I don't like the way many options in a hover menu have to scroll when you approach the end of the screen. Maybe it's the mainframe background in me coming out, but I like fixed menus.
When starting from scratch with a relatively empty database, or on adding a new config file, this is exactly what happens. Any configuration XML files that have a matching database table (based on the name) AND have no records in that table will generate the new (or same) database structure. When data already exists, however, an ALTER statement would need to be employed. For example, if element "mystring" should become "myinteger", the existing data will almost certainly be truncated or corrupted. While MySQL will throw an error if it cannot convert something, there are some situations where data will be lost. Better to run it manually and see what happens. It might only be one record to amend to fix the error. If you are talking directly to the database, you are probably more likely to have utilised some form of change control in any event, and can undo that catastrophic error you are about to make...
The whole point of pabulumba is that you design your own interface, even though there is a default one included. I don't want my lack of graphical ability or lack of colour coordination to put someone off using the tool. If users would like to send me their XSL files or screenshots of forms they have developed, I would be pleased to display them, or even offer them as alternatives to the default.
This is so tempting to insert, but (apart from the database argument coming up) my rationale for not having one is that this is exactly the sort of thing the XSL is for. The argument for a text containing element is that using XSL means you need a whole new XSL just for a heading or a comment on a specific form... The argument against that is because you would then require a database field to store the text - and where would that go? On every record? I think not. XSL it is.
Some suggestions:
Good question. I am still finding error messages (such as validation output) which are exclusively in English. However, the main source of text on the screen is the XSL configuration files, which are open and available for anyone to edit or translate. A good start would be changing the text found in "config/pabulumba.xsl".