Data Grid

The Data Grid is the primary view for browsing and editing table contents. It opens automatically when you double-click a table in the sidebar. Every table, view, or query result is displayed using a high-performance virtualized renderer — only the visible rows are rendered, so even large result sets feel instant.

Opening a Table

Double-click any table or view in the sidebar. The data grid opens in a new tab, color-coded by connection. The tab title shows the table name and the connection name in the tab bar.

Browsing Data

Pagination

Data is fetched in pages. The default page size is 500 rows, configurable via resultPageSize in Configuration. Navigation controls at the bottom of the grid let you move forward and backward through pages.

The total row count is shown alongside the pagination controls, fetched via a COUNT(*) query when you open the table.

Column Resizing

Drag a column header border left or right to resize columns. Double-click the border to auto-fit the column to its content width.

Sorting

Click a column header to sort by that column (ascending). Click again to sort descending. A third click removes the sort. Sorting is applied server-side — a new query is issued with an ORDER BY clause so the sort is consistent across all pages.

LIMIT / OFFSET preservation — if your query includes a LIMIT or OFFSET clause, clicking a column header to sort will preserve it. Only the ORDER BY portion is replaced.

Filtering

A filter bar is available at the top of the grid. Type a condition to filter the results. The filter is applied as a WHERE clause, so it works across all pages and correctly reflects the total count.

Inline Editing

Tabularis supports inline cell editing for tables. Changes are tracked as pending edits and not immediately committed.

Editing a Cell

Double-click a cell to enter edit mode. Type the new value and press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel. Edited cells are highlighted to distinguish them from unchanged values.

Adding a Row

Click the + Add Row button at the bottom of the grid. A new empty row appears at the end. Fill in the values for each cell and commit when ready.

Deleting Rows

Select one or more rows by clicking the row header checkbox, then click Delete Selected — or press Delete / Backspace with the rows selected (works whenever no cell is being edited and the grid isn't read-only). A confirmation is shown before the DELETE statement is executed.

Committing Changes

Pending edits (cell modifications, new rows, deleted rows) are shown with a visual indicator. Click Apply Changes to generate and execute the corresponding INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statements. Click Discard to roll back all pending changes without touching the database.

A DDL preview showing the exact SQL that will be executed is available before you confirm.

Copying Data

Tabularis supports both row-level and cell-level copy from the data grid. The two modes don't fight each other: clicking a row checkbox clears the cell focus, clicking a cell clears the row selection. So Ctrl/Cmd + C with an active cell focus copies the cell, and Ctrl/Cmd + C with selected rows copies the rows.

Cell-level selection

Click any cell to give it a focused outline; the row checkbox stays untouched. Press Ctrl/Cmd + C to copy just that cell value to the clipboard, formatted using the same null/length/type rules used for row copy. The cell context menu also exposes a Copy cell action.

Row-level selection and copy formats

Select one or more rows by clicking the row header checkbox (or shift-click / ctrl-click for ranges and multi-select), then use Ctrl/Cmd + C to copy. The default format is CSV; you can change it in Settings → General → Default Copy Format to one of:

The setting maps to the copyFormat key in config.json (see Configuration).

Exporting Results

Any query result — whether from a table browse or an SQL editor query — can be exported.

Export to CSV

Click the Export button in the toolbar and choose CSV. Tabularis streams the full result set (not just the current page) to a file. A progress indicator tracks the export; you can cancel it at any time.

Export to JSON

Choose JSON from the export menu. The full result set is written as a JSON array of objects, with column names as keys. Same streaming and cancellation support as CSV.

Exports are always performed on the complete result set — all rows that match the current filter, not just the visible page.

JSON & Long Text Cells

json / jsonb columns and long text columns (TEXT, LONGTEXT, VARCHAR(MAX) and any string value longer than 80 characters or containing a newline) get a richer in-grid editor than the default single-line input.

Chevron expand

A chevron icon appears next to the cell value. Click it to open an inline editor pane below the row:

• For JSON / JSONB cells: Monaco runs in JSON mode with syntax highlighting and bracket matching.
• For long text cells: Monaco runs in plaintext mode.

