GeneXus USA

Powering IPRO

2011-06-01T09:23:00.001-07:00

Those who work with me know that I’m a big advocate of teamwork. From kids’ soccer teams to pair programming, I know that the power of a group working collectively toward a shared goal is formidable. I partner with my co-workers in some form or another every day, and I can attest to the positive dynamics that come from a team working in sync.

I recently saw an example of teamwork in action that was so remarkable, I’m still talking about it. It was part of a program that teaches college students vital and valuable skills they need to succeed both personally and professionally: problem solving, analytical thinking, creativity, meeting deadlines and presentation skills, to name a few.

The setting was Spring 2011 IPRO Day – the Interprofessional Projects Program – at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). IPRO is a semester-long course that brings together teams of students from every major, from sophomores to graduate level, to tackle and solve a real-world problem. While every project has goals that can be resolved in a relatively brief timeframe, the challenges are substantial. Consider some of the IPRO challenges to be assigned during the upcoming summer semester:

• Adopting and implementing a Diabetes Electronic Support Center at Mount Sinai Hospital

• Harvesting and determining the beneficial use of condensate from air conditioning systems

• Prototyping and user testing of decision making tools for visualizing corporate performance indicators on mobile devices

• Prototyping and testing an integrated rooftop photovoltaic solar system design

Real businesses provide real projects for the IPRO teams to tackle. Teams of roughly eight to 12 students, majoring in everything from architecture and biology to chemistry and humanities, work together to solve the challenge. At IPRO Day at the semester’s end, the teams formally present and showcase their projects to a panel of judges and the community.

This is where GeneXus USA comes in. I was invited to serve as a judge for the event, and GeneXus USA developed the technology that enabled the 570+ students and faculty in attendance to vote for their favorite video from the 24 teams competing, a competition that came with a $500 prize.

Here’s how this came about. Back in April, IPRO Director Dr. Michael Gosz attended a GeneXus demo and got so excited about our technology that he asked April Welch, IIT’s Director of Educational Planning, to attend our GeneXus USA event. There, she saw an application we developed that allowed attendees to vote in our smart device competition. She asked if we could design a similar solution for IPRO Day that would allow participants to vote for their favorite video. Right then and there, we sat down with April and created an application in about an hour. The voting app runs on the iPad, while a web-based back office application lets you enter the data together with the database. At IPRO Day, there were iPads running the GeneXus app that everyone in attendance used to vote for their favorite team video.

Meanwhile, I judged the IT track at IPRO Day, which was great because I was truly interested to see what new ideas these students had to offer. The ideas were really terrific. As each team presented, I noticed that most of them relied heavily on PowerPoint. Now, their PowerPoint presentations were great… they had a good flow, they incorporated strong graphical elements, and they made their cases effectively. But what I really wanted to see was more working prototypes. I wanted to see these great ideas demonstrated to me not just visually, but operationally. I was surprised that the majority of the teams did not have a working prototype to showcase to the judging panel.

This is where GeneXus USA comes in, part II: We are providing IIT with a software tool that will allow IPRO students to more easily develop prototypes, starting with the Sumer 2011 semester. We’ve already begun installing the software and training students and faculty on its use. The GeneXus software speeds up and simplifies application development by automating code generation, allowing students to more readily build out prototypes. I look forward to enabling these talented students to develop more working prototypes. With their talent, dedication and graphical expertise, when given the right tool, they can really bring their ideas to life.

Now, I heard a rumor that someone on an IPRO team referred to me as “the toughest judge there,” but I have to admit, I like this! I want to see more working prototypes, even bigger and bolder graphics, and more thinking outside the box. The teamwork and innovation I saw from these students is awe-inspiring, and I am forever grateful to IIT for allowing GeneXus to help power the IPRO program.

IIT was the first university in the nation with an IPRO program, and I look forward to it earning the recognition, distinction and acclaim that it deserves. Take a minute to check out http://ipro.iit.edu/ to learn more.

Also, be sure to visit http://flic.kr/s/aHsjuyftAB to see our photos from the event.

