The appearance and usability of many of the JavaScript Components has been greatly enhanced in Omnis Studio 10.2 with the introduction of color themes and support for SVG icons. In design mode, position assistance is provided to help you arrange objects on a remote form more easily, plus remote forms are now displayed in a web preview in design mode (using an embedded Chrome browser), so you can see exactly how your remote forms will look in the end user’s web browser.

The Omnis Studio 10.2 release also includes many enhancements in the Code Editor, including Code Folding and Word Wrapping, plus you can now edit your code when using the Remote Debugger – which makes it easier to support & maintain your customers’ apps remotely. For the thick client, there is a new Token Entry Field and Breadcrumb control, plus Page panes can be displayed as Side panels improving the UX for desktop apps.

Faster, easier development features – a closer look

The following provides a closer look at some of the enhancements added to Studio 10.2, to make app development and coding easier, and to dramatically improve the UI in your finished web and mobile applications – and there are a few updates to improve your desktop apps as well.

• New and enhanced JavaScript Controls, including the new JS Split Button control which provides multiple commands in a single button, plus enhancements to Edit Controls and Data Grids.
• JavaScript Client Themes to manage colors in your app – a number of themes are included to suit different styles of app, or you can create your own – the colors used throughout your app are updated automatically when you change theme, plus you can allow the end user to choose a theme.
• Animations and effects for a modern UX – JS components now respond to clicks with animated ‘burst’ highlighting and dynamic shadow effects to enhance the end-user experience, plus many have been improved for Touch devices.
• Support for SVG icons that scale to fit the icon area, meaning a single icon can be used to cater to all devices and screen sizes, plus SVG icons can be ‘themed’ to match the colors in the current JS Theme.
• Position Assistance for better, easier design layout for your remote forms, provides colored guidelines automatically for sizing and positioning objects more accurately.
• New Window controls for desktop apps, including the new Token Entry Field (allows preset values, like an email To: field), the new Breadcrumb control (for graphical navigation), and enhancements to the Check Box control.
• Side Panels for desktop apps, which are vertical panels that ‘pop out’ from the left or right side of a window containing clickable options or other content to the improve the UX.
• Toast Messages for desktop apps, which can contain useful Help information or Tips, or alerts and error messages for a better in-app experience.
• Plus the ability to edit code in the Remote Debugger on your live App Server deployments; support for OpenAPI 3 in RESTful Web Services, adding to Swagger 2 support; and increased performance in the Linux Headless Server by using MultiProcess server mode, to name a few…

Download and Try it

Having outlined some of the main features in Omnis Studio 10.2, we hope by now that we’ve convinced you to try it. We offer a free 90-day Trial registration, so you can try a fully working, unrestricted version of Omnis Studio 10.2 for up to 90 days, to prototype an application, or maybe to work through some of our training material, or take part in one our live online training sessions, including the “Omnis Studio Basics” course, which introduces you to the main features in Omnis Studio. So download it today and give it a try, and we’ll email you technical tips during the trial:

Download 90-day Free Trial: www.omnis.net/developers/free-trial/

Sign up for our online training: www.omnis.net/developers/online-training/

Upgrade via the Omnis Developer Program

Apart a straight-forward upgrade to Omnis Studio 10.2, you can join the Omnis Developer Partner Program (ODPP), and get the upgrade to Studio 10.2 immediately – on the program you get access all major and minor releases automatically, so Studio 10.2 and all maintenance releases and patches come with your subscription. The other main benefits of the ODPP include:

• Unlimited access to Technical Support via email and phone
• Discounts on deployment licenses (web and desktop client licenses)
• Access to the exclusive Runtime Maintenance Agreement to spread the cost of deployment
• The ability to report and track faults, and access to Beta programs
• Discounts on Consulting & training costs, plus free consultancy on higher program levels

For more information about the Omnis Developer Partner Program, and to start taking advantage of all the great technology in Omnis Studio 10.2, please see our website: www.omnis.net/developers/omnis-developer-partner-program

More info about Studio 10.2

If you would like to read more about the features and enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.2, you can download the “What’s New in Studio 10.2” PDF guide via the Omnis download page (available after you sign-up for the free trial), or you can take a look at this page: www.omnis.net/platform/omnis-studio-10

The post Create Web and Mobile Apps in Record Time with Omnis Studio 10.2 appeared first on Omnis.

Faster, easier development – better looking apps

The following is a summary of the enhancements added to Studio 10.2 to make app development and coding easier, and to dramatically improve the UI in your finished web and mobile applications, as well as improve your desktop apps.

