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.

Animations for Window Controls

In Omnis Studio 10.1 there is a new library property, $animateui, that controls whether or not certain window class controls are animated; those same controls also have the $animateui property. For the 10.1 release, the Tree List has the new property, and the Tab Strip has some new types to highlight and animate the tabs when they are selected. The new property means that when set to true, all objects that support $animateui will animate aspects of their interface. Therefore, if $animateui  is false, the setting of the $animateui property for the individual object is used.

Animation for Tree Lists

When $animateui is enabled for a window class Tree List, the contents of the list will display by dropping down gradually as you open a node in the control, and snap back up as you close the node (if $animateui is disabled the tree list content drops down instantly, as in previous versions).

Window class tree list with animation

Animation has been enabled for some of the tree lists in the Studio IDE as well, including the main list in the Studio Browser (showing Hub, Libraries, SQL Browser, etc):

Studio Browser tree list

and the method names list in the Method Editor:

Method names list in the Method Editor

Animation for Tab Strips

The $squaremode property in the Tab Strip has been enhanced and now includes several different settings to provide new appearance and animation options (the $animateui library property must be enabled to allow the animation feature). The $squaremode property is set to kTabStripOriginal by default which means it has the same appearance and behavior as in previous versions. The other options include non-animated Square tabs, as well as animated options for Square and Rounded Square tabs, Line, and Dot (the last two show a line or a dot under the current tab) – as the end user clicks a tab, the current tab highlight is animated. The following is a tab strip with Animated Square tabs:

Animated Square tab strip

and this is a tab strip with Animated Line tabs:

Animated Line tab strip

The $animateui library property must be enabled to use the Tab Strip animations; if the preference is set to false, you can still use the square, line and dot options but they will not be animated.

Background Object Animations

Omnis Studio 10.1 introduced a number of new animation “easing” curves for background objects. The $beginanimations() has an extra parameter allowing you to select one of the new animations (the method is now $beginanimations(iDuration[,iCurve=kAnimationCurve… constant]). After calling this, assignments to some properties are animated (such as position properties $top and $left) by $commitanimations() for iDuration (in milliseconds), using iCurve as the animation curve (kAnimationCurveEaseInOut is the default). The new iCurve animations include: Ease In, Ease In Back, Ease In Out, Ease Out, Ease Out Back, Ease Out Bounce, Ease Out Elastic, and Curve Linear.

The post Better user experience for desktop apps with new animations in Omnis Studio 10.1 appeared first on Omnis.

The enhancements in Omnis Studio 10.1 include the following:

• Easier debugging with new Variable Panel
  The Variable panel is a powerful addition to the Method Editor that allows you to view and modify variables while you debug and step through your code: as execution pauses, the panel displays the values of all the current variables, and you can drill down into the hierarchy of objects and variables (see below for further images)
  
• More assistance while coding to help you code more quickly
  There are many enhancements in the Code Assistant including: Method name matching to allow you to find a method name as you enter code; Command Keywords are added to a command automatically when pressing Tab; a new option Copy Value in the Variable menu allows you to copy the value of a variable
• Faster, more optimized apps with SQL Worker Lists
  You can now specify that a SQL list or row uses a SQL Worker Object (of the same DAM type as the SQL session object) to perform SQL operations asynchronously in a separate self-contained thread (or synchronously if preferred).
• Better management for Web app sessions
  Remote Tasks used with the JavaScript Client now have a concept of being ‘suspended’ to allow greater control over how client connections are managed using the new properties $suspendedtimeout and $suspendconditions
• Improved user engagement for mobile apps with new “Toast” messages
  There is a new client command to allow you to popup “Toast messages” (small temporary notifications) on the client similar to Android toast messages
• Improved user experience with new and updated JavaScript components
  The JS Video control has been rewritten to remove its reliance on jQuery, and as a consequence the control has some new properties and events; in addition, the Data Grid, Toolbar, Date Picker, and Tree List JS controls have all been enhanced
• Better web experience on macOS with Chromium (CEF) support
  The macOS version of the OBrowser window control (see below) now uses the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), which the Windows version of OBrowser already uses; the macOS version of OBrowser now supports the standard OBrowser CEF configuration settings using the cefSwitches configuration item within the config.json
• Better user experience for desktop apps with new animations
  There is a new library and object property, $animateui, that allows you to animate certain window class controls. Tree Lists have the new property, so when enabled the contents of a node will animate when it opens (also used in some parts of the Studio IDE such as the Method list in the Code Editor); plus the Tab Strip has some new type constants to animate the tabs. There are two new window class External Components: an iOS-style Switch control and a Multi-button
  
  Tree list (left) and OBrowser with CEF support on macOS

Download a Free Trial of Omnis Studio 10.1

The new release is available to all supported developers (on the ODPP), or if you would like to try out all the new features, you can download it today and register for a free 90-day trial:
https://www.omnis.net/developers/free-trial/

The post Latest Release of Omnis Studio 10.1 Accelerates Web & Mobile Application Development appeared first on Omnis.

