Datasette Desktop is a new macOS desktop application version of Datasette, which supports opening SQLite files on your computer, importing CSV files and installing plugins. I wrote more about how it works in Datasette Desktop—a macOS desktop application for Datasette.

The Baked Data architectural pattern describes a pattern commonly used with Datasette where the content for a site is bundled inside a SQLite database file and included alongside templates and application code in a deployment to a serverless hosting provider.

Datasette 0.58 has new plugin hooks, a huge performance improvement for faceting, support for Unix domain sockets and several other improvements. Read the annotated release notes for extra background and context on the release.

Datasette 0.57 is out with an important security patch plus a number of new features and bug fixes. Datasette 0.56.1, also out today, provides the security patch for users who are not yet ready to upgrade to the latest version.

Django SQL Dashboard is a new tool that brings a useful authenticated subset of Datasette to Django projects that are built on top of PostgreSQL.

Datasette 0.56 has bug fixes and documentation improvements, plus some new documented internal APIs for plugin authors and SpatiaLite 5 bundled with the official Datasette Docker container.

Datasette 0.55 adds support for cross-database SQL queries. You can now run datasette --crossdb one.db two.db and then run queries that join data from tables in both of those database files - see cross-database queries in the documentation for more details.

sqlite-utils 3.6 adds similar features: a db.attach(alias, filepath) Python API method and --attach alias filepath.db command-line option, both for attaching additional databases in order to execute cross-database queries.

This new Video introduction to Datasette and sqlite-utils provides a full introduction to both Datasette and sqlite-utils in 17 minutes, including a live demo of creating a database from a CSV file and publishing it to Google Cloud Run.

Serving map tiles from SQLite with MBTiles and datasette-tiles. datasette-tiles is a new plugin that adds a tile server to Datasette, serving map tiles from databases that conform to the MBTiles specification. download-tiles is a tool for building these databases, and datasette-basemap is a plugin that bundles a 22MB SQLite database with OpenStreetMap tiles covering zoom levels 0-6 for the entire world.

Datasette 0.54 is out today. Highlights include the new _internal in-memory database exposing details of connected tables, plus support for JavaScript modules in plugins and add-on scripts. More commentary on this release is available in the annotated release notes.

Drawing shapes on a map to query a SpatiaLite database introduces the new datasette-leaflet-freedraw plugin, which adds support for drawing shapes on a map to specify a GeoJSON MultiPolygon that can be used to query SpatiaLite databases.

APIs from CSS without JavaScript: the datasette-css-properties plugin introduces datasette-css-properties, a highly experimental plugin that can output table rows and SQL query results as CSS stylesheets defining custom properties that can then be used to customize a static HTML page.

New on this site: a Datasette Tools directory and a search engine that covers documentation, tools, plugins, releases and more. The search engine uses Dogsheep Beta - I wrote about how that works in Building a search engine for datasette.io.

I wrote more about how this site works in Weeknotes: datasette.io, an official project website for Datasette.

Datasette 0.53 - datasette serve --create option, ?column__arraynotcontains= table filter, ?_header=off CSV option and updated links to reflect the new project website.

• Initial release.

• Markdown image tags of the form ![alt text](URL-to-image) are now supported by default. This change could break backwards-compatibility for some installations, hence the 2.0 version number. #10

• sqlite-utils memory now works if files passed to it share the same file name. (#325)
• sqlite-utils query now returns [] in JSON mode if no rows are returned. (#328)

• twitter-to-sqlite import now imports app.js to archive_app table.
• Small fixes for twitter-to-sqlite import reflecting changed filenames in the Twitter export.
• Fix for remaining since_id bug, thanks Ruben Vermeersch! #58

• Fixed bug where application would not start without a working internet connection. #115
• The "Debug -> Open Chromium DevTools" menu item no longer shows an error if no windows are focused. #113
• Fixed bug where the datasette-leaflet plugin could be uninstalled despite being automatically re-installed. #118
• Time limit for facet calculations increased from 1 second to 3 seconds. #114

The first major update to Datasette Desktop. New features include:

• A new plugin directory for installing new plugins and upgrading or uninstalling existing ones. Open it using the "Plugins -> Install and Manage Plugins..." menu item. #74
• Five plugins are now installed by default: datasette-vega, datasette-cluster-map, datasette-pretty-json, datasette-edit-schema and datasette-configure-fts. #81
• The application loading screen now shows a log of what is going on. #70
• The welcome screen now invites you to try out the application by opening interesting example CSV files, taking advantage of the new "File -> Open CSV from URL..." feature. #91
• .db and .csv files can now be opened in Datasette starting from the Finder using "Right Click -> Open With -> Datasette". #40
• Recently opened .db and .csv files can now be accessed from the new "File -> Open Recent" menu. Thanks, Kapilan M! #54
• A new Debug menu can be enabled using Datasette -> About Datasette -> Enable Debug Menu".

See Datasette Desktop 0.2.0: The annotated release notes for more background on the new features and how they work.

If you have already installed Datasette you should delete Datasette from your /Applications folder before installing this.

• Support for Datasette base_url setting, thanks @brandonrobertz. #4
• Menu links plus new /-/write?database=foo parameter. #5
• Menu links plus new /-/write?database=foo parameter. #5
• Tables and views are now shown on the /-/write page
• alter, create and drop queries now show a more meaningful completion message. #3

• Added an item to the global menu for the root user. #1
• Don't include _internal. #2
• Now offers HTML at /-/schema-versions and JSON at /-/schema-versions.json. #3

• Now includes menu navigation for using the plugin, in both the application menu and the database actions menu. #6
• The _internal database is no longer offered as an import target. #7

Initial release. This should be considered beta software - it may well contain bugs, and I would love to hear about any that you come across.

• Install this macOS package to get a Datasette application which you can launch from an icon
• Includes full copy of Python which stays separate from any other Python versions you may have installed
• Installs the latest Datasette release the first time it runs
• The application can open existing SQLite database files or read CSV files into an in-memory database
• It can also create a new, empty SQLite database file and create tables in that database by importing CSV data
• By default the server only accepts connections from your computer, but you can use "File -> Access Control -> Anyone on my networks" to make it visible to other computers on your network (or devices on your Tailscale network).
• Datasette plugins can be installed using the "Install Plugin" menu item

Please add feedback and suggestions to this discussion thread.