• New and enhanced JavaScript Controls, including the new JS Split Button control which provides multiple commands in a single button, plus enhancements to Edit Controls and Data Grids.
• JavaScript Client Themes to manage colors in your app – a number of themes are included to suit different styles of app, or you can add your own – the colors used throughout your app are updated automatically when you change theme.
• Animations and effects for a modern UX – JS components now respond to clicks with animated ‘burst’ highlighting and shadow effects to enhance the end-user experience, plus many have been improved for Touch devices.
• Support for SVG icons that scale to fit the icon area, meaning a single icon can be used to cater to all devices and screen sizes, plus SVG icons can be ‘themed’ to match the colors in the current JS Theme.
• Many new Window controls for desktop apps, including the new Token Entry Field (allows preset values, like an email To: field), the new Breadcrumb control (for graphical navigation), and enhancements to the Check Box control.
• Side Panels for desktop apps, which are vertical panels that ‘pop out’ from the left or right side of a window containing clickable options or other content.
• Toast Messages for desktop apps, which can contain useful Help information or Tips, or alerts and error messages for a better in-app experience.
• Plus Position Assistance for better, easier design layout for your remote forms; the ability to edit code in the Remote Debugger; support for OpenAPI 3 in RESTful Web Services, adding to Swagger 2 support; Increased performance in the Linux Headless Server by switching to a MultiProcess server; and many more improvements.

Take advantage of the Developer Program

When you sign up to the ODPP you will get all the advantages of using Omnis Studio 10.2 (and subsequent revisions) immediately as they are released, together will all the other benefits which include:

• Unlimited access to Technical Support
• Access to all major and minor releases
• Discounts on deployment licenses (web and desktop clients)
• Access to Runtime Maintenance agreement to spread the cost of deployment
• The ability to report and track faults, and access to Beta programs
• Discounts on Consulting & training costs, plus free consultancy on higher levels

For more information about the Omnis Developer Partner Program and to start taking advantage of all the great technology in Omnis Studio 10.2 please see our website: www.omnis.net/developers/omnis-developer-partner-program

And for more info about the features and enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.2 take a look at this: www.omnis.net/platform/omnis-studio-10

The post Move up to the latest Omnis Studio 10.2 – join the ODPP appeared first on Omnis.

• List column calculations
  A new library preference $clib.$prefs.$validcolumninbadrowisnull has been added. If true, non-existent list columns in calculations evaluate to #NULL rather than an empty character string. This allows for expressions like myList.col or myList.10.col where the list line does not exist, perhaps because the list is empty.
• Operating system drag and drop
  Due to issues dropping folders when dragging items from Omnis onto the operating system, folders are now included in the list of dropped objects, with a size of zero.
• Using Non-TrueType fonts for background objects
  A new config.json item has been added to allow you to use non-TrueType fonts for window background objects. The config.json item ‘backgroundObjectsMustUseTrueTypeFont’ has been added to the ‘windows’ section of config.json. If true (the default) TrueType fonts must be used. When false, you can use non-TrueType fonts for background objects, but note that in some situations, e.g. in drag bitmaps, the text may not draw.
• ODB Encryption – $odbencrypt 
  The $odbencrypt session property has been added. If kTrue (the default) ODBC Data Bridge connections use end-to-end encryption. Improved network performance can be achieved by disabling encryption. The ODBC Data Bridge uses the value that is in effect when $logon() is called, i.e. if kTrue when $logon() is called, fetch results will still be encrypted for the duration of the connection even if $odbencrypt is subsequently cleared. Note that you do not need to update the ODBC Data Bridge to use this feature, since it automatically recognizes encrypted and non-encrypted data, and responds in kind.
• Oracle DAM 
  The $rpcprocedures(), $rpcparameters(), $rpcdefine() and $rpc() methods have been added to the Oracle DAM.

Availability

The patch release is available for download at:

https://www.omnis.net/developers/resources/download/index.jsp

As a patch release, it is designed to run with existing Studio 10.2 serial numbers.

If you are still on Omnis Studio 8.1 or older, we strongly recommend you upgrade straight to version 10.2. For ODPP customers on Studio 10.1 or 10.0 the update to v10.2 is free of charge; customers outside the ODPP program can purchase updates to v10.2 with significant update discounts.

For any questions regarding updates and upgrades to Omnis Studio 10.2, please contact your local sales office via our website: www.omnis.net/contact/

The post New Release Omnis Studio 10.2 Rev 30204 is available now appeared first on Omnis.

