We are execited to announce we have developed a new MySQL connector library to allow you to connect directly to your MySQL databases directly if required from your Android apps. This is available as an open source project on GitHub. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the library lets start with why we developed and best practices for Android and MySQL.

We've been doing Android Development for about 10 years, with one of our apps being a MySQL Database Management App. Android, until now, had no native MySQL connection and had to rely on some sort of web service in order to connect to the database.

Originally this is what we did, we developed a PHP API to allow you to connect to the database. This worked by the Android app, sending a JSON request which contained your connection details to your database. The PHP API would receive the request, connect to your database, and execute the query on the database, get the response back from your database, build a JSON object which Android then receives and processes to display you the result.

This worked fine except it had a couple of issues and gotchas related to doing it this way.

**Security**  
It was our database server connecting to your database, although all data sent between the device and our server was encrypted, and we, at no point did we store the connection details are process what data was returned from the DB, but obviously for some people this was still a concern for people.

To get around this potential concern, we made the PHP API web service available as an open source project on GitHub that you could install on your own web server and tell the app the to use your installed version instead of the Boardies IT Solutions servers

**Local Database Access**  
Due to the API by default running on the Boardies IT Solutions server, your database had to be available over the internet from our server, therefore you weren't able to connect to a database on your local home or office network. There work arounds for this, such as port forwarding to allow connections from outside on the Internet into your local network, or installing the PHP API on your own network and then telling the app to use that, although was inconvineant and depending on what was used, could be tricky to implement.

During our Android Development we spend a fair amount of time looking on Stackoverflow, either to get help ourselves, or at times provide answers to questions on the site. For years we keep seeing the odd question about connecting to a MySQL database through Android and every response is connecting directly is bad practice and a web service should be used, many sites and development blogs also state this, and even though we have developed a native MySQL Connector for Android this is still the case.

If you have a requirement for connecting to a MySQL database from your android app, you should be using a web service, this adds extra security to your database as it doesn't expose it publicly to the Internet and you have control as to what is being done on the database through your API. However, there are times when you might need, or want, to connect to your database directly. This is where our Android MySQL Connector comes in.

We developed our native Android MySQL Connector for our MySQL Manager android app. We wanted to remove the limitations of the app, and some of the bad reviews the app gets as some users haven't read the description and followed the instructions to understand the limitations of the PHP API, and of course, we want to make the app, the best that it can be. Therefore, we first developed the MySQL connector, and now we are using it to rebuild our MySQL Management app from the ground app to work with the new connector.

We are still in the early stages of the MySQL Manager app rewrite but during our early stages, connecting to the database is a lot faster, as there's no middleware processing between the Android app and the PHP API, and is instead connecting directly and getting the response directly.

We've tested the MySQL connector on MySQL 5.1 through to MySQL 5.7. It will still need a fair amount of testing to ensure that it works with various configurations that can be used with MySQL. This is where you come in. We'd love if you signed up to the Beta version of our MySQL Manager android app to try th new version and provide us feedback on how the app runs, and any issues that you may experience with connecting to your own database server.

There are few limitations of the app while we're still in development, but below is the current functionality that is working:

*   Connecting to database with or with out password
*   Connecting to database with a password saved or not saved - if not saved you will be asked for the password
*   Database and table retrieval, including column information in side menu (this is now moved to the left hand menu)
*   Execute your own queries with SQL Syntax highlighting.

For any developers out their reading this, we'd also really like it if you checked out our respository for the Android MySQL Connector and try using it in your own apps, and of course we really like it to have other developers contribute to the project.

The Android MySQL Connector is still quite new in development and is fairly basic compared to the official versions of the connector provided by Oracle for other platforms, therefore it has some limitations. The limiation of the connector are described below:

*   Only works with MySQL 5.1 - 5.7 it may work with other versions but not tested, however is known not to work yet with MySQL 8 as they have replaced the default password hashing algorithm.
*   Doesn't support compression - when the client connects, it disables compression so the server knows not to try using it.

You can find more information about the library by visiting the [Github Repository](https://github.com/BoardiesITSolutions/Android-MySQL-Connector).

An open source library to connect natively to your MySQL server from Android.

