View from the Edge

Announcing AutoEdge|TheFactory, a new OpenEdge Sample Application

To coincide with the release of OpenEdge 10.2b04 and Savvion 7.6.1 we are pleased to announce a new sample application, AutoEdge|TheFactory which can be found on Progress Communities : http://communities.progress.com/pcom/community/psdn/openedge/architecture/autoedgethefactory

AutoEdge|TheFactory is an extension of the use cases illustrated by the original AutoEdge sample application.  Where AutoEdge is based upon the business functions of an automobile dealer, AutoEdge|TheFactory is based upon the business functions of an automobile manufacturer supplying vehicles to dealers.

The aim of AutoEdge|TheFactory is to introduce the concepts of an OpenEdge Reference Architecture based Business Process Application utilizing OpenEdge BPM.

Recorded guides

To see more about AutoEdge|TheFactory  there are a set of videos that guide you through the installation as well as the design and running of the  application:

• The installation guide is here ; it contains a walk-through of the installation process (approx. 15min)
• A recording describing the design process in SBM Studio is here (approx. 30min)
• A recording running through the process appears here (approx. 12min)

The Source Code

In order to run the complete sample application you will need both OpenEdge 10.2b04 and Savvion 7.6.1 installed.  AutoEdge|TheFactory is developed utilizing the Object Oriented extensions to the ABL in OpenEdge 10.2B so you can install without Savvion in order to get a closer look at the code.

Selected code highlights

• Inversion of Control Container: InjectABL
• Query manipulation and query row keys
• Data request and response
• Enumerations in OOABL
• Structured Error Handling
• Strongly-typed Events
• Object Serialization

 

There is also a wealth of documentation related to the project available that highlights & describes many of the coding techniques & decisions made on the project so far.

 

This is the first of a planned number of releases of AutoEdge|TheFactory over the coming months, you can expect to see more functionality and documentation being added as we work our way through the project.

 

Please feel free to give us feedback, good and bad through the discussion forums attached to the project.

 

Special thanks go to all those people who worked on the project, with particular mention to Peter Judge for his tireless efforts in making this a reality, along with support from a cast of many including Havard Danielsen, Sarah Marshall, Dr. Kamyar and Ken Wilner for his constant feedback, plus those who helped test in the final days before going public.

 

Many Thanks

Mike

My First OpenEdge GUI Application, And In The Cloud Too !

Last week I built my very first OpenEdge GUI Application. I even used OpenEdge Architect to do it (I normally use vi for programming). The whole development environment was running up in the cloud. I performed this remarkable feat at a workshop during the Netherlands PUG meeting near Utrecht.

The workshop was ably directed by Peter van Dam, from Futureproof Software. He made it really easy for about 60 beginners to learn how to build a simple but functional GUI application with a login screen, an updateable data grid, ribbons, etc with an Office-2007-like appearance.

Each workshop student was given a login for an AMI on Amazon EC2 where the OpenEdge development environment was installed and configured, along with a few image files for icons, and a database with customer records already in it.  This was accessed using Windows Remote Desktop. Nobody had to install anything on their own machine. Peter led everybody through the exercise in two 90 minute sessions with a half-hour break between them. Since he was speaking in Dutch, I had some trouble understanding him.

Nearly everybody finished their application. I had some cosmetic bugs I didn't bother to fix (labels in the wrong place and stuff like that) so mine was not 100% complete.

A few observations:

0) Amazon EC2 works really well for this sort of thing. Dev tools, code, database, everything was somewhere in the cloud. You could start as many machines as needed and run them as long as needed.

1) I was pleasantly surprised at how responsive the GUI was, running Remote Desktop over a hotel Internet connection to Amazon's data center.

2) Developing with the Eclipse-based OpenEdge Architect tool in the cloud is a lot nicer than using some crappy development tool running in a web browser.

3) The Infragistics UI controls have a lot of functionality and are very complicated.  Without a cookbook, I could never have figured out what to do and which properties did what.

4) Programming by clicking, clicking, and more clicking with the mouse is really boring.

5) Boring or not, it's powerful.  You can get a lot done quickly.

One more thing: at the very beginning of the workshop, the hotel's router had a meltdown. It took about 90 minutes or so to get a replacement. Being clever folks, the Dutch PUG meeting organizers had scheduled two talks for after the workshop. So we did these first, while the router was being dealt with.

All in all, an excellent outcome. If I can do this, you can too.