So please read on for details of the Studio 10.2 fixes addressed and enhancements included in this release:

• Entry Fields & $showellipsis
  A new property $showellipsis has been added to the fat client Single Line Entry Field (only applies when field is read-only). If true, an ellipsis is shown in the field if the text is too long (only applies when the control is read-only, $horzscroll and $righttoleft are both kFalse, $align is kLeftJst and $passwordchar is not set).
• $construct Row
  A ‘clientPlatform’ column has been added to the $construct Row parameter for remote forms. This denotes the platform on which the client is running, and returns one of the following strings: ‘Windows’, ‘macOS’, ‘Linux’, ‘iOS’, ‘Android’ or ‘Unknown’.
• SQL Workers
  There is a new SQL Worker Lists $userworker example in the Hub in the Studio Browser.
• Code Assistant
  There is a new option to show method names before attributes in Code Assistant lists. There is a new Boolean entry in config.json, in the ‘codeAssistant’ section, listShowsNamesFirst, defaulting to true. When true, names occur in the code assistant list before attributes etc. that start with $. When false, the list order is the same as in previous versions ($ entries typically occur before names).
• Method Editor
  There is a new item “methodeditorfadealpha” (0-255) in the “IDEmethodEditor” section of appearance.json to allow you to set the fade level of method editor when editing a variable value in the debugger variable panel.
• Virtual Keyboard & $negallowed
  The inputmode for JS Edit fields is no longer set to ‘numeric’ or ‘decimal’ if $negallowed is true, as these don’t guarantee the presence of a minus key. This may mean that some situations which previously showed a numeric keyboard no longer will. You should note that a touch device’s virtual keyboard is more likely to use a numeric keyboard if $negallowed is false.
• DB view in Query Builder
  An option has been added to the ‘Other’ menu in the Query Builder to create a DB view.
• Class Comparison tool
  You can now filter the list of classes in the Class Comparison tool on keypress for revisions.
• JSON Export
  The reporting of conflicts in JSON Export has been improved. Note that the conflict detection process uses the modify date of each file in the JSON tree for the class, so if a date has changed a conflict will still be reported even if the file contents have not changed. Note also that this means conflicts will be reported (if overwrite conflicts is off) when you first export a library with this new version of the hash algorithm.

Availability

The patch release is available for download at:

www.omnis.net/developers/resources/download/index.jsp

As a patch release, it is designed to run with existing Studio 10.2 serial numbers.

If you are still on Omnis Studio 8.1 or older, we strongly recommend you upgrade straight to version 10.2. For ODPP customers on Studio 10.1 or 10.0 the update to v10.2 is free of charge; customers outside the ODPP program can purchase updates to v10.2 with significant update discounts.

For any questions regarding updates and upgrades to Omnis Studio 10.2, please contact your local sales office via our website: www.omnis.net/contact/

The post New Release Omnis Studio 10.2 Rev 29818 is now available appeared first on Omnis.

With the release of Omnis Studio 10.2 (Nov 2020) we added many new features & enhancements in the Fat Client, the IDE, and App Server.  At the launch event for Omnis Studio 10.2, our Principal Omnis engineer, Bob Mitchell, provided an overview of all the enhancements in the Fat Client and design tools in Omnis Studio 10.2, which we summarize here.

Many new example apps are provided for the new controls and features, including the new Token entry field and Breadcrumb control, which are in the ‘Samples’ section of the Hub in the Studio Browser, or on our growing GitHub repository: github.com/OmnisStudio

SVG support in the Fat Client

Support for SVG icons was added to the JS client for Studio 10.2, but also the Fat Client, so Icon sets can now contain SVG image files, for pushbuttons, tree lists, or wherever PNG icons were supported in previous versions. This enables the use of many open source SVG images (subject to the usual license conditions), or can purchase icon sets from a third-party to add to Omnis Studio:

• SVG is a very comprehensive format; most SVGs will render in Omnis, but not all, and some SVGs will only render on macOS (check the docs for full compatibility info).
• For Windows, SVG support requires the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, or above.

SVG icons in an icon set use a simpler naming convention, basically the filename and .svg extension, such as “account-info.svg”, and the SVG file will scale to any size & fit the icon area allowed in the control or client area (so the size info does not need to be added to the file name like previous versions).

Now you can have multiple icon sets, so the $iconset property ($clib.$prefs) has been renamed to $iconsets and now accepts a comma-separated list of icon set folder names to be used for the library.

The Select Icon dialog includes SVG icons in an icon set, including all standard sizes plus a “full page” entry for each SVG; for these, the size list contains the default size extracted from the SVG, plus additional sizes configured in config.json. Plus you can add custom sizes via + button in header of size list, and add them to the config.json.

For fat client, SVG icons can be used with built-in fat client window controls, external component window controls, styled text, menus, toolbars, plus the $backgroundiconid (Windows) and $componenticon properties. (Note the ‘material’ icon set provided for JS client controls cannot be used for fat client controls since they have been themed.)