The expansion editor supports a Diff toggle (off by default) that compares the original cell value against the current pending edit. A second Side-by-side toggle flips the diff from unified to a two-pane view. Both toggles are persisted only within the open expansion — closing it discards the toggle state.

Standalone viewer window (JSON / JSONB only)

JSON cells additionally show a braces icon. Clicking it opens the cell in a standalone Tauri window dedicated to the value, with the same JSON editor and Diff / Side-by-side toggles plus a Save button. Multiple cells can have their viewers open at the same time — each window keeps its own session and remembers its bounds. Saving flows back to the grid as a pending change; close the window without saving to discard the edit.

Double-clicking a JSON cell opens the viewer directly in edit mode (skipping the chevron).

There is no separate viewer window for plain text cells — text values aren't compared across windows as often as JSON, and the inline chevron is the entry point that mattered.

"Detect JSON in text columns" (per-connection)

Some applications store JSON inside plain TEXT columns. To route those values through the JSON cell renderer, open the connection edit modal and enable Detect JSON in text columns. The flag is per-connection — toggle it on for your audit-log database and off for the one where TEXT means "free-form prose".

The same toggle also enables native array detection for text[] / int[] (PostgreSQL) and Firestore arrays.

Round-trip through pending changes

Edits made in the inline expansion editor or the viewer window are queued as pending row changes rather than committed immediately. You can review the unified diff, decide you don't like it, close the editor, and hit Submit on the row when you do. PostgreSQL binds json / jsonb values natively (no string round-trip), so structured objects and arrays go through as typed parameters.

The same diff toggles are available in the row-editor sidebar for long fields, and that pane is drag-resizable so a long markdown article can occupy the height it deserves.

BLOB / Binary Columns

Large binary columns (BLOB, bytea, etc.) are truncated in the grid to avoid loading multi-megabyte values into memory. The maximum bytes loaded per cell is controlled by maxBlobSize in config.json (default: 1 MB). Values exceeding this limit are shown as a truncated hex preview with the full size in bytes.

Foreign Key Navigation

When the active result is a table with foreign keys, FK cells get a click-to-navigate affordance:

• Hover an FK cell → a small ↗ icon appears on the right of the cell. Clicking it opens (or reuses) a tab against the referenced table with WHERE "ref_col" = value pre-applied and runs the query.
• Right-click an FK cell → the context menu's first entry is Open referenced row in <table>.

The icon and menu entry only appear when the cell value is non-null, the row is not a pending insertion, and the row is not pending deletion. Identifier quoting follows the driver (backticks for MySQL/MariaDB, double-quotes elsewhere); numeric, bigint, boolean, and string values are formatted with the same rules used by the SQL INSERT copy format.

If the referenced table is already open as a tab, that tab is reused — the WHERE filter is overwritten and the query re-runs.

V1 limitations: only single-column foreign keys are surfaced; composite constraints and cross-schema navigation are not yet supported.

Related Records Panel

When you want to check what a foreign key points at without losing the row you're already on, click the FK value (or pick Show related record from the cell context menu) and a Related Records Panel slides up from the bottom of the data grid. The parent table stays visible and interactive above it.

• The panel renders a mini result grid of SELECT * FROM <ref_table> WHERE <ref_col> = <value> LIMIT 100, using the same identifier-quoting rules as FK navigation.
• Clicking a different FK in the parent grid swaps the panel content in place — no close-then-reopen.
• The panel is drag-resizable from the grip in its header, so a wide referenced row can claim the height it needs.
• An Open in tab button hands off to the navigation path above when you decide you do want to leave for the referenced table after all.

Column Header Context Menu

Right-click any column header to open the header context menu. Available actions:

More actions may appear depending on context (e.g., sort direction, column visibility toggles).

Null vs. Empty String

The grid displays NULL values with a distinct grey NULL badge to differentiate them from empty strings. When editing, leave a cell blank to write an empty string; use the dedicated Set NULL option in the cell context menu to write a true NULL.

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