Making Smart Device Development Smarter

2011-04-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

You see them everywhere. At the office, on the train, at the airport, at the corner coffee shop: We are glued to them. Eyes down, thumbs typing… they have changed the way we communicate. They are the iPhones, iPads, Andriods and BlackBerrys -- the smart devices that have changed our lives.

Once again, technology has taken us by surprise. It didn’t happen gradually… it was a sudden wave, and smart devices are the new norm. Working in the technology industry, I know that once you see the wave, you’d better get on board fast.

Mobile computing gives businesses a unique opportunity to get even closer to customers -- their social network. Through these little devices -- these little pieces of technology -- businesses can be taken into customers’ homes, be with them as they make decisions, and most importantly, have an opportunity to influence those decisions.

As consumers, we are more than happy to invite businesses into our homes, because we are now empowered. We can drive discounts, or become critics or advocates in a global marketplace. Businesses and consumers… we both win.

However, as exciting as this new mobile world has become, there are the inevitable roadblocks. At a time that our industry is looking for ways to lower development costs any way we can, here comes technology playing a joke on us. It turns out that, in this new mobile marketplace in which we all want to compete, it’s not just one new development language we need to learn…. It is three or four new languages. It’s not one new platform, but a whole set of them. Here’s what we face:

· A “dominant” operating system has yet to emerge – the market remains highly fragmented and looks like it will stay that way for some time to come. There’s iOS for the iPad and iPhone; Google’s Android; OS 6 for the BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows 7 mobile, to name some of the big ones. And I don’t see this changing any time soon.

· Apps aren’t interchangeable from one operating system to another – so significant development work is required every time an app is adapted to a different operating system.

· Each OS uses a different development language: there’s HTML 5,, Java, Objective-C, Ruby, Silverlight, and so on.

· The experience in each device is different, and even within the same operating systems like Android or BlackBerry, each version offers a different experience.

· There’s a shortage of knowledgeable mobile app developers right now that isn’t going away any time soon. While new graduates are hitting the job market and experienced software developers are transitioning into mobile app development from other areas, look at any company’s or recruiter’s list of sought-after hires: mobile app developers are at or near the top.

How do companies that generate their own apps overcome the roadblocks regarding cross-platform functionality, time to market, cost and talent?

I believe the answer lies in automation.

On April 25 and 26, at our customer event in Chicago, GeneXus USA debuts its Smart Device Generator tool. GeneXus software enables developers to write code once, in a simple and high level manner, and then detailed code is automatically generated for multiple smart device platforms like the iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. Developers only need to customize appearance and layout for each device.

Think about the possibilities: instead of writing code multiple times for multiple devices, you write it once and GeneXus generates the application for you. It lets you write and deploy apps exceptionally fast - literally 65 percent faster than if you were starting from scratch.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world where you do something only once, and the rest of the work is done for you? Wouldn’t it be great to quickly and easily build out an app across multiple smart device platforms? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for us to concentrate only in the areas where we add value as a human being, like designing the best layout for a particular device, and let technology generate the code?

As economic challenges mount, I believe there is tremendous opportunity to increase automation and omit some of the repetition in the software development process. Even though an app is coded differently for each device, all versions solve the exact same business problem. And we shouldn’t have to start from ground zero as we build each one.

Technology will continue to evolve and surprise us –we just need to find more cost-effective ways to harness it. Increasing automation in the development process is key.

We are witnessing the next wave in technology, and I’m excited to be playing a role in it.

G2W and XPM at GUG - Itajaí, Brasil

2011-02-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Dvfacto/GeneXus USA and DVelop have participated last wednesday 23th february of the Itajai GUG - Brazil, which was organized by BXT - Business Xtreme Technologies.

This time Anya Wainberg from Dvfacto presented G2W - Go to Web (www.genexususa.com/g2w), tool designed for automatic conversions of GeneXus Win or Green Screen applicatoins to Web; Sebastián Jodal also from Dvfacto presented XPM - eXtreme Project Management (www.genexususa.com/xpm), framework for the management and development of software projects. On DVelop's side, Agustín Napoleone and Eugenia Alvarez presented WorkWithPlus (www.workwithplus.com), pattern designed to increase productivity in the GeneXus Web Development.