Method Editor – Code folding

The new Code Folding feature in the Code Editor allows blocks of code to be hidden and represented by an ellipsis token; this can make long methods more compact and readable in the Code Editor window.

Code folding works for construct commands including:

• If, Else If, Else, For, Repeat, While, Switch, Case, On; parts that can be collapsed are shown with a “-” icon, parts that have been collapsed and therefore can be expanded are shown with “+” disclosure icon. The code in the collapsed part is shown as an ellipsis token – the default is a blue rounded box.

Mouse over the “+” or “-” disclosure icons to highlight the block contents, as shown here in orange:-

Hover over the ellipsis token to show its content in a tooltip:-

Method Editor – Word wrapping

The new Word Wrapping feature in the Code Editor allows long code lines to wrap onto the next line (it is on by default); there is a new option on the View menu. Method lines now have a variable height in the editor.

Inline comments ignore the inline comment column and shift into the available space. Scrolling occurs in method line units.

Other Method editor enhancements include:-

• New Colors: for Read-only code background, Resolved and Unresolved names
• Execution position; the current code line is shown with a ruling line above and below
• Method tree defaults to including built-in class methods (similar to inherited methods):
  • You can Right-click to override a method.
  • Sets parameters of the new method (those expected by built-in method).
  • Show Built-in Class Methods option on View menu.

Position Assistance – for designing forms and reports

The new Position Assistance feature provides Visual guides that allow you to align and resize objects more easily and accurately; this comprises a combination of colored arrows and dotted lines (as shown here in orange, using a dark IDE theme):-

• Available for Window, Report and Remote form editors, and is enabled by default.
• “Show Position Assistance” on the editor context menu.
• Works with both pointer (mouse) and the keyboard arrow keys: as you move objects they “Snap” (+/-2 pixels) to displayed spacing or alignment when using the mouse.

Operating System Drag and Drop

Support for dropping objects from the OS (desktop) on to Omnis has been improved and optimized, as follows:-

• There is a new preference $osdroplimit ($clib.$prefs), that is the maximum number of bytes of dropped data that can be included in pDragValue for evDrop.

Object $dropmode values kAcceptFiles and kAcceptFileData have been replaced with kAcceptOperatingSystem (on conversion to 10.2, they are converted automatically to  kAcceptOperatingSystem).

Plus there is a new object property $osdropflags.

• Allows constant values: kOSDROPincludeData, kOSDROPfilesOnly, kOSDROPwithoutDataIfOsDropLimitExceeded

With event parameters:-

• pDragType: kDragOperatingSystem replaces kDragFiles, and kDragFileData is renamed to kDragOperatingSystemData_OBSOLETE, and resolves to the same value as kDragOperatingSystem.
• pDragValue: new Boolean column isfile, filedata column is now always Binary, filesize column is now a 64-bit integer.

OAUTH2 for OW3 Worker Objects

There is a new OAUTH2 Worker Object which provides support for OAUTH2, the industry-standard protocol for authorization, in the OW3 worker objects including:-

• Allows OAUTH2 support for HTTP, IMAP, POP3 and SMTP worker objects.

You can use the $authorize() method of the new OAUTH2 worker to obtain the access and refresh tokens. Omnis RESTful port can provide the redirect URI, even in a fat client, non-server version. When authorization has completed, you can set the new $oauth2 property of the HTTP/IMAP/POP3/SMTP workers to the OAUTH2 worker. Tokens and authorization information can be saved in an AES-256 encrypted buffer. See the samples for HTTP, IMAP, POP3 and SMTP in the Hub in the Studio Browser in Studio 10.2.

OW3 “Fire and forget”

There is a new property $alwaysfinish which allows asynchronous requests to continue to completion after the instance containing the OW3 object destructs, a so-called “Fire and forget” call; the property applies to the HTTP, IMAP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP workers. When set to kTrue, for requests invoked with $start():

• When instance containing worker closes:
  • Worker thread continues in the background
  • The request eventually completes
  • No more notifications are generated
• Does not apply if you shut down Omnis
• $alwaysfinish is set to kFalse by default meaning the behavior is unchanged.

OpenAPI 3.0 for RESTful Services

Omnis Studio 10.2 added support for generating OpenAPI 3.0 definitions for your Omnis based web services, which you can use instead of swagger (see the definition here swagger.io/specification) to define an API. RESTful remote tasks can now have a superclass in another library, provided the superclass has no URIs, which allows you to use of framework libraries.

When you select a RESTful service beneath the Web Service Server node in the browser, there are now two pairs of links:

• OpenAPI Definition, Save OpenAPI to File
• Swagger Definition, Save Swagger To File

The OpenAPI definition can be retrieved using a similar URL to that used to retrieve a Swagger definition by replacing ‘swagger’ in the URL with ‘openapi’.

