Databases

Joinery can create and rename databases on a server that supports it. Both go through the same small dialog, and both surface the exact statement the server ran.

Creating one

Where
A server’s right-click menu ▸ New Database…
The sidebar’s database picker ▸ New Database…
The menu bar ▸ Database ▸ New Database…
⌘K ▸ New database

The menu bar and palette entries carry no server, so they resolve the most recent connection. The sidebar’s entry names the server you clicked.

The dialog is New database: one Name field, and — on SQL Server only — a Recovery model picker:

• Simple — no log backups, the default
• Full — point-in-time recovery
• Bulk-logged

The picker is not rendered at all on PostgreSQL and MySQL, because a recovery model is a SQL Server concept and the field would change nothing on the other two.

Renaming one

A database’s right-click menu ▸ Rename…. The dialog shows the current name as context, pre-fills the field with it, and refuses it as an answer — That is already its name.

Its description states the side effect up front: open connections to that database are closed so the server will allow the rename.

A rename does not throw your work away. Every tab bound to the old name follows it to the new one, rather than being closed or left pointing at a name the server no longer knows — the SQL in a query tab did not change just because the database was renamed.

The name rule

Names must be letters, numbers and underscores, starting with a letter or an underscore, at most 128 characters.

That is stricter than any of the three engines. It is a portability rule, not a safety one: every dialect quotes the identifier before it goes to the server, so an odd name would be harmless — but an unquoted identifier is folded to lower case by PostgreSQL and left alone by SQL Server, and a name containing a dot, a dash or a space forces every future reference to be quoted, including the ones someone types by hand later.

The dialog tells you which rule you broke rather than greying the button in silence:

Situation	What it says
Empty	Give the database a name.
Over 128 characters	Names are at most 128 characters.
Illegal characters	Use letters, numbers and underscores only, starting with a letter or an underscore.
The name it already has	That is already its name.
A name already on the server	This server already has a database called …

The collision check is case-insensitive, because SQL Server and MySQL treat database names that way by default — and it is checked against the names Joinery has loaded for that server, so you are told before the round trip rather than after it.

An untouched empty field is not scolded; the reason appears once you have typed something or pressed the button.

When the server refuses

The server’s own message is shown in a band above the buttons, and the field’s reason clears as soon as you edit the name. A failure with no message at all reads The server refused the change and gave no reason, and the underlying cause is written to the output panel rather than dropped.

What happens after it works

A success does four things, and it does them before the dialog closes so the sidebar behind it is already right:

1. announces itself, and writes the statement the main process ran into the output panel — a CREATE DATABASE is not the one write in this app whose SQL you cannot read;
2. drops the main process’s cached metadata for that connection, then re-reads the database list and the server’s node from the server itself;
3. drops any cached ERD of that name — in both directions on a rename, because the old name’s diagram describes a database that has gone and the new name’s may be a previous tenant of it;
4. on a rename, re-points every tab bound to the old name.

Note — that fan-out is driven by this window acting. A CREATE DATABASE you type into a query tab is an ordinary thing to do and produces no signal at all, so the picker and the tree will not notice it until something else refreshes them. Use the explorer’s Refresh after DDL you ran yourself.

Where it is not offered

On a server that does not support database management, New Database… and Rename… are greyed out in the explorer’s menus, and the palette and menu-bar entries refuse with … does not support creating or renaming databases.

Rename… is also greyed out on a system database, whatever the engine says.

Deleting one

Note — Joinery has no delete-database surface, and no menu item for one. A Delete… row used to sit under Rename… in the database’s right-click menu; it dispatched a command nothing listens for, so it never dropped anything and never asked for confirmation — in a released build it did nothing at all, silently. It was removed rather than left there to mislead. Until the surface ships, drop a database with a DROP DATABASE statement in a query tab.

Where this page's facts come from

Claim	Source
The server menu’s “New Database…”, capability-gated	packages/renderer/src/shell/sidebar/node-menu.tsx:184-191
The database picker’s “New Database…”, capability-gated	packages/renderer/src/shell/sidebar/database-picker.tsx:86-94
The menu bar’s Database ▸ New Database…	packages/main/src/menu.ts:292-298
The palette entry “New database”	packages/renderer/src/commands/catalogue.ts:481-488
Targetless entries resolve the most recent connection; the sidebar names its server	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-dialogs.tsx:100-111
The dialog’s title, description and single Name field	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/create-database-dialog.tsx:47-55, database-name-dialog.tsx:136-155
The three recovery models and their labels, with Simple as the default	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/create-database-dialog.tsx:18-25
The picker is not rendered off SQL Server, and why	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/create-database-dialog.tsx:1-10, 56-74, database-dialogs.tsx:74-98
The database menu’s “Rename…”, capability- and system-gated	packages/renderer/src/shell/sidebar/node-menu.tsx:224-230, 271-281
The rename dialog shows and pre-fills the current name and refuses it	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/rename-database-dialog.tsx:31-45, database-name.ts:64-66
Its description states that open connections are closed	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/rename-database-dialog.tsx:35, database-dialogs.tsx:143
Tabs on the old name follow the rename	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-invalidation.ts:82-119
The name rule, its 128-character cap, and that it is portability not safety	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name.ts:1-33
The five refusal sentences, verbatim	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name.ts:46-74
The collision check is case-insensitive, against the loaded list	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name.ts:39-45, 76-79, database-dialogs.tsx:62-72
An untouched empty field is not scolded	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name-dialog.tsx:80-86
The server’s message lands in the answer band; editing clears it	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name-dialog.tsx:148-152, 160, database-operations.ts:39-46
A rejection with no message, and that the cause is logged	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-name-dialog.tsx:105-111, database-operations.ts:48-54
Success announces itself and writes the statement to the output panel	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-dialogs.tsx:179-194
Main’s caches are dropped first, then the list and the server node re-read	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-invalidation.ts:121-152
The ERD cache is dropped, in both directions on a rename	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-invalidation.ts:61-110
The invalidation is awaited before the dialog closes	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-dialogs.tsx:130-137
DDL run in a query tab produces no signal	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-invalidation.ts:31-46
The palette/menu refusal on an engine without database management	packages/renderer/src/features/databases/database-dialogs.tsx:92-96
Rename is greyed out on a system database	packages/renderer/src/shell/sidebar/node-menu.tsx:228-230
There is no Delete… item, and nothing subscribes to delete-database	packages/renderer/src/shell/sidebar/node-menu.tsx:271-273, packages/renderer/src/commands/registry.ts:483-488