During he presentations the main features and beneffits of the tools were explained (which are detailed down on this article), as well as there were some news. Let's see...

G2W converts simple problems in a simple way and transforms complex problems in an intelligent way.
Some of the complex problems that were mentioned are the Screen Conversion, through learning and being able to abstract information about the screens; about the intelligent solutions applied to the prompts problem as well as stateless.

G2W Challenge was released! The G2W Challenge is an opportunity to convert a small set of complex objects completely for free with G2W, by Dvfacto/GeneXus USA. For more information please write to us to g2w@genexususa.com.

About XPM, it was exposed how XPM increases productivity during the whole project, improving the productivity for each team member, no matter the role.

XPM increases team productivity:
- Integrating
- Automating
- Supporting changes
- Effectively communicating
- Supporting learning
- Planning
For more information about XPM contact us to xpm@genexususa.com.

The whole team thanks Roque and Reginaldo for their active participation relative to XPM and G2W. www.genexususa.com

G2W patterns

2011-02-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

is a tool created by GeneXus USA to automatically convert win or green applications to web. One of the main complexities of the automatic conversion relies on the screen, specifically the windows screen conversion to web. There are many elements that users include on a windows screen and one of the main advantages of G2W is how it converts the screens preserving the layout of all those elements.

However one of the issues that kept Daniel Coellar, Product Manager of G2W, thinking was how to learn more about those screens and do more with that knowledge?
The answer came in the form a pattern.

Early on, in G2W it was clear that the focus of the tool was automatic conversion to web. One of the objectives of G2W was to provide a metadata that encapsulates all the converted knowledge so other patterns in the market could eventually consume it. We are actually very actively working with dVelop to make this a reality.

However in the process of creating this metadata it was clear that we needed to develop our own pattern to prove the concept, thus G2W patterns were born.

G2W patterns is a set of patterns, created by
GeneXus USA, that simplifies the maintenance of the converted application so it can maintained manipulating a pattern.
The objective of these patterns is to provide an easier and more fun way for the GeneXus developers to maintain their G2W converted applications.

The G2W patterns set are composed by WebFormDesigner and WorkWithDesigner; it is not sold separately from G2W projects, as it is included for free in the G2W conversion projects.

WebFormDesigner

The WebformDesigner pattern is part of the G2W patterns set; its purpose is to build the WebForms of the WebPanels dynamically managing the forms and logic entirely or by parts.
It not only gives flexibility and velocity for extending the converted objects, but it also allows developing in a pattern oriented way by providing GeneXus users of an important set of controls in order to maintain the webform of a webpanel and the web-logic as well as create new ones.

--> Versatility
It is possible to define if the webform will be managed entirely by the WebFormDesigner pattern instance, or if the webform will contain a set of components from which some of them will be designed and maintained by using the pattern. We call it the “Scope” and it can be either “Full Screen” or “Components”.

FullScreen

Selecting a FullScreen Scope lets the pattern build all the WebForm* according to the constructed Webform Tree.

Components

Selecting a Components Scope makes the pattern manage only the wfdFormContainer controls located in the WebForm of the pattern.

--> Flexibility

The WebFormDesigner pattern can handle with all the regular controls; furthermore, it allows to add more than one control per cell, which means that, although it has a high level of abstraction, it also has the flexibility of adding cells directly to the form tree representation of the pattern instance and to add more than only one control to it.

WebFormDesigner pattern flexibility is also reflected on the possibility to add new controls to the webform which not necessarily need to be part of the pattern. How to achieve that? With the UserTable control.

The UserTable Control allows creating a portion of the WebForm that will not be controlled or managed by the pattern instance. Inside a user table it is possible to add whatsoever control, including controls that do not belong to the pattern. Everything inside the UserTable control will be added directly in the WebForm of the WebPanel and it will not be changed by the pattern instance.

This control has a similar behavior that the Components Scope has; it is possible to build the screen with the pattern but a part of it (everything inside the UserTable is not managed by the pattern.

