any working howto for accessing mysql/mariadb from libre office?

[M. Fioretti]

(already sent also to [e-mail])

Greetings,

as per subject. I have a Fedora 20 x86_64 box here, running LO
4.2.5.2, with all updates installed.

NONE of the official howtos, forums, whatever around contains a
usable, step by step description of what should be done to connect
Base to a local mariadb / mysql database which is running and already
accessible from the same computer, both from the command line and from
php through the local web server. The closest I've got, AFTER already
doing plenty of searches for any variant of mysql, libre office and
the several error messages below, is:

(configuring the 
connect to existing database mysql
connect using jdbc

database name: mydb

server: localhost

port number 3306

MySql JDBC Driver class:

com.mysql.jdbc.Driver (and when I click on "Test Class" I get "the
      	   	  	jdbc driver was loaded successfully")

user name marco, password required yes

Then I click on "Test Connection" I get

SQL Status: 08S01
Communications link failure

the last packet sent successfully to the server was 0 milliseconds
ago. The driver has not received any packets from the server.

I get this on the command line where I had launched lo:

Exception in thread "Thread-26" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/jdbc/mysql/Driver
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.jdbc.mysql.Driver
       at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:366)
       at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355)
       at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
       at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:425)
       at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:358)

from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15827547/java-lang-classnotfoundexception...

I read that that message means "problem is not in the code, but you don't have added the driver to your project!!! You have to add the *.jar driver to your project... "

but I HAVE added in Options->ADvanced the class path
/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java.jar. Maybe the problem is that
this LO (as packaged by Fedora, that is) is using JRE 1.7.0_60 by
ORACLE?

Also, adding ?autoReconnect=true to the database name, as some of the
many howtos and forums I already read, doesn't change anything.

What now? First I thought the problem could be on the fedora side
(maybe something in selinux/firewall) but why would it work both on
the command line and on http/php from the same machine? that's why I
am also asking here.

TIA,
   Marco

any decent mysql/mariadb form gui for Fedora? was: working howto for accessing mysql/mariadb from libre office?

[M. Fioretti]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 15:30:41 PM +0200, Marco Fioretti wrote:
> NONE of the official howtos, forums, whatever around contains a
> usable, step by step description of what should be done to connect
> Base to a local mariadb / mysql database which is running and
> already accessible from the same computer, both from the command
> line and from php through the local web server.

and here is the _reason_ why I'm wasting all that time with
libreoffice/openoffice:

I need a mysql/mariadb gui that makes it easy to:

create COMPACT, READABLE, QUICK forms in which I can quickly add or
modify records to an already existing database with many columns. By
this I mean something that:

- lets me arrange the layout so that all fields fill in the smallest
  possible window, but creates BY ITSELF (i.e. reading the table
  structure) selection boxes with all the acceptable values for a
  certain column.

- makes it easy to query the db and get a COMPACT list of all the
  matching records, e.g. just one or two columns

Sure, LibreOffice, OpenOffice and possibly even the corresponding
koffice/calligra component can do that in theory. But they are all too
complicated to arrange, when they work at all, see my earlier
message. And the mysql/mariadb guis I've seen are even more uselessly
(for my use case) complicated, being geared more to db
_administration_ than usage.

Suggestions? (I would even go for a local LAMP solution, if there were
libraries that DO make all the work above by themselves. I found
Formit, or something like that, but it seems unmantained...)

TIA,
    Marco