Support for JSON Data Type

The Problem

Mathesar currently only allows the user to use a small set of data types. We’d like to expand the data types we offer in our product to include better support for PostgreSQL JSON types.

Classification

• Difficulty: Medium
• Skills needed: Python, Django, JavaScript, frontend frameworks
• Length: Long (~350 hours)

Tasks

• Work with the Mathesar design team to figure out how end users can interact with the JSON data types in the UI, including:
• How data is displayed
• How data is entered
• What Mathesar Types to show
• What filtering options to support
• What grouping options to support
• What display options to support
• Implement support for all frontend features in the backend db module and REST API.
• Implement the frontend portion of these features as well.

Expected Outcome

By the end of this project, we expect that users will be able to seamlessly use JSON data types within the Mathesar backend, API, and UI.

Application Tips

• It’s helpful to start from the experience that you’d like the end-user to have and work backwards. Think through the use cases for each data type.
• For example, users to expand and minimize individual keys in the JSON object stored in the UI
• Frontend experience is critical for this project, so please emphasize your previous work there.

Resources

• Data Types in Mathesar:
• Data Types “Concepts” page
• Mathesar UI Data Types engineering page
• Existing Data Type components design spec, to see how current data types work.
• Filters in Mathesar:
• Filters “Concepts” page
• Filters engineering page
• PostgreSQL JSON types documentation

Mentors

• Primary Mentor: Brent Moran
• Backup Mentor: Mukesh Murali

See our Team Members page for Matrix and GitHub handles of mentors.