🐸 rainfrog

a database management tui for postgres

Warning

rainfrog is currently in beta.

the goal for rainfrog is to provide a lightweight, terminal-based alternative to pgadmin/dbeaver.

features

• efficient navigation via vim-like keybindings and mouse controls
• query editor with keyword highlighting and session history
• quickly copy data, filter tables, and switch between schemas
• shortcuts to view table metadata and properties
• cross-platform (macOS, linux, windows, android via termux)

why "rainfrog"?

frogs find refuge in elephant tracks

disclaimer

this software is currently under active development; expect breaking changes, and use at your own risk. it is not recommended to use this tool with write access on a production database.

installation

cargo

after installing rust (recommended to do so via rustup):

cargo install rainfrog

arch linux

arch linux users can install from the official repositories using pacman:

pacman -S rainfrog

termux

if you are using termux, you'll need to install rust via their package manager:

pkg install rust

and then make sure to install with termux features (and disable default features):

cargo install rainfrog --features termux --no-default-features

install script

there is a simple install script that assists in downloading and unpacking a binary from the release page to ~/.local/bin/, which you might want to add to your PATH variable if it isn't already there. you'll need to select which binary is appropriate for your system (if you're not sure, you can find out by installing rust and running rustc -vV to see the "host" target), and the script also needs jq and fzf installed to run.

curl -LSsf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/achristmascarl/rainfrog/main/install.sh | bash

release page binaries

1. manually download and unpack the appropriate binary for your os from the latest release (if you're not sure which binary to pick, you can find out by installing rust and running rustc -vV to see the "host" target)
2. move the binary to a folder in your PATH environment variable

usage

all arguments are optional; you will be prompted to provide any missing information.

rainfrog

with individual options

if any options are not provided, you will be prompted to input them. if you do not provide an input, that option will default to what is in your environment variables.

rainfrog \
  --username <username> \
  --host <hostname> \
  --port <db_port> \
  --database <db_name>

with connection url

the connection_url must include all the necessary options for connecting to the database (ex. postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/postgres)

rainfrog --url $(connection_url)

docker run

docker run --platform linux/amd64 -it --rm --name rainfrog \
  --add-host host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
  -e username="<username>" \
  -e password="<password>" \
  -e hostname="host.docker.internal" \
  -e db_port="<db_port>" \
  -e db_name="<db_name>" achristmascarl/rainfrog:latest

keybindings

general

keybinding	description
Ctrl+c	quit program
Alt+1, Ctrl+k	change focus to menu
Alt+2, Ctrl+j	change focus to query editor
Alt+3, Ctrl+h	change focus to query history
Alt+4, Ctrl+g	change focus to results
Tab	cycle focus forwards
Shift+Tab	cycle focus backwards
q, Alt+q in query editor	abort current query

menu (list of schemas and tables)

keybinding	description
j, ↓	move selection down by 1
k, ↑	move selection up by 1
g	jump to top of current list
G	jump to bottom of current list
h, ←	focus on schemas (if more than 1)
l, →	focus on tables
/	filter tables
Esc	clear search
Backspace	focus on tables
Enter when searching	focus on tables
Enter with selected schema	focus on tables
Enter with selected table	preview table (100 rows)
R	reload schemas and tables

query editor

Keybindings may not behave exactly like Vim. The full list of active Vim keybindings in Rainfrog can be found at vim.rs.

Keybinding	Description
Alt+Enter, F5	Execute query
j, ↓	Move cursor down 1 line
k, ↑	Move cursor up 1 line
h, ←	Move cursor left 1 char
l, →	Move cursor right 1 char
w	Move cursor to next start of word
e	Move cursor to next end of word
b	Move cursor to previous start of word
0	Move cursor to beginning of line
$	Move cursor to end of line
gg	Jump to top of editor
G	Jump to bottom of current list
Esc	Return to normal mode
i	Enter insert (edit) mode
I	Enter insert mode at beginning of line
A	Enter insert mode at end of line
o	Insert new line below and enter insert
v	Enter visual (select) mode
V	Enter visual mode and select line
r	Begin replace operation
y	Begin yank (copy) operation
x	Begin cut operation
p	Paste from clipboard
u	Undo
Ctrl+r	Redo
Ctrl+e	Scroll down
Ctrl+y	Scroll up

query history

keybinding	description
j, ↓	move selection down by 1
k, ↑	move selection up by 1
g	jump to top of list
G	jump to bottom of list
y	copy selected query
I	edit selected query in editor
D	delete all history

results

keybinding	description
j, ↓	scroll down by 1 row
k, ↑	scroll up by 1 row
h, ←	scroll left by 1 cell
l, →	scroll right by 1 cell
b	scroll right by 1 cell
e, w	scroll left by 1 column
{, PageUp, Ctrl+b	jump up one page
}, PageDown, Ctrl+f	jump down one page
g	jump to top of table
G	jump to bottom of table
0	jump to first column
$	jump to last column
v	select individual field
V	select row
Enter	change selection mode inwards
Backspace	change selection mode outwards
y	copy selection
Esc	stop selecting

roadmap

🏁 v0.1.0 – alpha

• scrollable table
• cancellable async querying (spawn tokio task)
• menu list with tables and schemas (collapsable)
• tui-textarea for query editor
• basic tui-textarea vim keybindings
• handle custom types / enums
• display rows affected
• confirm before delete/drop
• table selection and yanking
• multi-line pasting
• editor os clipboard support
• handle mouse events
• keybindings hints at bottom
• branch protection

🏁 v0.2.0 – beta

• vhs explainer gifs
• upgrade ratatui and tui-textarea
• shortcuts to view indexes, keys, etc.
• performant syntax highlighting
• session history
• changelog, release script
• handle explain / analyze output
• show query duration
• install script for bins

now that rainfrog is in beta, check out the issues tab for planned features

known issues and limitations

• in addition to the experience being subpar if the terminal window is too small, if the terminal window is too large, rainfrog will crash due to the maximum area of ratatui buffers being u16::MAX (65,535). more details in achristmascarl#60
• for query results with many columns, the height of the rendered Table widget may be limited due to the same limitation mentioned above. Could be fixed by ratatui/ratatui#1250
• on mac, for VS Code and terminal (and perhaps other editors), a setting for "use option as meta key" needs to be turned on for Alt/Opt keybindings to work. (In VS Code, it's "terminal.integrated.macOptionIsMeta": true; in kitty, it's macos_option_as_alt yes in the config.)
• in visual mode, when selecting an entire line, the behavior is not the same as vim's, as it simply moves starts the selection at the head of the line, so moving up or down in lines will break the selection.
• mouse events are only used for changing focus and scrolling; the editor does not currently support mouse events, and menu items cannot be selected using the mouse

acknowledgements

• ratatui (this project used ratatui's component template as a starting point)
• tui-textarea (used in the query editor)
• gobang (a rust db tui i drew inspiration from)
• ricky rainfrog
• rainfroggg (my wife's tattoo studio)