Calculate the distance between addresses

Sometimes you need to know the distance between two adresses in a Uniface application. Here is a sample for a low budget solution that uses the Google Maps API.

How to export UAR definitions

For a project I needed a way to export the definition of a Uniface deployment archive.
I made a small utility and I thought I might just as well share it.
You simply select an archive definition and press the button.
The file that is created can be imported in a different Uniface enivronment using the normal import functions.

Experiment with Tab widget

Older Uniface applications tend to look a bit boring. Not a huge problem if you use your Uniface application for internal purposes. You business application does not need to look like a video game. But when you have a Uniface application that you want to sell, it has to look nice too.

In the first picture you see a screen as it would look by default:

One of the guys of the Uniface Lab came up with the idea to imitate a Tab widget using a Map widget. It looks much better:

But that only works because in this sample each tab has the same layout. So I tried it using the normal Tab widget, so you can have tabs that are different from each other, but overlaying the Tabs with a Map widget. It comes close, you only see a few line that ideally should not be there:

It is not a ideal solution to program, but if you are at a point where the looks of the application are more important than code maintenance this can be a solution.

PS: Besides the Tabs you can also see that a good use of colors and fonts already makes a big difference.

LinkedIN and Uniface 9.5 JavaScript API

Last week all Compuware Uniface staff received training on the new Uniface 9.5 JavaScript API.
With this new feature you can reduce traffic between the browser and the server considerably. This has been achieved by adding the option to write triggers and operations that are suitable for execution on the browser in JavaScript. I off course immediately had to try if this would also give us more options to integrate with other websites, and here is the first result. With this little sample you can sign in with LinkedIN and retrieve some information from your profile.

If you do not participate in the Uniface 9.5 Beta program, you can still download the sample and have a look at the documentation.

Dutch Uniface User Conference was a success

On May 26th we had a meeting of the Duth Uniface User Group, Face 2 Face, on location at our customer Holland Casino in Breda.
Go to http://www.uniface.nl/f2f_v2011.htm for all presentations, photo's etc.
Topics were:
- GUI manipulation
- Easy deployment
- Document digitization
- LDAP driver
- Xtenso, Hospital systems in Uniface
- IT strategy and Uniface at Holland Casino
- Uniface 9.5 JavaScript API
- Keynote: IT Innovation

Me at work:

Employee of the year

I thought I was just doing my job, but at the Kickoff of the new fiscal year I received the Uniface Employee of The Year award.

Uniface Facebook integration

Integration with social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc is hot. And Uniface is incorrectly perceived as old fashioned. This sample will show that is not difficult at all to integrate Social Media in your Uniface application. And to make it more interesting it shows you how to do that from your classic Uniface
desktop application.

Should we integrate these two very different worlds?
Like all other projects this should only depend on the specific business case and nothing else. Maybe your sales manager comes up with the idea that when a user adds a new product to your inventory, that should be automatically communicated to your customers over Twitter and on your Facebook page. If that gives a good expected return on investment it would be foolish not to build that functionality.

Can we integrate these two very different world?
Yes we can, as this sample will show. It will show you how to implement two important parts, the authentication mechanism and the Facebook API, from a Uniface Windows application.

Authentication
Facebook uses the OAuth 2.0 protocol. That is nice because it is also used by other websites, so we can reuse it. To implement the Facebook authentication in a Windows application you need an embedded browser. In Uniface we can create an embedded browser by using an OCX container with the Microsoft Webbrowser control. We make it navigate to a web page from Facebook. When the user is not logged in to Facebook, first a log in screen is shown, otherwise he/she immediately will be asked to give the application permission to access some of his/her data on Facebook. When the user gives permission the application receives a special key that we need to send with each API call.

Facebook API
The Graph API is the one that we can easily call from Uniface. This API can be implemented in HTTP requests using the Uniface UHTTP component. In this sample we keep it simple, just a simple Uniface Form where you can type a message that will be posted on your Facebook wall.