What is JAMstack - an introduction

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User|

JAMstack introduction

The JAMstack architecture is gaining popularity among frontend developers for its ability to provide a modern, fast, and secure web development experience.

In order to achieve better performance, developers have had to look at different ways and tools that together could increase speed and at the same time maintain a high level of security. Traditional and dynamic CMS-based websites have the disadvantage that data must be retrieved from a database or similar in order to deliver content on the websites. Using so-called reverse proxies and caches (i.e., "fast storage") such as Varnish and nginx, was one of the few options to increase performance. That is, until the JAMstack architecture (and frameworks) arrived.

(this article was originally published on the codehooks.io blog)

Object relations in a NoSQL database

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| API|

relations

Compared to a traditional relational database (SQL), a document oriented (NoSQL) database has poor or non-existent support for relations between objects (data schema). A NoSQL datastore persists and retrieves documents (often in JSON format) and any relationships between your documents is something you must implement yourself.

Without any direct support for relations, you’re stuck with the logic and maintenance of objects / relations in your application layer.

This blog post shows how you can leave the job of maintaining object / relations to a database, effectively giving you time to pick from your backlog instead of adding :)

Working with hierarchies in a NoSQL database

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Tutorials|

Hierarchies in a NoSQL database Organising information in hierarchies is something programmers have to deal with from time to time. Examples are:

  • Threaded discussions/comments
  • Addresses on a map
  • Folders and documents
  • Organisational structures
  • Storage/shelf locations in a warehouse
  • Pages on a web site
  • Link referrals

Using a NoSQL document database (or SQL for that matter), it is quite easy to create a structure to organise this type of information; for each record/document/node, you simply need a reference to the parent (except for the top node).

So what's the problem?

The main problem is that querying and retrieving the whole or parts of the hierarchy will require complex code with recursion and an unknown number of queries which can put a big load on our database. Ouch!

In this blog post we will walk through a simple solution which lets you retrieve any (or all) parts of a hierarchy (a threaded discussion) using only ONE efficient database query in restdb.io. To follow along, you can just create a new restdb database yourself. Everything is done online, you only need a modern browser.

Announcing MongoDB Atlas support for restdb.io

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto|

love-Mongodb In case you didn't know it, restdb.io is designed for use with the leading NoSQL database engine MongoDB.

restdb.io does not expose any of the details from the underlying database, hence the simplicity and speed of development that many developers love.

However, in many cases, there are good reasons for developers and data owners to control their own MongoDB instance.

We are therefore proud to announce support for external MongoDB databases.

This blog post shows how you can connect restdb.io to a MongoDB Atlas Cluster.

Chop your logs with capped collections

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto| Tutorials|

log Your database size is out of control, and collections are growing crazy fast.

You desperately need some automagical way to limit collection sizes to contain only relevant data, and chop off garbage data.

Relax, this is exactly what you can accomplish with a background JavaScript that caps collection data to a specific limit.

This blog post will show you how.

Taking reuse to a new level - introducing the restdb.io database template catalog

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Features|


Boiler plates and HTML templates are very popular among developers. With restdb.io database/app templates, we want to take reuse to a completely new level.

A few months ago, we introduced the snapshot functionality for restdb.io databases. A simple click and a complete clone of a database with schema, REST API, HTML pages and setup would be created. Perfect for development staging, testing, reuse and sharing.

We are now introducing a template catalog where we are sharing various types of database applications you can install directly into your account. You can use these templates to learn from, as a starting point for a new solution or just use them right out of the “box”.

You shall not pass - without a JSON Web Token

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto| API|


Accessing cloud data sources from JavaScript using AJAX and JSON is at the core of so many applications. There are several complicated approaches and there is JSON Web Tokens.

Thousands of developers have chosen to run their Authentication and Backends from cloud providers for one reason. Simplicity.

Enter JSON Web Tokens, Auth0 and restdb.io. Auth0 lets you set up a world class authentication system in front of your application - in 10 minutes. By using the JSON Web Tokens and the JavaScript API from restdb.io, your data API is easily protected.

After all, your application needs 100% of your attention on the core features, which is everything that happens between authentication and the data store.