The videos demonstrate the wide range of solutions that companies have realized with Omnis and show the strengths of Omnis Studio that are particularly important to developers.

We chose 3 winners, although we loved them all of course, who each received a smart watch and a special t-shirt. We will feature each video over the coming weeks, but first we would like to feature Mayada Al-Kishtini’s video, an experienced freelance Omnis developer from Ontario, Canada. We’ll let Mayada introduce herself and explain how she got into using Omnis and why she likes it.

And a big Thank you to everyone who took the time and produced a video – we were overwhelmed by your generous comments, and delighted to hear all about the different ways you are using Omnis Studio – we are constantly surprised by the innovation and skill of Omnis developers!

All the videos submitted are in a “Your Omnis Story” playlist on our YouTube channel: The video playlist is available here.

And the videos have been added to the Video page on our website:
https://www.omnis.net/developers/video-library/#yourstory

And here is a complete transcript of Mayada’s video, which you might like to read as well:

Hello my name is Mayada Al Kishtini. I’m a full-stack Oracle certified software developer with 20 years of experience based in Ontario Canada. I started my career as a Visual Basic developer working on client-server applications then I moved to web development using ASP classic and asp.net technologies until 2003. At that point my journey with Omnis started.

I like Omnis for many reasons: first the simplicity of the language. Omnis is a high-level language that elevates a developer to a level where they don’t need to worry about the details of the low-level elements of the software language and the operating system. Omnis also provides a rich development tool and a powerful debugger that allows the developer to be totally expressive and produce a unique and rich solution for the market they wish to serve, in a short period of time.

A particularly neat experience I had with Omnis recently, when I worked on a desktop application that was developed using the Model View Control, I managed to use or to benefit from that design by adding a web interface to the application in a short period of time with minimal changes to the code implementation and the business logic. I basically modified the code a little bit in the controller to make it support multiple interfaces. Using the same technology and the JS client we managed to create a bridge between our legacy application and the Studio application in our migration process from legacy to Studio. I also was able to create a JS client interface to a .NET application using the Omnis .NET objects and the JSON components.

What I also like about Omnis is the library based structure of its application, which simplifies the process of managing and deploying the application to production sites. Omnis maintained its IDE and application structure consistently over the last four decades, which encourages me as a developer to embrace the new versions of the software, knowing that I won’t face a steep learning curve.

All in all, Omnis has enabled me to work on solutions to serve various users and businesses. These applications range from advertisement tracking, job management system, timesheet, dealership management system, which includes CRM, payroll & accounting. In fact all the companies that I worked with so far that serve Omnis applications are leaders in their market which I think is a testament to the versatility and applicability of Omnis as a language.

The post Your Omnis Story – Omnis Developer Videos – Mayada Al-Kishtini appeared first on Omnis.

The Omnis Regional Developer Conference is aimed at professional application developers, whether “newcomers” or experienced in Omnis, as well as project and IT managers, consultants, commercial decision-makers and managing directors – and especially at interested parties who first want to get a more detailed picture of Omnis Studio and get to know the practical experience of Omnis developers.

What sessions to expect

The conference programme includes live app development and a master class on various topics of Omnis technology for web, mobile and desktop, as well as lectures by experienced speakers, presentations of successful applications, business topics on marketing and business models of Omnis applications and practice-oriented short “Flash Sessions” on technical tips & tricks. An overview of some of the top topics in advance:

• Omnis Studio Master Class
  Live development of a Messenger: Multi Platform, with modern bubble design, usage of CSS, usable both for Thick Client and JavaScript Client apps
• Studio 10 – Status Quo and first introduction of 10.1
• ODPP Dashboard
  better and more comprehensive service for developer
• node.js Integration
• Omnis in Health Care
• Integration of existing solutions and extension with web and mobile modules
  A customer field report
• Omnis Mobile Apps – development and successful business models
  A customer field report
• Workshop: Undocumented Features in Omnis Studio
  Information about various helpful but somewhat ‘hidden’ features
• Accessibility in Omnis Applications
  The new accessibility features in Studio 10. Why? What do I need to keep in mind?
• Two and a half years after the acquisition of Omnis by OLS
  Where are we? What have we achieved? What next?
• Outlook & Roadmap
• Omnis Flash Sessions
  Short presentations of innovative Omnis solutions, technical tips, field reports, etc. by conference attendees
• We are listening/Feedback
  Your requirements for Omnis Studio. Questions and answers about Omnis Studio

More info & Registration

The conference will take place 22 + 23 May 2019, at the Welcome Hotel in Wesel, near Düsseldorf, Germany; the hotel is on the banks of the Rhine river in a beautiful location, great for the conference BBQ! Sessions will be in German and English, running in parallel and covering the same topics, so you can choose which sessions to attend. You can attend one or both days and the conference fee includes all catering plus hotel accommodation if you wish.

