(The road to) Uniface 9.6 Samples

Long introduction
My involvement with Uniface started when I worked at KLM Engineering and Maintenance and we decided to move away from the Wang VS platform and the BASIC programming language and we were looking for the best 4GL and the best RDBMS. After a Proof of Concept with multiple 4GL's and RDBMS'ses we chose Uniface and Oracle. And I did not have have RSI anymore from banging out hundreds of lines of code every day.

After eight years of KLM I decided that I wanted to see more companies and meet more people. So I joined Ordina which at that time had a very active unit that provided Uniface services. I worked for a lot of companies and did everything you can do in a Uniface related projects. From programming to designing to testing to project management. After another eight years there was a big recession in the IT world and along with many other colleagues I got fired.

Since there was not a single job available in IT, and I could not sit at home all the time, I worked as a workshop receptionist for a car dealer for a while.

Luckily every recession has an end and I got a new job at Compuware. In the Services department I started to work for Uniface customers again. It was great visiting so many customers in so many countries. But I saw that many customers were not using Uniface to the full extent, so I started putting up little samples on this blog.

After a couple of years it was time to look at Uniface from yet another angle. Two months ago I transferred to the Uniface Lab.

And that brings us to the Uniface 9.6 Samples:
The first thing I was asked to do in the Lab was to make official samples for the new GUI features of Uniface 9.6. That is why it has been a bit quiet on this blog. It was a very nice challenge, because in this role I was one of the very first people that could actually build something with Uniface 9.6. And since 9.6 was not completely finished when I started I also found some bugs so at least there are a few less for you to run into :-)

You can see the results on www.uniface.info/samples.

More samples will become available there soon. At first only the 9.6 GUI samples will be on the website and all other samples are still distributed with the Uniface product. But over time we want all samples to be on the website so it is easier for you to get them and easier for us to make new (versions) of samples.

I hope you like them. Please feel free to contact me if you see room for improvement, or would like to see a sample for a specific topic. If it is something small I can still post it here, otherwise I can direct your request towards the decision makers.

Get your kicks with Uniface 9.6 !

Alternative Version Control Solution for Uniface

The Uniface ecosystem is supported by more companies than just Compuware.

There is an alternative solution for version management / source code management available from March Hare. Have a look at www.march-hare.com to see if this can be useful to you.

I just had a conversation with March Hare’s product manager Arthur Barrett. It was good to exchange our ideas on the future and to talk about old times too.

Date picker for Uniface 9.6

In Uniface 9.6 it will be really easy to implement a Date Picker widget.

A Date Picker is a date field with a little icon. When you press the icon a calendar appears. Uniface has this widget available for web development in Dynamic Server Pages. For Windows Forms there is no Date Picker widget. Uniface does however have a Calender widget. And Uniface 9.6 Popup Forms are introduced. Combine the two and you have the full Date Picker functionality.

Uniface 9.6: billions of buttons

I really need to stop playing with the new Uniface buttons... In Uniface 9.6 you can create "billions" of buttons by specifying an icon that goes on top of the button and four images that represent the button in its four states. Also different text colors for the four states and gradient background color possible. PNG support makes using transparent images easier. No more need to paint both a label and a button if you want both text and icon on a button!

1. Classic Uniface button with gradient color.
2. Classic Uniface button with icon and internalized label.
3. Classic Uniface button with icon and text in field value.
4. Image button.
5. Image button with text.
6. Image button with icon.
7. Image button with icon. Text from internalized label.
8. Image button with both icon and text in field value.
9. Windows button.
10. Windows Header button.

Uniface 9.6 tab widget mania

I really need to stop playing with the new Tab widget...

Make a Tab look like a simple ribbon bar

Shiny buttons...

Just using colors

Different colors for different tabs

Accordion with images

Stack with gradient colors

First things first

From many years of experience in many different projects I am of the opinion that you have to have a stable foundation before you start building functionality.

At the start of your project you have to make a list of things that your application framework has to support. Some examples:

• CRUD functionality (Create, Read, Update, Delete)
• Menu and security features
• Use and storage of application configuration data
• Special user interface requirements 

Making this list prevents you from building a framework that is too heavy for your application.

When you have built your framework, build a small part of your application. This is to verify that your framework actually works.

After that you can build the rest of your application quickly and without worries. Integrating framework-like aspects into an existing application requires a lot of refactoring, which is much more expensive than getting the framework right first. And starting full scale application development when your framework is not finished yet requires temporary stubs that need to be replaced be the real thing later, again making it much more expensive than getting the framework right first.

This is not just my opinion, it is a simple extension of all the studies that say that fixing defects becomes more expensive when done in a later phase of the project. Some people think that “First things first” only fits a waterfall approach to software development, but I disagree. In, for example, a SCRUM project the “First things” can be assigned a high priority so they will be done in the first sprints.

And I know there are many differences between building a house and building software, but would you lay the carpet before installing the plumbing?