--> Abstraction

SmartTable and equivalents
The smart table is a very important control for the WebFormDesigner pattern. The smart table is not only a controls container, but it has intelligence to draw its controls with specific characteristics. It is a table extension with certain predetermined behaviors.

The WebForm, SmartGrid and Tabs nodes are SmartTable equivalents; this means that, apart from their specialized functionality, they also provide all the features of the SmartTable.

SmartGrid - The SmartGrid is an intelligent grid that not only provides of a simple grid, but it also lets you add the Orders of the grid (based on what attributes the grid will be ordered), the Filters of the grid (which attributes will appear as filters in order to look for specific data in the grid) as well as the conditions associated to the filters, and the Actions that will be associated to the grid.

Image: Example of a SmartGrid structure in a pattern instance

Tabs - This control lets you manage a set of different tabs in the screen.
The Tabs control allows adding different tabs in order to distribute the controls in the WebForm as having a set of tabs in the WebForm.

XPM Windows Phone 7 version released!!

2011-02-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

We are happy to announce that XPM has been released in the WP7 Marketplace, you can download it by searching “XPM”.

The features that are included in this first version are the following:

• Filter Work Items by Project and Version
• Filter Work Items by Status and Assignee
• Create a new Work Item
• View Work Item details (Description, Reported Date, Updated Date , Assignee, etc.)
• View Work Item Tracking
• Search Work Item by description or Id
• Create a new tracking for a Work Item
• Approve/Reject a Work Item

Learn how to use it here:

XPM WP7 User Guide

We appreciate any feedback, review or comments that can help us provide more functionality for the upcoming versions.

Thanks,
XPM Team

GeneXus Demo to The Illinois Software Development Community and the C# .Net User Group (CSNUG)

2010-12-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

The Illinois Software Development Community and the C# .Net User Group (CSNUG) is pleased to announce that at the December (Sunday, December 12th @ 1PM) SDC meeting Carlos Canessa from GeneXus USA will be presenting their intelligent tool for automatically creating, developing and maintaining multi-platform, mission critical applications that can be easily adapted to changes in the business and new opportunities provided by technological evolution. Although GeneXus is a powerful, multi-platform software design and development tool that enables truly incremental development of business critical applications, Carlos will be demonstrating the power of GeneXus by generating an ASP.Net solution in C#! As a takeaway from this presentation you’ll see how GeneXus allows developers to develop more and faster than ever before.

GeneXus will be demonstrated at the Fox Valley Computing Professionals

2010-11-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

GeneXus USA will be demonstrated at the Fox Valley Computing Professionals meeting, Tuesday, Nov 9 at 7 pm in Warrenville, IL. Three of the Chicago-land area GeneXus customers will also be there to share the experiences with GeneXus. The Smart Devices Generator that just went into its beta release will also be previewed.

http://foxvalleycp.com/
http://www.meetup.com/foxvalleycp/

We are supporting the GeneXus site at StackExchange!

2010-09-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/19860/genexus?referrer=KMLbdMnqgdMZmlX1zKZzfg2

VFP Developers’ Conference

2010-09-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

GeneXus USA and one of our customer's, will be attending and exhibiting at the VFP Developers’ Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona - October 14-17, 2010.

GeneXus Sessions
http://www.swfox.net/exhibitorsessions.aspx

Schedule Overivew
http://www.swfox.net/schedule.aspx.

XPM iPhone version released!!

2010-05-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce that XPM has been released in the Apple Store, you can download it by searching “XPM”.

The features that are included in this first version are the following:

• Filter Work Items by Project and Version
• Filter Work Items by Status and Assignee
• Create a new Work Item
• View Work Item details (Description, Reported Date, Updated Date , Assignee, etc.)
• View Work Item Tracking
• Search Work Item by description or Id
• Create a new tracking for a Work Item
• Change priority to a Work Item
• Approve/Reject a Work Item

Learn how to use it here:

iPhone User Manual

We appreciate any feedback, review or comments that can help us provide more functionality for the upcoming versions.

Thanks,
XPM Team

Need some GeneXus X training?