MultiProcess Linux Server

The new MultiProcess Server (MPS) for the Linux Headless server provides significant performance improvements in your web & mobile applications, by using a multiprocess server model rather than multithreaded, as in previous versions. The process structure for the MPS is:-

• One parent comms process
• One child process per remote task

This ensures better use of preemptive multithreading and multiple CPU cores, which provides better reliability if, for example, a child process crashes then the server continues to run for other remote tasks.

To configure the new MPS, there are new settings in the “server” section of the config.json file on the Linux server:-

• “multiProcess”: true
• “maxChildProcesses”: c
• “maxFreeChildProcesses”: f

Requests needing new child process are queued if maxChildProcesses has been reached.

Deployment Tool

The Deployment Tool was introduced in Studio 10.1 but significantly updated for Studio 10.2; it is available for Windows and macOS, under the Tools menu, then choose Add-ons and Deployment tool…

The Deployment Tool allows you to ‘package’ your Omnis application to distribute your solution to your end users or customers more easily. The tool allows you to add your own Product Icon, application name, version number, and on macOS allows you to Code sign and Notarize your application.

Documentation for Studio 10.2

To read more about all the new features in Omnis Studio 10.2, please refer to the updated Documentation on the Developer Resources website: omnis.net/developers/resources/onlinedocs

The post Enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.2 make your app development quicker & easier: Part 2 appeared first on Omnis.

With the release of Omnis Studio 10.2 (Nov 2020) we added many new features & enhancements in the Fat Client, the IDE, and App Server.  At the launch event for Omnis Studio 10.2, our Principal Omnis engineer, Bob Mitchell, provided an overview of all the enhancements in the Fat Client and design tools in Omnis Studio 10.2, which we summarize here.

Many new example apps are provided for the new controls and features, including the new Token entry field and Breadcrumb control, which are in the ‘Samples’ section of the Hub in the Studio Browser, or on our growing GitHub repository: github.com/OmnisStudio

Token Entry Field

This is a brand new window control for the Fat client (desktop apps) that allows the entry of a delimited list of tokens, similar to the “To:” field in macOS Mail or gmail web interface for the entry of email addresses; you can type the first few characters of a name or email address and select one from the list. When you create or select a token i is treated as a single object which you can select and drag to another field, for example, or click on the “x” button to delete it.

• The $dataname for a Token entry is a character variable, e.g. a comma-separated string of email addresses

The following is new example library in the ‘Samples’ section of the Hub in the Studio Browser; you can see how Token entry fields work and you can examine the code in the library and re-use it in your own applications.

Valid tokens for the new Token entry field are specified by either:-

• a list
• a PCRE2 regular expression
• or both, if token matches regular expression, the field searches the list

Tokens can also be supplied as:-

• Display text<token value>
  • “Display text” is displayed in the control
  • “token value” is the valid token value
• The $gettokens method can be used to parse the text
  • Returns a list of tokens
  • Optionally excluding display string

Breadcrumb Control

The animated Breadcrumb control (for fat client) can be used to display a hierarchy in your app, to provide a better UX for end users – as you drill into options, the sections are animated out to the right, and when you click higher options the lower options collapse back.

The Breadcrumb control can be displayed with rounded or pointed ends / arrows (as shown here), or as a text hierarchy with a Pipe character separating options (similar to a web-like breadcrumb); there is a new example library for Breadcrumb in the Hub in the Studio Browser.

Checkboxes and Radio Buttons

Checkboxes and Radio buttons have had a major overhaul with an updated appearance and animated effects to improve the UX, plus check boxes can be horizontal to emulate a slider switch, plus the ‘on’ state for check boxes and radio buttons can be shown as a “tick” (check mark) or cross; there is a new example library for Checkboxes and Radio buttons in the Hub in the Studio Browser.

New styles are set using some new constants for $buttonstyle:-

• kCheckBoxHorizontal (Specify other text using $text “Checkbox,Other text”
• kCheckRadioTickMark (Check mark), kCheckRadioCrossMark (Cross mark)
• Also there are additional color and icon properties

Tab Strip

There is a new vertical mode for the Tab strip control and the current or highlighted tab can be shown with an animated line, a dot, or rounded tab; there is a new example library for the Tab Strip in the Hub in the Studio Browser.

• The new mode for Tab Strip is set in $squaremode, and is a kTabStripAnim… constant.