How You Might Get Started With Cloud Computing

In making the trans-Atlantic crossing from Europe to North America recently, I was reminded of “the cloud” in a somewhat different way. All flights from northern Europe were being diverted to the “northern route” due to volcanic activity in Iceland. How amazing and unexpected to be flying over Iceland (and Greenland) during the trip. As luck would have it, I was sitting on the left side of the airplane, so had a clear view of the cloud of ash being hurled into the air and sent eastward towards Europe as we flew north of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull (EY-ya-fyat-lah-YO-kut for those that want to impress their friends).

The cloud of ash got me to thinking about the recent Face2Face Progress Forums that I participated in during my visit to Europe, and the conversations we had around cloud computing. I think that it’s safe to say that people are just at the beginning stages of learning about what this new capability is, and perhaps are some time away from embracing how cloud computing can be applied to their own business situation. At the same time, there are pundits who believe that cloud computing is as significant of a technology trend as the move to client-server computing in the 1990’s- a disruptive technology change similar in some ways to the travel disruptions caused by volcanic ash clouds.

So what should OpenEdge users make of cloud computing at the moment? First, it’s probably not a passing fad but something that will become pervasive in the computing industry over time. Second, while it may not be obvious today exactly what the impact of cloud computing will be to your organization, the more you can learn now the better positioned you will be when it does become more obvious.

So practically speaking, what can you do to learn more about cloud computing? There is of course a wealth of information readily available over the internet, including papers available from Progress located on PSDN in Progress Communities (communities.progress.com). In addition, 2 low-risk events are becoming popular: holding training that involves hands-on lab exercises using cloud resources, and using the cloud to support the product demonstration phase of the sales cycle.

For training, rather than pre-configure a set of hardware resources that you own or rent, you can configure an image in the cloud and then on the day of the training you simply start up “n” machines in the cloud that use that image, something that takes just a few minutes. Each student has access to their own personal machine, and the cost to set up and run these resources is surprisingly low. If you are interested in seeing how this works, consider joining the Netherlands PUG (Progress User Group) workshop on GUI for .NET scheduled for June 3- it is free to attend and the labs will all be run out of the cloud.

For product demonstration, your sales team no longer has to maintain demo software on their personal laptops, but instead simply connect to the cloud from the customer location and access the pre-configured image that contains the demo software and related environment. The benefits are many, including improved agility in enhancing your demo and making that quickly available to the entire team. 

The next time you ponder the volcanic ash cloud that continues to be in the headlines, or simply the clouds drifting overhead, give some thought as to how you can get started with cloud computing.

Our New Year’s Gift to You…

Now that the holiday rush is over (phew!), we wanted to remind you that the latest version of OpenEdge is now available!   This release, version 10.2B, builds on previous OpenEdge 10 releases to further increase developer productivity, while still reducing the total cost of ownership of the business application.  We’ve added capabilities to fortify application security and compliance – a must have for SaaS. Other new features and enhancements will enable you to: 

·     Deliver applications that comply with the latest data privacy regulations

·     Simplify the deployment of applications via the Web

·     Increase visibility into operations

·     Accelerate delivery of service-based applications  

Making the upgrade is a no brainer. As one customer, Carl Verbiest from CCE NV says “As always what I love most about a new version, is you just change the executable and you’re up and running with existing code in a new OpenEdge version. You can use the new 10.2B features where needed without the need to rewrite you existing application – the migration is quick and easy”. 

So check it out.   Contact your account rep for more information or visit Progress.com.

Australia The Tour, Part 3: Melbourne

So Melbourne was the 3rd and final stop for this years Australia Exchange.  It's certainly been a different experience from the usual 3 day get together, and from what I can tell it seems to have been a big hit with those who attended.  Many of whom were able to attend for the first time due to the show coming to them, as opposed to the other way round!

Once we'd recovered from the weather shock we had a little downtime before the show started on the Friday.  I must admit from a personal point of view, having the travel day in between each of the session days has been huge bonus, otherwise the schedule would have been a killer.  So it was good to hit the gym, and for those that know me and have just fallen off their chairs, yes I went to the gym and ran!! Not very quick, admittedly, but hey something's better than nothing, right?

Not wishing to sound like a broken record, but just like the other cities, Melbourne was a complete sell-out which was great to see.  There's nothing worse than presenting to yourself!!  Once again the main themes presented certainly seemed to hit the right notes, with Multi-Tenancy and RIA peaking the most interest.  I must admit I've been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the Multi-tenancy proposal, even by those who don't yet see SaaS as a big play for them today.

