pgAdmin may be deployed as a desktop application by configuring the application to run in desktop mode and then utilising the desktop runtime to host and display the program on a supported Windows, Mac OS X or Linux installation.

Note: Pre-compiled and configured installation packages are available for a number of platforms. These packages should be used by end-users whereever possible - the following information is useful for the maintainers of those packages and users interested in understanding how pgAdmin works.

Configuration

In order to configure pgAdmin to run in desktop mode, it is first necessary to configure the Python code to run in single-user mode, and then to configure the runtime to find and execute the code.

Note that there are multiple configuration files that are read at startup by pgAdmin. These are as follows:

  • config.py : This is the main configuration file, and should not be modified. It can be used as a reference for configuration settings, that may be overridden in one of the following files.
  • config_distro.py : This file is read after config.py and is intended for packagers to change any settings that are required for their pgAdmin distribution. This may typically include certain paths and file locations.
  • config_local.py : This file is read after config_distro.py and is intended for end users to change any default or packaging specific settings that they may wish to adjust to meet local preferences or standards.

Python

In order to configure the Python code, follow these steps:

  1. Ensure that any existing configuration database ( pgadmin4.db ) is moved out of the way in the web/ directory containing the pgAdmin Python code.

  2. Create a config_local.py file alongside the existing config.py file.

  3. Edit config_local.py and add the following setting: 

    SERVER_MODE = False

  4. Run the following command to create the configuration database: 

    $ python setup.py

Alternatively, you can simply run pgAdmin4.py at this point or aat a later time, and pgadmin4.db will be created automatically at first run.

Runtime

When executed, the runtime will automatically try to execute the pgAdmin Python application. If execution fails, it will prompt you to adjust the Python Path to include the directories containing the pgAdmin code as well as any additional Python dependencies. You can enter a list of paths by separating them with a semi-colon character, for example: 

/Users/dpage/.virtualenvs/pgadmin4/lib/python2.7/site-packages/;/Users/dpage/python-libs/

The configuration settings are stored using the QSettings class in Qt, which will use an INI file on Unix systems, a plist file on Mac OS X, and the registry on Windows. The Python Path setting is stored in the PythonPath key.