportsInsert="1" supportsUpdate="1" headerText="Join Date" controlType="date" />
  </px:fields>
  
  <px:layout>
    <px:tabPanel>
      <px:tab name="General">
        <px:field fieldName="Name" />
      </px:tab>
      <px:tab name="Details">
        <px:field fieldName="Joined" />
      </px:tab>
    </px:tabPanel>
  </px:layout>
  
  <px:data>
    <px:dataRow>
      <Id value="377" text="377" />
      <Name value="John Doe" text="John Doe" />
      <Joined value="2014-06-08 00:00:00" text="08/06/2014" />
    </px:dataRow>
    <px:dataRow>
      <Id value="455" text="455" />
      <Name value="Sarah Connor" text="Sarah Connor" />
      <Joined value="2034-01-01 00:00:00" text="01/01/2034" />
    </px:dataRow>
    <px:dataRow>
      ...
    </px:dataRow>
  </px:data>
</Employee>

Example UI output with ExtJS:

[coming soon]

Example UI output with AngularJS:

[coming soon]

Implicit business rules

Data model has implicit business rules that can be defined with a combination of the following features:

• Relationships (1-1, 1-N, N-M)
• Data Types (str, int, custom made, etc)
• Properties (nullable, primary keys, unique keys, descriptions, extended, etc)

Panax' heuristics detect this metadata and adapts the entity model accordingly.

Examples

[coming soon]

Explicit business rules

Explicit business rules can be defined via:

1. Panax Configurations applied to entities
2. Programmability at database level (constraints, triggers, etc)

Panax Configurations (config procedure)

XPath-like configurations to change XML output

Examples:

> panax db config...........

PanaxJS

JavaScript abstraction module used primarly by PanaxUI to communicate with PanaxDB

PanaxUI

User interface modules for Panax

More info: Wiki:PanaxUI

Backend (Node.js API)

[wip]

Frontend (AngularJS GUI)

[wip]

PanaxCLI

Command-line interface

[wip]

See: Wiki: PanaxCLI Usage

Glossary

Panax Jargon

Old	New proposal	Description
Field		Database Column
Table		Database Table
Schema		Database Schema
Instance		Database Instance
Catalog	Entity	A consumable database unit. Expressed as: [InstanceName.][SchemaName.]TableName
Metadata		Implicit and explicit information about an Entity
Fields		Metadata form Entity' fields
Layout		An ordered representation (ex. form, grid) from Entity' fields
Structure		Combination of Entity' Fields + Layout
Data	DataModel?	Actual data from Entity' fields
Mode		A way to interact with a Catalog Entity
ControlType		A representation (ex. graphical) of an Catalog Entity or a Field