I was also reminded on this trip that I sometimes get so focused and involved into something that I often forget that not everyone is as obsessed as I am.  During this trip one of the topics that I mentioned time & time again during each day was Amazon EC2.  Currently living in the US I guess I take it for granted that in the IT world at least, people know that Amazon have a cloud strategy, even if they don't know the specific terms, so it was sobering to be asked at one of the after conference cocktail party's  if I was talking about the same Amazon that simply sold books!  It just shows it's good to get out of that ivory tower as much as possible!!!

The one common story from all the cities, and one that shows we still have a better job to do was around Progress Communities.  I was surprised how any people either hadn't really heard of it or didn't realize what it is.  Don't get me wrong there were many people who'd used it and got value from it, but it seemed there were more that hadn't.  That surprises me because if you're an OpenEdge user, Progress Communities is the key place for you to discover a huge amount of information relating to the product and best practices.  It's our main vehicle to deliver valuable content to you as users, and a mechanism by which you can post questions and comments around anything OpenEdge related.  In fact there are people within Progress, such as myself, who as part of their job are expected to participate in the activity that's going on, so if you do have a question or comment, the chances are the person who responds is more than likely the person responsible for that area of the product or maybe even implemented it!  I really do encourage you all to take a look, but don't just to look, participate.  

I'd like to take this opportunity to firstly thank all those who attended the sessions over the 3 days.  I realize it's not always easy to leave the office, especially in these current economic times, but without you the sessions would have been nothing.  I'd also like to thank the whole Progress Australia team for their hospitality during our visit.  There are too many names to call out individually but as always they made a long trip so much fun in addition to all the hard work.

Oh, and the highlight of the trip back, meeting will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas in the 'Chilli's To Go' at LAX.  Shelley even got his autograph.  See how we just mingle with the stars here at Progress!!!

'I've got a feeling' its time to go :)

Thanks for reading

Mike 

Australia The Tour, Part 2: Brisbane

Today we swapped sun soaked Brisbane for rain soaked Melbourne as we continue on our 3 city Australian Exchange tour.  Our final set of presentations are tomorrow (Friday) before we make the long journey back to Boston. OK, I know, you have no sympathy :)

But back to yesterday.  Brisbane was completely booked with once again 50+ people attending the day long event.  Brisbane certainly has it's own vibe, a little more relaxed than Sydney, but no less eager to participate.  During the tour I've been fortunate enough to share the OpenEdge roadmap detailing some of our thoughts and ideas for the next generation of OpenEdge.  Out of the potentially many new features, the one stand out proposal that generates the most questions & excitement is that of Multi-Tenancy.  Even for those not yet considering Software as a Service (SaaS), the thought of OpenEdge as a platform having built-in Multi-Tenancy capabilities right out of the box is a game changer.  Especially, if as hoped, it can be introduced in such a way that means little to no application changes for the thousands of OpenEdge applications out there today.  This feature alone would consolidate OpenEdge's leadership in the SaaS space offering end-users a huge library of Multi-Tenant applications almost over night.

As we've seen from other conferences, including the recent Exchange Online, the current hot feature in the product today is the OpenEdge GUI for .NET.  Shelley is constantly presenting to packed rooms, full of partners & direct customers eager to know how to make use of this great feature.  I had no personal involvement in the project that created it whatsoever, but each time I sit at the back of the room and listen to Shelley go through her pitch, my mind is always blown away by the engineering triumph that basically allows the running of a Visual Studio environment in OpenEdge Architect which is based upon Eclipse.  Not only that, but the fact that you can mix & match existing OpenEdge GUI with this next generation OpenEdge GUI for .NET is just a testament to the technical skills within Progress.  

As with Sydney, it was also good to see by show of hands how many people are currently using OpenEdge 10 and OpenEdge Architect.  I won't get on my soapbox again, but still it's good to see!

From a purely personal perspective, I'm also impressed by the number of people that have taken the OpenEdge Reference Architecture (OERA) to heart and are really embracing it's principles as they take their applications forwards.  One of the challenges we always face is knowing how well our best practices materials are being received, and used, so events like this give me the opportunity to talk to partners and gauge feedback.  So if you ever see me at any of our events feel free to grab me and give feedback.  I won't bite, promise!

We had a fantastic time in Brisbane and certainly from the feedback at the end of day Cocktail party, the attendees were going home happy after a full days content. Or maybe that was just the free booze talking!!