For more information and to register, please go to our website:

https://www.omnis.net/events/#wesel

The post Learn new things with Studio 10, See what the future brings: Omnis Regional Developer Conference appeared first on Omnis.

• Milan, Italy: 8-10 October – Book it
• Hamburg, Germany: 23-25 October – Book it
• Sydney, Australia: 12-14 November – Book it
• Dallas/Grapevine, USA: 13-15 November – Book it
• Benelux: 13-15 November – Book it
• Milton Keynes, UK: 27-29 November – Book it
• Paris, France: 12-14 December – Book it

While the courses are free to attend, you must book in advance, since places are limited and can fill up quickly – and we need to make the necessary arrangements at the training facility.

Attendees at a recent Omnis Academy course in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, hosted by Software Products Italia, the Omnis distributor in South America.

More about the Academy Course

The Omnis Academy course is aimed at developers with some basic programming knowledge, and is ideal for self-employed developers, enterprise developers, students, Omnis partners and prospects.

• Learn Omnis Studio, one of the most productive and flexible development environments
• Enhance your programming and application development skills
• Learn at your own pace online, or step-by-step in a classroom location
• Our online and in-class tutors have many years of application development experience

In the Omnis Academy course you will learn about the Omnis JavaScript Client technology, for developing web and mobile applications with Omnis Studio, including object orientation, database access, JavaScript forms and UI design.

More info and registration

For more information about the “Online Academy” course, or to register for the free 3-day “In the Classroom” training courses, please go to:
www.omnis.net/academy
 

The post Learn Web & Mobile App Development for free in the Omnis Academy appeared first on Omnis.

What’s New in Studio 9 BETA 1?

The Omnis Studio 9.0 BETA 1 release will provide several new features that will accelerate your application development, adding to your ability to code web & mobile applications quickly and easily. The BETA 1 release will also provide features to improve accessibility, plus support for hashing and encryption protocols. In addition, there is a new datafile migration tool that could be used to extend the longevity and viability of your applications previously based on the Omnis datafile.
The following is a brief summary of the features we anticipate will be included in Omnis Studio 9.0  and available for you to test in the BETA (more information is provided to Beta testers):

• A new enhanced Code Editor
  The Method Editor in Omnis Studio 9 BETA has been significantly enhanced, and now allows you to enter Omnis code directly into each command line in a method, and the Code Assistant will help you enter parameter and variable names; the number of keyboard shortcut keys has been greatly increased, allowing you add code entirely from the keyboard. In addition, a new JavaScript Editor, with syntax color coding, has been integrated into the Code Editor allowing you to add or edit whole blocks of JavaScript code into client executed methods, as well as text for SQL statements
• New Accessibility features
  a comprehensive set of features has been added to the BETA to support the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) to help to make your applications more accessible, primarily for people with disabilities; most JavaScript controls support ARIA type properties which can be read aloud by screen readers, plus the ability for end users to navigate a form & its controls using the Tab, Arrow and other keys has been improved
• Migrate your datafiles to SQL
  there is a new tool in the BETA to convert Omnis datafiles to SQLite or PostgreSQL; following conversion the Omnis DML commands in your old library will be retained, but will execute against the selected database, seamlessly and automatically
• New JavaScript Controls to enhance your apps
  included in the BETA is a new Toolbar control for remote forms, and a new non-visual external component iCalendar for managing calendar events in remote forms (also window classes); several of the other JavaScript components have been enhanced
• Remote Objects to streamline your code
  the new Remote Object classes are object classes that can be instantiated and executed entirely on the client in a client-executed method in a remote form; this will allow you to make your apps more agile and efficient on web & mobile clients
• Web and Email Comms to extend your apps
  the BETA includes support for several web & email protocols via an updated OW3 Worker Objects external package, which means you can use these on a background thread; protocols newly supported include POP3 email, CRYPTO (for encryption or decryption), and HASH for hashing (scrambling) data, plus SFTP support has been added to the FTP worker object