Complex Grid Enhancements

The Complex grid for the fat client can have a scrollable footer section, implemented via some new properties:

• $showhorzfooter, $horzfooterborder, $horzfooterfillcolor, $horzfooterheight, $horzfooterlinestyle

In addition, the Complex grid can now have slide-out columns, whereby the left-most and right-most column can slide out (they are hidden by default) to reveal more content, implemented via a new property $slideouttype, which can be set to a kGridSlideOutType… constant, e.g. kGridSlideOutTypeLeftRight, and a new method $slideoutcolumn can hide or show the relevant column for a single row.

Complex grid can have variable height rows whereby rows can be resized individually using the mouse, or using the method $setrowheight(), and you can animate the change in height; there is a new example library for the Complex grid in the Hub in the Studio Browser.

Side Panels

Container controls, such as a Page pane, can behave like a Side Panel, that can slide out from the left or right side of a window. Specifically, this new feature applies to controls with $edgefloat kEFposnLeftToolBar or kEFposnRightToolbar.  The $sidepanelmode property of the control can be set to a kSidePanelMode… constant. A side panel can be shown and hidden using the pointer or a new method $showpanel which could be placed on a button; there is a new example library for Side Panels in the ‘Samples’ section of the Hub in the Studio Browser.

Toast Messages

A ‘toast message’ is a brief transient message that pops up on the end users’ screen, which does not interrupt the UI flow (the new toasts in Omnis are NOT system notifications, but support for notifications is being developed for a future  release. You can show toast messages via the current instance, so $cinst.$showtoast() where you can specify:-

• The title and message text
• The style and position

There is a new example library for Toast Messages in the Hub in the Studio Browser.

Regular Expressions

Regular expressions in Studio 10.2 are more comprehensive with support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions version 2 (PCRE2 for short), so you can create better or more efficient searches. This can be used in IDE searches, and in your code, using the rxpos() function.

The rxpos() function can capture groups when using PCRE2:-

• New optional captureRow parameter
• Receives the captured groups (sub-expressions in  parentheses)
  • A column for each captured group

Calculate cString as “2017-01-02”
Do rxpos(“^(?<year>\d{4})-(?<month>\d{2})-(?<day>\d{2})$”,cString,0,0,cLen,cRow) Returns cOffset

Calculate cString as “hey_test_ho”
Do rxpos(“(hey|ho)_test_(ho|hey)”,cString,0,0,cLen,cRow) Returns cOffset

Documentation for Studio 10.2

To read more about all the new features in Omnis Studio 10.2, please refer to the updated Documentation on the Developer Resources website: omnis.net/developers/resources/onlinedocs

And look out for Part 2 of our summary of enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.2…

The post Enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.2 make your app development quicker & easier: Part 1 appeared first on Omnis.

Overview of JS Appearance Enhancements

The enhancements in the JS client provide a refreshed, more modern look.

• Heavily influenced by Google’s Material Design, including layout & color schemes.
• Almost all JS controls had substantial work done by our JavaScript / UX team.
• Subtle animations & feedback effects, such as ripple on clicks, shadows and border focus.
• Touch-friendly sizing of controls, such as buttons, menu lines, grid rows.
• Support for Color Themes, applied to remote forms in a library, new SVG icons can be themed to match text color.

JS Client Themes to coordinate colors across your app

The new themes contain complete color schemes to be applied to JS controls and the form background.

• Themed colors are important to Material Design, including the concept of Primary/Secondary 
• Allows controls to have complimentary & consistent colors applied ‘out of the box’.
• Several JS Themes are provided (applied via Ctrl-J when editing a remote form). You can create multiple JS themes and allow clients to switch between them in the app (this currently requires a reload of the page)
• Themed Colors:
  • Primary: Main color used throughout the app, could a “Brand color”
  • Secondary: Used to accent parts of the UI, but used more sparingly.
  • Both have Light and Dark variants.
  • Surface: Used for popup menus etc, and paged panes (by default).

• Themed Text Colors: Most theme colors have a …Text color variant.
• • Primary and PrimaryText
  • Text colors set to kColorDefault on a themed background color use the …Text variant.
  • This simplifies process of changing colors, and text should always be legible.
• Theme Files
  • Themes are defined by <theme name>.json files in html/themes.
  • Contain the values for the various theme colors, and Omnis generates a <theme name>.css file from this.
  • When deploying to a web server the themes folder, with .json & .css files, should be copied to the web server.

JS Client Theme Editor

The Theme Editor allows you to create new themes (open an existing one and ‘Save as’ then edit colors).  

• Simplifies creation/editing process.
• Gives a visual representation of the colors
  • Clicking on colored areas in the editor (on the right) allows quick editing of the contextual color 

To create a consistent color scheme for your Web & Mobile apps you might like to use the Google Material Design Color Tool: https://material.io/resources/color

Scalable and Themeable SVG Icons

Omnis Studio 10.2 supports SVG icons for JS client controls (and window class controls), so they can be scaled to any size (therefore only one icon file is needed for all sizes), and for the JS client they can colored using the current JS theme.

