What i'm looking for is a way to auto-generate a simple web-base CMS for a simple pre-existing SQL database. To be used by 'app administrators', not the general public.

Something that:

• allows basic create/update/delete operation on the DB tables
• understand simple table relationships and hides db keys to the CMS user
• can have generic or custom validation

For example, let's say i have 2 SQL tables.

product category 
-----------------
id - int (PK)
name - string 

product
--------
id - int (PK)
category_id - int  (Fk)
name - string
default - bool

typical instances could be

• category row: 1,meat
• category row: 2,fruit

.

• product row: 1,1,bacon,true
• product row: 2,1,chicken,true
• product row: 3,2,banana,true
• product row: 4,2,orange,false

the auto-generated web-based CMS would have the following pages:

1. index page
2. list existing category page (with add, edit, delete buttons on each row)
3. category form page (used when inserting, editing)
4. list existing product page (with add, edit, delete buttons on each row)
5. product form page (used when inserting, editing)

In the product form page, there would be one form field per db field, but, and this is fundamental, the 'category' field would be a dropdown showing existing categories by name rather than by id.

Some images to explain what i'm talking about.

At the moment, we have a small custom internally-developped framework to do this kind of things but i'm sure there are better offers on the market, just can't seem to find them.

I'm open to technologies, it could be a php thing with a config file, it could be something that auto generate the CMS from some java JPA entities with annotation like @OneToMany and the like. Anything that is setup in an instant, doesn't modify the db structure, can be extended and can be used by someone who doesn't know db foreign keys and the like.