Questions about Firebird community add-on for Jmix

Support
1

Hello! I am a Firebird developer, and I work on expanding the Firebird ecosystem, including integrating Firebird with other projects and technologies.

Previously, I submitted PR #5532 to add Firebird support as a primary database for Jmix. The PR was not accepted because officially supporting an additional database would require ongoing testing and maintenance from the Jmix team. During the discussion, I was advised to implement Firebird support as a separate add-on.

After that, I prepared several related projects:

I have a few questions.

Is it okay to publicly share information about jmix-firebird-addon in Jmix tickets, discussions, and on the Jmix forum?

In particular, I would like to clarify:

  • whether I can share links to the add-on and documentation with users who need Firebird support;

  • whether the Jmix team has any objections to such a community solution while Firebird is not officially supported by the platform.

I do not want to create the impression that Firebird is officially supported by Jmix. My goal is simply to share a working independent solution with interested users while official Firebird support is not available in the platform.

I would also like to ask whether it is possible to get an additional temporary period of Jmix Studio Premium access. My trial period has ended, and I still need to test the projects and finish the documentation. The subscription would only be used for testing and preparing documentation, not for commercial development.

Overall, I would be interested to hear the Jmix team’s opinion about this work. How do you feel about such a community add-on and about me sharing it with Jmix users? Perhaps you have some comments, questions, or concerns about this approach.

3

Hello Maxim,

Of course we don’t mind if you share your work, it’s a free forum after all.
We would also be happy to put your add-on on the Jmix marketplace, but let me first ask some questions:

  • Would it be possible to move the docs to the same github repository as a set of markdown files, to remove the build step?
  • How do you see the usage of Firebird as a main database if the project includes add-ons that require a database schema?

Regarding Studio subscription, please email us at info@jmix.io with a quick message and a link to this topic.

Regards,
Konstantin

5

Hello again.

I would like to clarify what exactly you mean by moving the documentation. Should I completely convert the existing documentation to Markdown and move it into the add-on repository, or would it be better to prepare a shorter Markdown version focused on using the add-on and keep the full documentation in a separate repository? What exactly would you like to see in the documentation? Perhaps I should use the documentation of other add-ons as a reference?

Regarding the second question, if I understood correctly, you mean add-ons that require their own database schema, such as Reports, Audit, and Dynamic Attributes. If so, I tested Firebird with these add-ons.

I added the add-ons both through Jmix Marketplace and manually. When adding them manually, in addition to the Gradle dependencies described in the documentation, with Firebird it is also necessary to manually include the add-on changelog in Liquibase:

<include file="/io/jmix/ADDON_NAME/liquibase/changelog.xml"/>

This is because Firebird is not supported by Jmix Studio, so Studio cannot run the project through the Run action and automatically add the required Liquibase changes when the add-on is connected manually.

When adding add-ons through Jmix Marketplace, the required changes are added automatically, and the add-ons work successfully with Firebird.

So far, I have not found any limitations when using Firebird with such add-ons.

изображение
изображение1847×942 139 KB

изображение
изображение1893×253 48.8 KB

6

Good to know that add-ons work well with Firebird.

Regarding the docs, we would prefer them as markdown files in the add-on’s repo, close to the source code. This is the common practice, see for example https://github.com/pbaris/jmix-google-place#google-place-add-on-for-jmix