• SVG icons which follow our specific format can be tinted to fit the color in the current theme.
• A single icon can be rendered in any color (and size).
• Themeable icons are matched to the hex color. 
• There is a tool (in Add-ons>Web client tools) to convert standard SVGs to our ‘Themed’ format.
• We provide an iconset of over 100 ‘material’ icons that have been ‘themed’ which you can use in your apps (subject to the relevant license terms)

Using Theme Colors in remote form design

The color picker in the Property Manager has been updated to cater to Theme colors making it easier to apply consistent colors across your app.

• The Color Picker has a new tab for theme colors
  • Allows you to choose theme colors directly
• New kJSThemeColor… constants
• Color properties set to kColorDefault will use a theme color.
  • Determined by the individual control & property.

• The theme for a remote form is selected by pressing Ctrl/Cmnd + J from a design form to open the JavaScript Theme selector dialog.
  • Changing the design-mode theme updates all open design forms immediately 
• The design-mode theme is controlled by $root.$javascripttheme 

Setting the JS Theme in the client

• A page’s HTML file includes a data-themename attribute, specifying the default theme
• Testing (Ctrl/Cmd+T) a form regenerates the HTML file, and sets the client’s default theme to be the current $javascripttheme
  • (Replaces “_JT_” in the jsctempl.htm file)
• New $clientcommand – “settheme”
  
  • Do $cinst.$clientcommand(“settheme”, row ( “dark”))
  • Changes the theme for this client, and requires a reload of the page to take (we plan to make this instant in a future)
  • Client’s current theme comes through to the form’s ‘$construct’ row parameter.

New ‘Web Preview’ Remote form design view

Remote Form design view in Studio 10.2 now runs in OBrowser (Chromium) giving you a true WYSIWYG view of your remote web forms and all components.

• Runs the JS Client and renders exactly as it will in a client browser
  • Even custom CSS etc
  • JSON-defined controls render now
  • Third-party controls no longer need C++ paint code
• Position Assistance (using feint lines drawn automatically) has been added to align objects precisely, replaces the design grid ($showgrid), and Rulers no longer supported.
• HTML control has $showruntimepreview to render in design mode

For more information about the Omnis Studio 10.2 release, see our website: https://www.omnis.net/platform/omnis-studio-10/

The post Enhanced JavaScript Client in Studio 10.2 helps you create Web & Mobile apps quicker and easier appeared first on Omnis.

Innovations for building attractive apps with improved usability and a better UX

The first impression can be decisive for the success of an app, both in the market and among users within a company. Therefore Omnis Studio 10.2 includes many new features and enhancements that will make it easier and more fun for you to build beautiful apps:

• A wealth of new and enhanced JavaScript controls including a new JS Split Button Control and enhancements to Edit Controls and Data Grids
• Animations for a modern UX
• JavaScript Client Themes to manage colors in your app
• Scalable SVG icons and themed (JS only) to match the selected color scheme
• Many new Window controls for desktop apps including a new Token Entry Field, the new Breadcrumb control, and enhancements to the Check Box control
• Side Panels for desktop apps that slide out automatically (vertical panels containing clickable options or other content)
• Toast Messages for desktop apps
• Components can now better cater to touch devices

Designing beautiful apps is now easier than ever with new helpful tools including:

• Position Assistance
  in a remote form, report or window class design screen
• Web Preview
  for designing a JavaScript Remote form to preview the look and behavior at runtime in the end user’s browser

Omnis Studio 10.2 also makes localization for web & mobile apps easier so you can translate your apps to multiple languages:

• Localization has been optimized, reducing data size for multi-language applications
• German, French, Italian and Spanish are supported by default, while support for other languages can be added

New features to speed up your development and ease maintenance of your apps

• The Omnis Remote Debugger has been further enhanced. You can now edit methods and code while stepping through live code in the Remote Debugger
• Omnis Studio 10.2 now generates OpenAPI 3.0.0 definitions, as well as Swagger 2.0 definitions for a RESTful web service
• Support of regular expressions in your Omnis code, or for Find and Replace via the PCRE2 library
• General support for OAUTH2 authorization for the OW3 worker objects
• Enhancements to the IMAP, HASH, and the FTP workers
• Support for dragging and dropping operating system files and file data (in the thick client) has been simplified providing more control

With the new release you can increase performance for your server based, web and mobile apps:

• The Linux Headless Server can now be run in MultiProcess Server (MPS) mode utilizing the multi-core processors on your server

And for those customers who want to convert an Omnis data file to either SQLite or PostgreSQL, this is much faster now as the DML emulator has been substantially re-written for Studio 10.2 to improve performance.

