Today we’re proud to show you the newest update to the WebFaction control panel. We’ve upgraded the way you create and manage MySQL and PostgreSQL databases and users, as a part of our ongoing effort to make the control panel easier to use. We’ve made this two-minute video to show off how the new interface works:
The new databases interface is more flexible when it comes to creating databases and determining who can access them. In the past, database names were required to begin with your username and an underscore. The new databases interface throws that requirement out the window. Starting today, you can name your databases as you please. Perhaps more importantly, now you can grant a single user access to multiple databases, and more than one user may be granted access to any one database.
In addition to the video, we’ve updated our documentation to reflect the latest changes to the control panel. Let us know what you think in the comments and if you run into any problems, join us in the Q&A Community.
This is very awesome! Great new feature. Is it possible to control the permissions such that one user has full read/write and the second only has read access?
Permissions are currently all or nothing. If you need more control one option is to run your own database instance (see http://blog.webfaction.com/2012/10/introducing-private-mysql-instances/ )
As someone with a 13 character username, I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Now I can give databases more than 2 character names!
Yeah members of the “long username club” used to complain a lot about that
My self included! So glad to see this change come about!
What happened to PHPMyAdmin or am I missing it?
PHPMyAdmin hasn’t changed. If you’re having trouble accessing it open a ticket and we’ll be happy to assist you.
As silly as it is, having my username as the prefix to my databases was one of the reasons I jumped ship. I’ve since come to my senses about 4 years ago and rejoined the Webfaction fold, so this is still a welcome change! Amazing.
I just close my account last week after moving all my stuffs to a new vps. One of the reasons is the database naming. It’s good that now I could consider webfaction again as one of alternative hosting solution in the future.
I noticed this change while messing around in the control panel. Definitely a good improvement
I love WebFaction and have been a happy customer since 2007 (?) or 2008 and have in fact signed multiple people up, so I hope the following criticism is taken as constructive.
I think the interface for my.webfaction.com is out-of-date and hard to use.
* It can’t be used on a phone, even when pinching an zooming. It appears there are some absolute, relative and min-width elements that overlap each other, making the control panel useless on devices that have less than 800px. If adaptive/responsive elements existed so that content could fit the screen, it would be a different story.
* Using those small ‘+’ and ‘-’ FamFamFam icons is hard to use and understand. Sometimes, and I have good eyes, I don’t even see the icons. They an represent read, add, edit, delete but they offer no description and aren’t necessarily in context of the situation. For example, there is no phpMyAdmin button from the databases section in the control panel.
* From a UX point of view, you need to let the content breathe. Everything is squished together and only readable on a large display with a mouse. If there was more space between elements and maybe some icons to help relate to where you were in the admin section, the panel may be easier to use.
A lot of what I bring up is UX issues, and really only too level, but it seems to be this panel was created and designed by some brilliant programmers, but it’s about time a UX expert gets hired to do a design overhaul.
Otherwise, keep up the great work!
+1, a major UI redesign would be useful.