Using MySQL (in fact MariaDB) as backend, I want to design a user-friendly front-end – ideally using an HTML server. Something very much resembling the MS Access forms and subforms of old. You can still use MS Access as a frontend for MySQL, but only in Windoze. The solution I need must be useable in Linux (also rules out something like Kexi).
More than just CRUD: It's got to be able to do things like forms and subforms as in MS Access, i.e. be "client-facing". Rules out phpMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench, sqlYog, etc.
I explored the LibreOffice Base idea... but this doesn't use an HTML server. I found that these forms didn't work very satisfactorily: buttons and textboxes lack the configurability of JQuery equivalents, for example.
Might Drupal be a possible answer? My impression is that this would mean much to learn before bearing any fruit.
nuBuilder, https://www.nubuilder.net/. This looked like the thing I was looking for... works with an Apache server, PHP, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL: cross-platform. And you can tweak the code. Possibility of subforms. Very configurable and customisable. But the people behind it are not very responsive, and the documentation so confusing that I couldn't get anywhere.
much later
In fact what I have done is to code my own thing which is adequate to my requirements, using JS, PHP, JQuery, etc. It implements forms and subforms very nicely and fast. I didn't develop it using TDD so it is inevitably rather fragile.
One day I plan to redevelop it using TDD applied to JS, PHP, something I know nothing about currently. I would then make it a public project. I'm baffled why somebody far more expert than me hasn't done this: it'd probably take them about a day.