Native MySQL Connector for Android

Android MySQL Connector Library

Today we are pleased to announce the release of Boardies MySQL Manager for Android 2.6.1.0.

This release mostly focuses on improving the reliability and ease of use, however, there is one new feature included in this release, but will keep that til the end :).

One of the things we've improved is the start up time when the app was launched. We found that this was due to our change log as it had details of each version change since the beginning. We've done some housekeeping on this now so some of the earlier version are no longer shown.

We've found from our logs that we had a fair amount of users trying to connect to a database on their local home and/or office network but were still using the default API running on our servers.

We've done blog posts about this in this past where we've explained how our Android app has to talk to your database due to Android not having any MySQL libraries it has to use a PHP API and its the API that connects to your database, and returns the data back to Android for it to process. This will only work if your database server is on accessible over the Internet or you override the app settings to point to API running on the same network as your local database.

The app will now detect if you are using the default Boardies IT Solutions API on our servers but trying to access a local MySQL database or a local SSH server if trying to do SSH tunneling. You can see a screenshot of this below.  
![Internal Network Connections](__GHOST_URL__/content/images/2017/09/Android-Internal-Network-Notification-2.PNG).

If you click on the "More Info" link you will be taken to a page on our site which has more information about [how to set up the app to use a local database and/or SSH server](https://boardiesitsolutions.com/developments/android/boardies-mysql-manager-internal-network-detected.php).

We've also made improvements to the database status screen from the connection manager. Originally, if the database was unavailable due to the server being offline, or not being able to connect to MySQL, it would show an error, but when the error was dismissed, you were then left with the screen that would have showed the connection details, but instead just showed the connection name and a checkbox. We'll admit it, that was awful and it was a pretty major oversight on our part so we apologise. This has now been rectified, to show an error message instead as shown below.  
![Connection Manager - No DB Connection](__GHOST_URL__/content/images/2017/09/Connection-Manager-No-DB-Connection-1.PNG)

We've also made a change to the API call manager within the app by checking that you have a valid network connection. Originally, if you didn't have an active network connection and tried to connect, you would receive a timeout error after a few seconds, but once the error was dismissed, you would then be left on the query editor screen (where you can select which DB/tables to use and execute queries) but it would be blank and you wouldn't be able to do anything and you would have to go back to the start screen and try again. Now the app checks your network state, and if you have no network detected, it shows a friendly error, and you are kept on the start screen to be able to try again once you are connected to the network instead of having to manually go back.

Now, onto the new feature that's also been included. Admitidelly we're a little late to the game, however, we have now implemented [App Shortcuts](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/19/android-7-1-feature-spotlight-app-shortcuts-are-supported-in-the-google-now-launcher/). This allows you to long click on the app icon for Boardies MySQL Manager, either from your launchers app drawer or one of your home screens, (note that not all launchers support this, but most of the popular ones do) and view shortcuts to get direct access to a particular part of the app.

When long pressing the icon, you will see shortcut to do a quick connect, e.g. connect to a database without saving its connection settings, and then the 3 most used connections. This is demonstrated in the image below.

![App Shortcut](__GHOST_URL__/content/images/2017/09/quick-connect-default-no-pinned.PNG)

There is an option though to pin a connection. Pinning a connection allows a connection to always be shown in the app shortcut list regardless of how regularly the connection is used. This can be done in the connection manager as shown below.  
![Connection Manager with pinned connection shortcut](__GHOST_URL__/content/images/2017/09/connection-manager-pinned.PNG)

As you can see in the screenshot above, the "Temp Server" DB connection has been pinned, so this will always be shown even if this is the least use connection.

We're continually working on this app and thinking of what new features we can add to the app, and our aim is to make this the best, and most simplest, MySQL client on Android.

We always want to hear your feedback, whether its good or bad so please get in touch. If you find a bug, have a feature request, or just need some help, you can raise it via out [Support Portal](https://support.boardiesitsolutions.com).

[![Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/intl/en_gb/badges/images/generic/en_badge_web_generic.png)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.BoardiesITSolutions.MysqlManager&pcampaignid=MKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1)

Release notes for Boardies MySQL Manager for Android 2.6.1.0. 

Devso Blog

Tagged

MySQL

Android MySQL Connector Library

Boardies MySQL Manager for Android Release 2.6.1.0