Register for the BETA

If you are a supported Omnis developer (on ODPP) and would like to test the new Studio 9 BETA 1, please contact our BETA Program manager by filling out the form on our website.
www.omnis.net/support/odpp/beta.jsp
If you are not a supported developer (on the ODPP), but have a special interest in any of the new features in Studio 9 and would like to test the BETA, then please register giving any reasons for your interest in the Comments section of the form and we would be happy to consider your application.
If you have any questions about the BETA Program, or the features in the new BETA 1 release, please do not hesitate to contact the BETA Program manager: omnis.beta@omnis.net
And if you are signed up to the Omnis Developer portal, and you’re on the Beta program, you can discuss features and issues in the Beta in a special forum dedicated to the Beta. The Dev portal is here:
https://developer.omnis.net
 

The post Major Step Up for Web & Mobile App Developers: Studio 9 BETA appeared first on Omnis.

JSCBridge & HTML Controls

The JavaScript Client Bridge (JSCBridge) is a new HTML control that allows you to run the Omnis JavaScript Client within OBrowser in a standard Window Class, which means you can open a Remote Form in the desktop (fat client) version of Omnis Studio, passing data between the form and Omnis.
The JSCBridge control source code and documentation is available on the Omnis Studio GitHub repository:
https://github.com/OmnisStudio/Omnis-JSCBridge
In addition, HTML controls can now use Date variables as their $dataname. In order to use dates, the .htm file for the control needs to include a link to a new JavaScript file omn_date.js which enables dates: this has been added to the template included in this version, but you will need to add it to any existing html for controls.

Control Classnames & other enhancements

All JavaScript controls now have a base class name to allow you to control the appearance of controls using CSS, and apply a consistent appearance for each type of JavaScript control. The classnames can be added to the ‘user.css’ and CSS properties applied to the classname to control the appearance of each type of control. For example, to add CSS styling to all the Edit controls in your remote forms you could add the base classname .omnis-input to the user.css file (in the ‘html/css’ folder) and add any CSS properties such as font face and size.
Other enhancements in Studio 8.1.6 include a new option to suppress library conversion prompts “disableAllLibraryConversionPrompts”, the “headlessAcceptConsoleCommands” has been set to false to free up CPU on the Headless Server, plus client UUIDs are now stored in the ‘localStorage’ on each client which removes the need for clients to have cookies enabled.

More information & Download

For more information about Studio 8.1.6 read the ‘What’s New in Studio 8.1.6’ doc (Whatsnew816.pdf), and to download the latest installers, please go to the Download page on Omnis website.
www.omnis.net/download

The post New JSCBridge in Studio 8.1.6 lets you run JS Client forms on the Desktop appeared first on Omnis.

• ENGLISH: “Introduction to Omnis Studio”
  21 June, 26 July
• DEUTSCH: “Einführung in Omnis Studio”
  21 Juni, 26 Juli
• ESPAÑOL: “Introducción a Omnis Studio”
  8 Agosto, 5 Septiembre
• ITALIANO: “Introduzione a Omnis Studio”
  11 Giugno, 25 Luglio

As well as the “Intro” type webinars, we provide some other topics for a deeper exploration of the main features of Omnis Studio. The other topics include “Developing Mobile  /  Web Applications with Omnis JavaScript Client” and “Developing Standalone Mobile Applications”. These are also presented in the different languages, and are available at various times throughout 2018.

More info & Registration

For more information and to register for the Omnis Webinars, please go to our website:
www.omnis.net/developers/webinars/

The post Omnis Webinars: Learn How to create Web & Mobile apps in Omnis Studio appeared first on Omnis.

1. Introducing Omnis Studio
   Provides a general introduction to Omnis Studio. Illustrates practical steps on how you can quickly develop a functional application and connect to your database via a web browser within a few minutes.
2. Develop Mobile Applications with JavaScript Client
   Demonstrates how you can quickly create mobile applications using the unique JavaScript Client that will run on all types of mobile devices including Android, iOS, and Windows Phones.
3. Develop Web Applications with JavaScript Client
   Demonstrates how you can create powerful, high-performance web applications that will run in any web browser including desktops, tablets and smartphones.
4. Develop Standalone or ‘Serverless’ Mobile Client Applications
   Demonstrates how you can create standalone mobile apps that allow data to be stored on the client device and synchronized with your enterprise database system via the Omnis Sync Server.

Full Details & Registration…

For more information and to sign-up for the webinars, please go here:

• English: www.omnis.net/webinars/webinar_en.jsp
• Deutsch: www.omnis.net/webinars/webinar_de.jsp
• Español: www.omnis.net/webinars/webinar_es.jsp
• Italiano: www.omnis.net/webinars/webinar_it.jsp

We look forward to welcoming you onto our Webinars!

The post Webinars: Live App Development with Omnis Studio appeared first on Omnis.