Uniface Grid Widget - no major enhancements on the roadmap
Author: adrian.gosbell@synapse-i.jp (Adrian Gosbell)
There was an enhancement request placed on the wish application which I responded to. We have some grid enhancements being worked on at this time with a plan to deliver them at the end of the year, in the Uniface 9.6.07 release. These enhancements are in the area of performance tweaks, and some general loose ends such as making the behavior of controls more consistent. We will also implement testing tool hooks based on MSAA, which is more for our ongoing project to replace the old Compuware TestPartner and QA Tools with an alternative, but we are going to make the 'hooks' public so customers can use for their own regression. At this time we are not planning on implementing any significant enhancements to the Grid Widget for a variety of reasons, including:
- customers have moved their applications to the web.
- customers have come up with their own alternatives.
- The HTML control approach offers richer functionality (which is mentioned elsewhere on the site, plus there is a sample available).
- Any investment into the grid is probably going to be costly because it's complex and that effort could be spent elsewhere and benefit more customers.
I'm sure there will be comments, which are welcome, but at this time, this is our thinking.
14 Comments
Local Administrator
Please check out the sample for the Uniface Grid widget here on Uniface.info Making use of the Extended Triggers it does most of the things that are asked for. Swapping of fields unfortunately not possible. For that we would need to implement an additional layer in the Uniface code that maps fields in the Grid to fields in the Entity. http://www.uniface.info/samples/#sample3935 Hopes this helps a bit. Regards, Theo
Author: Theo Neeskens (tneeskens@itblockz.nl)
Local Administrator
Hi Theo You are right, one can implement a grid like thing with UnifAce/HTML5. But problem mention by Adrin still remain, or? Our could UnifAce/HTML5 handling all this things? Regrads, Ingo
Author: istiller (i2stiller@gmx.de)
Local Administrator
Hi Ingo, There are samples for two completely different approaches on Uniface.info. For our own Grid widget on the Windows GUI we have a Sample that shows you how you can implement many features, including things of which many people assume it can't be done. This sample can be found here: http://www.uniface.info/samples/#sample3935 For a Grid using the HTML widget on Windows we also have much information. Blog Part 1: http://unifaceinfo.com/embedding-web-grids/ Blog Part 2: http://unifaceinfo.com/embedding-web-grids-2-editing/ Regards, Theo
Author: Theo Neeskens (tneeskens@itblockz.nl)
Local Administrator
Hi Theo, I do not know if you understood me. We have done a project where we realized all of this points at the end of last year:
Greetings Arnd
Author: Ohlenbusch (ohlenbusch@ahp-gmbh.de)
Local Administrator
To all the suffering guys our there! For about 12 years I fight for a usable grid with compuware/uniface. The following Statement from the "new wish" Adrin gave me already 6 month ago. Adrian Gosbell said The work to implement this is a huge effort as we would need to figure out a way to manage the connection between what the user sees and what is really in the database. Imagine a scenario where somebody retrieves some data in the grid. They don’t modify a field, but they are continually changing the sequence of columns. Perhaps doing this all day. And then there is one change, and a store and a retrieve. So all though this, Uniface would need to manage the connections of the visible view vs the actual view. And with the Uniface structure editor, it becomes very very complicated. Sometimes I think, if this is to complicated, please leave all the Hand from the code! He guys, we are not talking about a wish, we are talking about Windows standard! But what can we do? Uniface says HTML5! The strange thing is, they find it to complicated to realize in uniface, but we should do it in HTML5!?!? So what - nagging seems not to help, we started a project to build our own grid in HTML5. This grid can:
It looks like we should by happy - but:
Here is a picture of our internal CRM system, where we use this widget every day in different forms, before we go to our customer.
Regards Arnd
Author: Ohlenbusch (ohlenbusch@ahp-gmbh.de)
Local Administrator
Hi Ingo. There is indeed a future for C/S with Uniface. We've invested heavily with both 9.6 and what we've done since, and we plan to going forward. (HTML form components, our work to support a C/S testing tool for example). My message was that we don't have any plans to enhance the grid widget at this time. In regards to performance, there have been some tweaks delivered, I think the main one reduced memory consumption and was the foundation for more work which will be delivered later (probably 9.6.07). About suggestion of the HTML approach, this is not about using the web, it's about using the HTML5 control on a C/S form with one of the readily available grids which are available (why reinvent the wheel when somebody else has done it). There is a sample on how to achieve this. If you do have a really good reason for us to change the road map, and make investments in the grid, talk to your account manager. In your case, Andreas.
Author: Adrian Gosbell (adrian.gosbell@synapse-i.jp)
Local Administrator
Hi Adrian What about the classic C/S applications written in UnifAce? Is there no future with UnifAce? We got so much complains about performance and handling with our application, even/because we using the GRID-widget! What we need is a better GRID in C/S and not a HTML-environment. Kind regards Ingo
Author: istiller (i2stiller@gmx.de)
Local Administrator
in the blogs, I found:
For many businesses the future is c/s and mobile, not web
Author: ulrich-merkel (ulrichmerkel@web.de)
Local Administrator
Yes, this is our intention. There is *finally* a 64 bit version of the libraries we used to make the control. It also opens up a few possibilities in regards to other functionality which would be useful. It's something we're going to start planning once we have wrapped up the release of 9.6.05 next month.
Author: Adrian Gosbell (adrian.gosbell@synapse-i.jp)
Local Administrator
So what IS the proportion of web client applications to traditional client server applications? I can't migrate to 9.6 just yet, so I can't test the html grid widget stuff. How does it interact with the model? Is inheritance from the model covered, or does the developer have to maintain code in every user interface?
Author: Iain Sharp (i.sharp@pcisystems.co.uk)
Local Administrator
When we started the Partners United program last year, we carried out quite a detailed analysis of our Application Partners (aka VARs, ISVs, etc, etc). It was a very useful exercise, and to answer your question, we deducted that over 75% of our revenue came from customers who are deploying Web based apps. About the technical aspects, you can go some pretty good things in the model. You can do some awesome things with JavaScript interacting with Uniface to communicating between the HTML control. Next steps are to upgrade the control's source to 64 bit which we're currently planning, and that will pave the way for HTML forms (in client server).
Author: Adrian Gosbell (adrian.gosbell@synapse-i.jp)
Local Administrator
I have just one quick question. Currently, the HTML widget is not supported on 64-bit platform. Are there any plans to support HTML widget on 64-bit client systems?
Author: sochaz (zdenek.socha@fullsys.cz)
Local Administrator
Hi Arnd Could it be possible to have an example of a Uniface code source integrating the way you use this grid HTML5 ? Thank you in advance Daniel
Author: cabero (daniel.cabero@euralis.com)
Local Administrator
Daniel, have you seen the examples in the community samples area?
Author: Adrian Gosbell (adrian.gosbell@synapse-i.jp)