You'll find a link to a working application example at the end of this article.

Instant cloud apps with Snapp templates

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto| Features|


We have previously written blog posts with source code and plenty of examples of how to set up backends, web sites and blogs using a restdb.io database (see restdb.site).  

However, even though we provided detailed steps on how to set everything up, we felt the barriers was still there for developers to get going. We needed a way to share our examples without requiring people to set everything up themselves, a kind of snapshot or clone of a complete solution.

Meet our latest feature:  Snapps

REST API Inspector

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Features| API|


Cloud service APIs can often feel like black boxes. Applications send information in and get responses back, but you feel like being in the dark and don't really see what's going on.  

The new restdb.io REST API Inspector  (  ) will help you to shed more light onto your APIs.

Password protected Pages

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto|

Restdb Pages lets you create any content from your database and deliver it on a custom route. However, sensitive content must be protected. That's why we made it simple to include user authentication in any Page. All you have to do is to add the #auth tag to the Page source code.


The #auth tag instructs the server to require an authenticated user before serving the Page content. The example below shows how to protect a page with a simple username and password.

{{#auth}}
{"password": "secret", "user": "jane"}
{{/auth}}

My sensitive content here ...

How to create a dynamic site with HTML and CSS only (almost)

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto|

Do you dream of a simpler world where you could create a website with HTML and CSS only? The kind of site that web designers and SEO-experts love?

With the addition of Pages to restdb.io, it is now entirely possible and easy to create complete dynamic web sites with only HTML and CSS (almost). 

How to create an RSS feed with restdb.io

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto|


RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a widely used standard format to deliver regularly changing web content. Many sites and blogs syndicate their content as RSS feeds. People subscribing to feeds saves time, stays informed and enjoys greater privacy (no ads, no cookies).

In this blog post we show you how we created the RSS feed for our own blog (yep, this blog), using a restdb.io database and just a few lines of code in a restdb.io Page.

Draft records makes publishing database content simpler

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Features|


We are pleased to announce drafts for restdb.io. This makes it much easier to use the database service for content management or for example product information management.

Web Form Generator now support file and image uploads

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto| Features|


Great news! We have now released a new version of the Web Form Generator that will generate HTML and Javascript code for uploading files and images into your restdb.io database collections.

How to create a Dashboard with RestDB

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto|

A Dashboard is a helpful tool for keeping people in the loop and quickly communicate important information.
This blog post will show you how to create a Dashboard with RestDB.
Our example is a database with Job applications from a web site.

Let (the) Postman deliver your REST-API code

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto| API|


At restdb.io we have created code examples for various platforms. It's often quite time consuming to find the right library and approach, especially if the programming language is new to you.

But did you know there exists a powerful tool which lets you generate client code for calling REST APIs for many popular languages? Meet (the) Postman.

Using Highcharts with RestDB

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto|


This simple example shows how you can use Highcharts to visualize data from a RestDB datasource.

In this example we'll create a database for a simple Time management application. 
Our database contains the following Collections: Customers, Projects and Hours.

If you got the numbers, RestDB will do the math

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| Howto|

From spreadsheets you might be familiar with formulas and calculations. RestDB supports calculations (for example adding a field that includes price + VAT) and aggregation functions like sum, average, minimum, maximum and count. It's quite easy to set up.

Database Driven Web sites and Pages

by Jon Erik Solheim
 - 
|User| Howto|

Pages let you create dynamic HTML (and other) content inside restdb.io. This is a great way to develop unique user experiences driven by data from your database.

This blog post shows you how to get started. We will create a simple web page and publish it to the world.

Database apps on the go

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User|

Today we released a fully responsive, mobile friendly version of restdb.io. It's perfect for accessing and updating important data on the go.

Welcome to our Blog - created in restdb.io

by Knut Martin Tornes
 - 
|User| API|

This is our first blog post on restdb.io.
When we started to think about our blog, we had to pick some blog framework or CMS.

But wait, restdb.io is great for serving dynamic content into a web page. Creating a blog is actually a good example that shows the power and flexibility of restdb.io. It's that thing about eating your own dogfood.