Omnis Studio 10.2 Online Launch Events

If you want to learn more details about the new release and see it live, you should attend one of our Omnis Studio 10.2 Online Launch Events, available for customers in North America, Germany, and Scandinavia.

We will show the exciting new features in Omnis Studio 10.2 for web, mobile and desktop apps, and present the major enhancements in IDE, Fat client and server as well as in the JavaScript Client. And we will also talk about the Omnis Roadmap. So don’t miss these online events.

If you want to attend a Studio 10.2 Online Launch Event, read more on our Events page: www.omnis.net/events

New Omnis Webinars

In case you can’t attend one of the Online Launch events, don’t worry: we will provide a new type of webinar about all the ‘Highlights of Omnis Studio 10.2’ many times over the next 3 months. Please have a look at our webinar schedule at: www.omnis.net/developers/webinars/

Download and Free trial

The new Omnis Studio 10.2 release is available for download from our website. If you want to evaluate it you can register for a free, 90-day trial serial number on our website.

Upgrade to Studio 10.2

All customers currently on the Omnis Developer Partner Program (ODPP) can update to Studio 10.2 free of charge, plus updates of your existing runtime, web or mobile licenses from 10.0/10.1 to 10.2 are available free of charge on request.

For information about upgrading to Studio 10.2 please contact your local sales office via our contacts page: www.omnis.net/contact/

The post New Release Omnis Studio 10.2 makes your app development quicker & easier appeared first on Omnis.

Despite the necessary restrictions to protect against Corona Virus, and the need for all us to work in our home offices, the Omnis Engineering team has been very productive and completed a Second Beta for Studio 10.2, which includes some important and exciting new additions. All of the following features and enhancements have been added to BETA2*, which we are sure will greatly enhance your existing & future application development projects:

• OAUTH2 Authorization
  Support for a new OAUTH2 Worker Object in the OW3 Worker component package, while the HTTP, IMAP, POP3, and SMTP workers have been modified to support OAUTH2 authorization via the new dedicated worker object.
• Position Assistance
  Visual guides are displayed automatically when you move or resize objects using the mouse (pointer) in a remote form, report or window class design screen. As you move or resize objects colored lines are shown and objects will snap into position to help you arrange the objects in a form or report.
• JS Edit Input Masks
  The $inputmask property has been added to JS Edit controls which allows for the use of a custom input mask string to control user input on a character level. If the user enters an invalid character, the control will briefly become highlighted and the input will be rejected.
• Localization
  The localization of the JavaScript Client has been improved to make localization easier for developers, as well as reducing data size for applications that support multiple languages by only loading the required language file(s) if they are needed.
• OpenAPI for Web Services
  Omnis now generates an OpenAPI 3.0.0 definition for a RESTful service as well as Swagger 2.0. OpenAPI is a more up to date version of the RESTful API description format.
• Toast Messages for desktop apps
  Toast messages are currently available for remote forms (using a client command), but this enhancement allows you to open toast messages in your desktop apps (small messages that typically popup at the bottom of the screen), via a window instance for example, using a new $showtoast method.

Another important addition in Omnis Studio 10.2 in BETA2 is support for a Subscription Based License model. With this additional licensing option we want to support a wider range of different business models and enable you to provide subscription based licensing for your Omnis apps:

• Subscription Based Licenses
  We have added support for Subscription Based Licenses of monthly and yearly duration. We anticipate that this will be configured by a new license type and with a license management portal for license administration.

Everyone who participated in the Beta 1 test will automatically receive access to Beta 2. If you did not take part in the beta test for Studio 10.2, but would like to test the second beta, and would have the time to report your findings back to us, then please register on our website. 

Please note the beta test program is open to ODPP members only, although in some cases we would welcome applications from developers willing to test specific new features and report back to us with their feedback. 

Sign up for the BETA Program

If you would like to sign up to test BETA2 for Omnis Studio 10.2, please fill out the application form on our Developer website:

omnis.net/developers/resources/support/odpp/beta.jsp 

We hope that many of you will test Studio 10.2 beta 2 and will report any issues you may find to us and help us ensure the highest possible quality and stability for the final release of Studio 10.2. Thank you so much for your assistance! 

*We anticipate the features described here and in the BETA documentation will be in the final release software, but we cannot guarantee their inclusion or their exact implementation, and when you apply to test the BETA you must agree to the BETA test license.

The post Get Ready to Accelerate your App Development with Omnis Studio 10.2 – Beta 2 is available appeared first on Omnis.