So tomorrow is our final day and if it's anything like the past few days it will be a blast.  We did by the way gain our hour back when we flew south from Brisbane to Melbourne, not that I still understand how it works.  I had some discussions at the cocktail party about this, but again all the reasons seemed to tie back to the cows!  Either that, or it's all about reducing the hours of sun light so as not to fade curtains!!

As always, thanks for reading

Mike

GUI presentation models - more than just look and feel

While working on a new ABL sample using OpenEdge GUI for .NET, I started thinking about the different presentation models that are available to an ABL programmer in 10.2A. While much of Microsoft geeks are focused on the cool new features of Vista, OpenEdge stays focused on real world business applications. Business applications need a productive, full-featured user interface whose purpose goes beyond catching the user’s attention. Since these applications must be functional above all else, the need for Vista’s multimedia effects (video, animation, graphics) might be nice but not critical. Business applications have a typical set of features that are often reused over and over again. These features include:

• Support Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD) capabilities – data entry and persistence
• Data managed in a grid or multiple entry fields

One of ABL’s core strengths has always been its ability to manage the backend data easily, with built-in and native data awareness and transactional support in the language. Now with OpenEdge GUI for .NET, you have even more choices available to select the right presentation model for your applications. In general business applications have many different screens to show to their users and often there is need to show more than one simultaneously. There usually is a central way of managing the various screens (a window manager), as well as some means of transitioning between them. It is crucial that users can easily navigate the application, and can use it in a flexible way that fits with their needs.

The presentation models to consider are:

• Single Document Interface (SDI)
• Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
• Tabbed Document Interface (TDI)
• IDE Style Interface (IDE)

Single Document Interface

SDI organizes graphical user interface applications into individual windows that the operating system's window manager handles separately. Each window contains its own menu or toolbar – there is no concept of a “parent” window. Applications which allow the editing of more than one document at a time, e.g. word processors give the user the impression that more than one instance of an application is open instead of a single application with multiple documents. Each window displays as an individual entry in the operating system's task bar or manager – which might group windows of the same application.

          Microsoft Word and Excel are examples of an SDI application.

Multiple Document Interface

MDI organizes graphical user interface applications into many windows that reside under a single parent as opposed to all windows being separate from each other like SDI. A single menu bar and/or toolbaris shared between all child windows, reducing clutter and increasing available screen space. In MDI a single instance of the application is shared and the child windows all float within the parent (container) window.

The disadvantage of MDI is that it is easy to “lose” a child window when many windows are open simultaneously. In order to view the list of windows open in MDI applications the user typically has to go to the menu bar, moving their focus out of the child window area.

Tabbed Document Interface

This is a specialization of the MDI model. Like MDI, TDI organizes graphical user interface applications into many windows that reside under a single parent window. Unlike the floating child windows of MDI, in TDI each “window” is displayed in its own tab. This makes it much easier to find open windows than traditional MDI. TDI windows must always be maximized inside their parent window, and as a result only one tab can be viewed at a time.

The disadvantage of TDI is with only a single window available at a time, comparing information or copy-and-pasting between two windows is more difficult. Additionally although tabs make it easier to find open child windows, if there are a large number of windows opened simultaneously there are many tabs for the user to search before finding the one they are looking for.

Firefox is an example of a TDI application.

IDE Style Interface

IDE Style Interface is another specialization of the MDI model. Like MDI, IDE organizes graphical user interface applications into many windows that reside under a single parent window. An IDE-style interface is a superset of the MDI model with features available to support the child windows that are not normally available in traditional MDI applications. These child-window features include:

• TDI model for child window
• Ability to view child windows simultaneously using splitter
• Separate window management for child windows - normally tree-based
• Additional, independent panels to support application – these often use a tabbed interface

Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and Eclipse are examples of IDE applications.

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook, and its very popular user interface metaphor, is not true to any of these models. It is closest to an IDE application without tabs for the child windows. Or you could consider it an MDI application with child-window features.

When you plan to redesign your appIication's user interface, consider which of there models works best for your application and users. This is not a one size fits all solution but one that is customizable for your needs. With the new GUI for .NET you get access to Microsoft .NET Windows Forms, an extremely full-featured user interface solution. In Microsoft’s own words “With Windows Forms, you can create powerful Windows-based applications. You can harness the power of Windows Forms to display data, handle user input, and deploy your applications easily and with enhanced security.”