The new Millenium problem

SEPA and IBAN

As you may have noticed the introduction of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is an initiative to create a single set of standards for euro payments.

The BAN (Bank Account Number) as we are familiar with will, and must be, replaced/implemented by the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) before February 2014.

From February 2014 payments can only be done if you use the mandatory IBAN and the BIC (Bank Identification Codes).

The main schemes involved, for doing that, are the SCT (SEPA Credit Transfer) cross-border scheme, that allows you to transfer payments between any SEPA country, and the SDD (SEPA Direct Debit) scheme to collect payments form any SEPA country. Both will replace the existing domestic schemes. (for example CLIEOP3 ).

Result of SEPA and the IBAN is that the total number of characters exceeds that of the BAN, the format of the interface with your bank will change. So you will have to make changes in your IT environment to deal with it.

Already a bit nervous?

Let me summarize some points for you to get grip on the situation:

• Where is my BAN published (financial documents, bills, site, relations, business cards etc… )
• Make an inventory of your existing processes, IT and organization that are hit by the BAN.
• Setup of a project plan:

1. to get the new IBAN’s (employees, suppliers, customers etc)
2. to migrate your existing IT infrastructure. (schemes, BAN/IBAN, Replacement of existing domestic schemes, processes, validations etc… )
3. to republish your own IBAN.
4. to testing, testing, testing

• Make inquiries by your bank to avoid any misunderstanding.

February 2014 seems far away but don’t let it fool you because there are already companies, at the moment, migrating to the IBAN and it seems, as I heard, a lot of work to achieve that.

Bert Hogendoorn, Migration consultant at Compuware Uniface

Uniface Applications

Most Uniface applications have been around long enough to survive the Millenium problem and the introduction of the Euro. They will be able to handle the changes requires for SEPA and IBAN too.

Bank account numbers can be found in Uniface applications more easily than in other applications. For a start search the repository for the bank account numbers and create a cross reference to see in which programs they are used.

The new interface format for the bank is XML based, so importing the WSDL will give you a good start for rebuilding your interface software.

The changes in your Uniface application may not be the biggest challenge. Other aspects like obtaining all your customers and suppliers IBAN's or agreeing with your bank on the details of the interfacing could be even more difficult.
The hard and final deadline is February 2014, but the national implementation plans state that all software should be SEPA ready by October 2012.

Theo Neeskens, Solution architect at Compuware Uniface

Other Uniface blogs

Just found another Uniface blog. It is from Rik Lewis and so far it contains some nice coding examples: http://uniface.blogspot.co.uk/ Pat Walsh also has some Uniface stuff on his blog: http://www.patwalsh.co.uk/tag/uniface/ James Gallagher, Compuware Uniface sales for Asia Pacific also has a Uniface blog: http://unifacejames.blogspot.co.uk/

Build a RESTful webservice in 3 lines of code

After building both SOAP and RESTful webservices in Uniface my opinion is: use REST when you can, SOAP when you must. This article explains why: REST vs. SOAP – The Right WebService

Not many people know how easy it is to build RESTful webservices in Uniface. Because you do not need special statements or features there is no information on it in the documentation.

Here are the steps for building a (very) basic RESTful webservice:

1. Create a new DSP component RESTBLOG
2. Remove all code from all triggers (especially Set State)
3. Add a dummy entity
4. Enter this sample code into the Execute trigger:
   
public web
variables
   string vInput  ; Input parameter from URL
   string vOutput ; Output content to be returned
endvariables

   ; --- 1 --- get input parameter
   getitem/id vInput, $webinfo("INPUT"), "name"

   ; --- 2 --- create output based on input
   ; you can do anything here
   vOutput = "Hello %%vInput%%%, I am the output"

   ; --- 3 --- fill the output channel
   $webinfo("output") = vOutput

   ; And we are done !
   return(0)

end

5. Compile
6. Test using a URL like http://localhost:8086/uniface/wrd/RESTBLOG?name=Theo
7. Congratulations, you have just build your first Uniface RESTful web service!

NB: We did NOTHING in the Layout Editor!

Changing the Busy or Processing indicator

It seems that many Uniface customers that are developing web applications are not impressed by our carefully designed Busy and Processing indicators:





These indicators are the animated GIF’s busy.gif and processing.gif that can be found in your installation folder. In a typical installation this folder is D:\Program Files (x86)\Compuware\Uniface 9.5.01\uniface\webapps\uniface\common\images\ubusyindicator.

You can replace the standard gif’s with other ones. Just put them in the folder and give them the correct name.

Changing the location where the indicator appears is also possible. It is controlled by the css file D:\Program Files (x86)\Compuware\Uniface 9.5.01\uniface\webapps\uniface\common\css\ubusyindicator\ubusyindicator.css.

Be aware: when you install a new Uniface version or patch these files will get overwritten!
There is no guarantee that a next version of Uniface will use the same files in the same locations.

With a quick search on the web you can find alternatives that may be more to your liking. I quite like these: