Usability++

I've added hunspell wrappers in Concept Framework (http://www.radgs.com/docs/help/standard.lib.hunspell.html).

Also, I've added into standard.lib.str Soundes, Metaphone and DoubleMetaphone functions.

I've added a few new gadgets in GyroGears applications.

1. Autocorrect in search fields (works for almost every language - defaults comes with English (US+GB) and Romanian.

2. Spell checker in text views.

3. Shortcuts for adding in relation members (see the above screenshots).

4. Beautify solution for GyroGears. This beautifies your app (aligns labels, chose which columns to be visible by default in views and so on).

GyroGears and usability

I've had some crazy requests in the last few months. The users (end-users) complained about the usability of Gyro applications, and in some aspects they were right.

1. Latest complaint: interfaces are ugly, so I'm working at new ones. 

This is the new main applications screen:



If you think it looks like something, rest assured it is not.

2.  The calendar is useless.

I redesigned the calendar. Now it looks like a classic calendar widget, with drag and drop (you can now reschedule an event by moving it to another day/hour).

3. Database search - redesigned

Pattern search now applies to spaces. So, if somebody looks for "Mikey Mouse", "Mickey The Mouse" will be also returned.

Three new options for entities in GyroGears:
- search by parent
- show parent as a chain
- child search level

Let's consider a client who has contracts. In the contracts master view, I can now type the client's name, and it will return all of its contracts. Same logic for child search level. For example, in the client list, I can enter a contract number and see the client with that contract number.

A few version ago I added "Show parent" options. This way, in a master view, on the first column the parent entity representative member will be shown. But, if parent level was 2 or more, only the final parent shall be shown. When the "show parent as chain", all the parents will be shown. For example, a client, has contracts and on every contract has a service. This way, on the service view, in the parent column, both the contract number and client name will be shown.

4. Horrible Glade for UI design (developers).

Until now I used glade-window as a method for embedding Glade into CIDE (Concept IDE). This meant that on every new Glade version I had to modify the sources.

So, I've wrote my own "glade-window.

Also GTK3 is now used on Windows too.


5. Editable ComboBoxes for many to one relations

For many to one relations you could set in GyroGears "use a combo". Now, you can also set "editable combo box". This way the user can perform a quick look-up for the given member.

6. Too many "Save" buttons for modifying a child object

When you check "enable send to" for a relation, now you get this cool context menu.

This enables the used to add a child object, without editing the parent (and so, avoiding a lock).

7. Localization and international support.

A company in Jordan has Arab employees and Romanian management. So, for the same application, two different languages were needed. This was already fine with Gyro. Now is perfect.

Also, date and time can now be formatted. (Eg: %d/%m/%Y %H:%M).

8. Telephony integration

I've added a SIPPhone class in the Concept Framework. This allows you to initiate a call, answer one and talk using a high level interface.

This is somehow cool if we talk about a CRM, and the client calls in. Then, the application automatically detects the client and opens his or her records.

9. Button press feedback for image buttons on mobile client

A friend of mine tried Concept Client Mobile. He complained about the lack of feedback when he pressed an image button. So, I've added a gray tint when the button was pressed.

10. Flash in WKB (Concept Webkit Browser) on Windows (thanks to Midori)

WebKitGtk finally works as it should on Windows. Also, the left key doesn't hang up the WYSIWYG editors.

This week I will modify the data input interface and add keyboard shortcuts for various operations.

New features for GyroGears

I've spent nearly 80 hours talking with GyroGears users (both programmers and non-programmers). A year ago the support for smarty-like templates was dropped in favor of XSLT. Then I used Sablotron but switched later to libxslt2 (easier to install). Now, the developers asked me about the possibility of calling Concept functions from XSLT, and I've said no. Not because is not possible, but because I consider it bad practice. However I've been asked about this so many times that I've decided to implement it. I've made a very simple interface - just one function that registers all members of a class:

XSLTRegister(object[, alias, namespace]).

So, you can just call XSLTRegister(this) and you will be able to call from the XSLT every function.

Also, Gyro now generates interfaces functions for XSLT. You could call something like:

<xsl:variable name="invoices" select="csp:WU_Client.GetInvoices(__DBID)"/>

Or even:
<xsl:variable name="clients" select="csp:WU_Client.Search('some client name')"/>

And then:

<xsl:for-each select="invoices/array/element">
   Amount: <xsl:value-of select="invoices/array/element/Amount"/>
</xsl:for-each>




Also, 3 features were implemented:

Reorderable flag for entities (you can reorder objects by drag and drop - lots of fun playing with this one) and reorderable flag for relations (just for non-exclusive ones). This allows the user to reorder objects in related views without affecting the master view order.

The third one - a flag for linking an object list to every HTTP script (for example an entity called "Menu" with this flag set to true will cause the menu items to be linked to every script.

As usual lots of bugs fixed. One was linked with the usage of filters on relation fields.

Android Client and GyroGears Mobile

It's ready and it's cool. Concept Client Android version is available for download (just use your Android device and visit www.devronium.com and download Concept Client. I've managed to make it fully compatible with the existing Concept Framework.

This means that GyroGears can automatically generate Android Applications.

Take a look at how it looks:

 

Just remember that everything (except the last one) is automatically generated by GyroGears in only a few seconds.

The last screenshot is my telephony application based entirely on Concept Application Server (even the Telephony server is Concept-based)..

Concept Client 2.0 Android Beta1

After implementing 2 mobile clients, one based on MoSync and another one based on Marmalade, I've decided to implement using "the native way". I've made the Concept Client 2.0 for Android devices using only Android SDK and NDK (the socket layer).

After looking into MoSync, I can say that is a nice platform but with a big drawback: the sockets. They implement AsyncSocket and it is a good idea, however, this cannot be a solution for every situation. Just think at a VoIP application.

On the other hand, Marmalade has better sockets and low level APIs, and is significantly faster. However the support is almost zero (Maybe for enterprise licenses is different). Also, the native user interface (IwNUI) it lacks lots of functionality. Audio API's are almost impossible to use, at least if we're talking about streaming (you cannot use locks in audio callbacks).

Now, Android SDK and NDK is straight forward. I've ported the client in about 7 days, which is fine. Next to come is iOS.

This is from a VoIP application that I'm working on - entirely Concept Application Server - based.

8 years of Concept

It's been 8 years from the first working version of Concept. Now, it's mature, stable, feature rich and used in production in over 200 applications.

As usual lots of bug-fixes, and new features:

• a bug in MySQL interface library that caused a crash when reading blobs of considerable size
• UDP socket support
• New multi-threading core library (uses the same code base - it must be compiled with -DSIMPLE_MULTI_THREADING). With this option you can create applications that are writing to the same variables without any need of semaphores. The speed penalty for non-threaded scripts is under 5% and but when running a multi-threaded script, the penalty can range from 5% to 100% depending on number of memory writes. For usual applications is about 6% to 10%. Also, there is no memory overhead.
• Faster Garbage Collector (hundreds of time faster) by replacing the pointer list with std::set. - About 7% less memory used. The optimization is made on variables, 32 bits less memory used by each string variables and 64 bits less for each non-string variable.
• SIP stack library ported to Concept (work in progress) Now, the really cool new feature is in GyroGears. For every generated application it automatically generates the migration script for SQL-based database. NoSQL is to come, and automatic migration from SQL to NoSQL. The problem with NoSQL (MongoDB) is that it uses a different id-system, and the migration cannot be done one to one. Now, you can move from one server to another and back in a few minutes. It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, NuoDB, ODBC amd Firebird (via ODBC). For migration, you just run the required script in migrate.prev folder (ServerRoot/MyProjects/YourAppName/migrate.prev). 

Here's a multi-threading example using the concept MT core - as you will see, no semaphore are used for threads accessing the same variables.

SVG Surface

A few months ago I've made an experiment: I've created a canvas-independent class that rendered on a SVG. Then, I've added a simple interface that allowed me to render the SVG on an operating-system dependent surface. This was a base for an UI based on SVG and completely independent of the OS. After a few more testing, I've decided to integrate this surface in Concept Client 2.0.190. So here it is:

All the buttons are defined in XML:

_Common.svg

<svg width="500" height="300" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
 <defs>
  <linearGradient id="linearGradient1">
   <stop stop-color="#ffb100" offset="0"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffb100" stop-opacity="0.498039" offset="0.5"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffffff" offset="1"/>
  </linearGradient>
  <linearGradient y2="-0.000052" x2="0.519006" y1="2.485417" x1="0.527431" id="linearGradient11" xlink:href="#linearGradient1"/>

  <linearGradient id="linearGradient2">
   <stop stop-color="#ffff00" offset="0"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffff00" stop-opacity="0.498039" offset="0.5"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffffff" offset="1"/>
  </linearGradient>
  <linearGradient y2="-0.000052" x2="0.519006" y1="2.485417" x1="0.527431" id="linearGradient12" xlink:href="#linearGradient2"/>

  <linearGradient id="linearGradient3">
   <stop stop-color="#ffb1ff" offset="0"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffb1ff" stop-opacity="0.498039" offset="0.5"/>
   <stop stop-color="#ffffff" offset="1"/>
  </linearGradient>
  <linearGradient y2="-0.000052" x2="0.519006" y1="2.485417" x1="0.527431" id="linearGradient13" xlink:href="#linearGradient3"/>

 </defs>
 <metadata>image/svg+xml</metadata>
</svg>

Button.svg

<control class="Button">
    <svg for="normal" width="70" height="30">
        <rect fill="url(#linearGradient11)" stroke-width="0.799956" stroke-opacity="0.805" ry="5.809992" y="0" x="0" height="100%" width="100%"/>
    </svg>

    <svg for="prelight" width="70" height="30">
        <rect fill="url(#linearGradient12)" stroke-width="0.799956" stroke-opacity="0.805" ry="5.809992" y="0" x="0" height="100%" width="100%"/>
    </svg>

    <svg for="clicked" width="70" height="30">
        <rect fill="url(#linearGradient13)" stroke-width="0.799956" stroke-opacity="0.805" ry="5.809992" y="0" x="0" height="100%" width="100%"/>
    </svg>
</control>

Label.svg

<control class="Label" passive="1">
    <svg for="normal" width="70" height="30">
        <text style="font-size: 12; fill:#A0A0A0; font-style:bold; stroke-width:2px; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif;" id="text3208" y="100%" x="0" xml:space="preserve">Hello !</text>
    </svg>

    <svg for="prelight" width="70" height="30">
        <text style="font-size: 12; fill:#ffffff; font-style:bold; stroke-width:2px; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif;" id="text3208" y="100%" x="0" xml:space="preserve">Hello !</text>
    </svg>

    <svg for="clicked" width="70" height="30">
        <text style="font-size: 12; fill:#FF8080; font-style:bold; stroke-width:2px; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif;" id="text3208" y="100%" x="2" xml:space="preserve">Hello !</text>
    </svg>
</control>

This surface enables you do easily define your own custom controls.

I think that this will be the base for Concept Client 4.0 IF and only IF I decide do get rid of GTK+. Gtk is a fabulous UI framework, but moving to my own, backwards-compatible framework, it will give Concept Applications a nicer look and feel. This is just an idea. Most probably I will use both GTK+ and SVG surfaces.

Now, this is Gyro!

Treeviewlicious

I've implemented lots of CRM's and search engines using GyroGears. Once in a while I get some unusual request, that GyroGears cannot fulfill

This happened yesterday, two times. A CRM client asked for a solution to group similar client requests in view. Something like the e-mails. You get an e-mail, then a reply, and so on.

So I've decided to add this feature (it was done at about 2 AM in the morning).

As you can see, the "Cereri" (it means "Requests") objects are  grouped together (Notice the expander).

And all this is done by using a flag "Show in tree view when  possible". No other configuration required.

Now, about the second feature. This it will take me a few days. A client of mine asked to use simultaneous AND and OR filters. Now the filters are combined with AND by default and can be combined with OR by default. But never both AND and OR. This is now on my todo list, I hope to have it ready in about a week or so.

Gyrolicious

I've had some unusual requests in the last two weeks, so I've decided to implement them in Gyro core.

The users asked for navigation buttons (next/previous) for objects. This derives from the fact that all day are using web browsers. And a web browser has next and previous buttons, so here there are:

Even the cursor now follows the displayed object. This is a really simple feature asked by the users.

In several projects I've needed a way to filter some records by some "assigned users". For example in a project management solution, it is possible to add a member called "Responsible" defined as a relation with the user entity. Then, you can set the member as a filter member, and when a user that is listed in the responsible field logs in, it will see only his tasks. Here is a simple example - a meeting and some invited users:

Now, only the invited users will see the meeting. Do notice the Filter level - a user of a greater level will see all the meetings.

Another request was regarding Xapian. When using indexed search, there were some limitation: you couldn't use filters, and the search felled back to the database engine (which is not a good idea when performing complex searches). Now, you can filter Xapian data. Also, sort was added for the results. The results are sorted only for equal relevance (sort first by relevance and then by the selected field).

As usual, lots of bug fixes. The main fix is in Concept Client - there was some inconvenient stuff happening when using multiple displays. The main form opened in a window and, in some cases, the child window in another window. Of course, you can specify programatically what screen to use. Now, the child windows always inherit the parent display.

NuoDB driver

I've tested these days NuoDB. It's a promising database server, for now in Beta, but there are some problems, that make NuoDB somehow more like a pre-alpha release. It's cool, it's cloud, it's nice and is something that we all want and need: SQL on the NoSQL market - the cloud.

GyroGears already generates code for NuoDB, but since is so unstable, I don't recommend deploying Gyro applications on NuoDB.

The driver low level API's are "pre-documented" here:
http://www.radgs.com/docs/help/standard.db.nuo.html

And the high level version:
http://www.radgs.com/docs/help/NuoConnection.html
http://www.radgs.com/docs/help/NuoDataSet.html

Also, I've optimized the strings and the arrays in Concept core. I've reduced the number of memory reallocations, resulting in faster indexing times. I've added a compile-time flag for using std::map instead of my key-value implementation.

std::map is faster than my implementation when adding more than 200,000 key-value pairs, but I'm faster on access. Also, std::map uses at least 1/3 more memory than my implementation, due to its list-style implementation. I use static vectors, that reallocate when needed. This reallocation is somehow slow, but overall, it performs better.

The string operator += was optimized, being up to 20 times faster now, due to a new memory allocation strategy.

In Gyro, besides NuoDB driver, I've fixed a bug with pagination, discovered in the new version of Concept Client.