Uniface 9.5 Launched

Uniface 9.5 is ready and we highlighted that with a RAD Race between the teams of the Uniface Lab. I made the exercises with input from Adrian Gosbell, our Uniface Product Manager. And did the judging with Aad van Schetsen, vice-president of Uniface. Everybody had a lot of fun doing this and we celebrated at the end of the day with some drinks etc. Pictures can be found on our Uniface page on Facebook. Next stops: Uniface 9.6 and Uniface 10.

Sample for iframe on DSP

If you want to show a non-Uniface web page in your new Uniface 9.5 DSP application, there is a simple solution.

In this sample I will show you how it can be done using an iframe. My example consists of a single DSP with a field where you can enter a URL and two buttons to demonstrate two possible techniques to show the page.

First we make an iframe in the HTML source in the layout editor:

Next we write a weboperation that takes an URL as parameter and puts it in the iframe:

The first button uses Uniface Proc code to call the weboperation with the value of the field. This causes a trip to the server, but you can use this code as sample to call the webopration from anywhere in Uniface:

The second button uses JavaScript code in a webtrigger to call the weboperation with the value of the field. Now everything is executed on the browser:

This is how your screen should look like when you have loaded Uniface.info:

NB: Unfortunately not every web page wants to be in an iframe, but this works for most.

Social Media koppelingen in Uniface Enterprise Systemen (Dutch)

In het Software Development Network magazine is een artikel te lezen wat ik geschreven heb over het koppelen van Uniface applicaties met Social Media. Met een uitgewerkt voorbeeld voor LinkedIn en de nieuwe Uniface 9.5 JavaScript API.

Klik op het logo op het artikel te lezen op de SDN website.

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.