2010-05-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

GeneXus USA has scheduled a remote instructor-led training for the week of June 14-18 & June 21-25 June. The training will be from Monday – Friday 8:30-12:30 in a virtual classroom Webx setting. This is a great opportunity to get trained in the latest version of GeneXus, and be trained from the comfort of your office :), vs. traveling to Chicago (even though Chicago is the greatest city to live....) Contact us today about this special offer at gxinfo@genexus.com.

XPM Beta Released!!

2010-04-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that we have started the beta process with customers that signed up at http://www.xpm4gx.com/

This Beta release represents a big milestone towards the launch of XPM in the Azure Cloud (soon to be released) and we would like to thank our beta testers for helping us on growing XPM!

This Beta version also comes with two free features:

XPM Add-Ins:

•GeneXus IDE: If you are a developer, you will love this Add-In since it allows you to work on all the Work Items assigned to you without having to login to the XPM site!

•Microsoft Word: This Add-In is mainly focused on Business Analysts who like to write specs in Word and then associate them to Work Items in XPM.

•Microsoft Project: Not available yet but coming soon!!

iPhone Client

•We are in the process of the final testing and it will be in the Apple Store very soon. In this first version you will be able to see the Work Item list and perform many of the features provided in the XPM site.

To learn more about XPM and XPM Add-Ins please visit us at:

http://tools.genexususa.com/gxwiki/hwiki.aspx?Wiki+Home

Thanks,
XPM Team

The Core

2010-03-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

(This post is an answer to several questions that we received about the Core - in this blog, in the GxNews or by email - after Anya's post about The Core)

First of all, let me say that we are excited about all of the interest that the Core generated. It was always our intention to share part of the Core, because we think it is something that can help customers to get started working with GeneXus projects, which strengthens our community. With the Basic Core and the WorkWith Pattern it is easy to get started in a real application quickly and we think this is a good way to get more people involved/excited about how easy it is to build applications with GeneXus.

With that said, we have two problems that somehow have prevented us from releasing this to the community:

1) The basic Core is not a "product". There are some things that are done today in a "quick & dirty" way - i.e. all the initialization of pages -. We intend to do in a better way, but the time did not present itself yet. There are some functionalities that should be there if this was to be considered as a product (i.e. a user interface to define rights for the different roles over the pages/menus) -, but they are not there because we didn’t need them yet, so they were not implemented yet. The Basic-Core is not “complete”.

2) The Basic Core is a subset of our Core. Our Core has additional modules - that we considered more specialized and that somehow capture some of our practices on how to handle certain functionality - but they are not as widespread as it can be security and navigation. For example we are working in adding a notification module that defines events, alerts and notifications and allows users to subscribe to notifications, etc. All our applications use some type of notifications and we thought this was a good addition to our Core. We also have in our Core error-codes (in order to allow end-users to customize the error messages that the system displays, and allow them to write up the solution of the error which works as a user-guide on line). Error codes could be associated with the notification module in order to raise alerts if an error code happens, etc. We did not plan to share - at least for free - the complete Core, just the basic one that contains the widespread functionality.

So, up to this point we were kind of stuck without making a decision... and then Anya wrote an article in the blog... and then it turns out that there are many people that would be interested in having the some type of Core. So we decided that implementation problems should not prevent us from our final goal that was to share this and help strengthening the community. So the idea is the following:

Basic Core
We will share this in the public GeneXus Server (under some open-source license to be defined). We used an extended version of the WW-Pattern to generate the objects so we have to decide if we will move them to the standard one or release the extended version of the WW Pattern with this. Regardless it will be there for free, but we will not maintain it. Everybody is welcome to participate and extend it and collaborate, we will not officially support or update it. We will answer support questions if asked in English and in a public site - preferably stackoverflow (under GXUSA-BasicCore tag).

Advanced Core
We will have the Advanced Core as a service that you can subscribe to. The Advanced Core will be distributed using the propagate option so you can customize and later on integrate our updates to it using the Change Defender.

Again, this is not a product but instead it is more like a service, in the sense that we do not have a "fits all needs security module" or "all scenarios covered notifications module". The Core grows as we need it to grow and you can subscribe to this. Under the subscription mode - the support mode will be the same as the basic Core - we will use a publish site that will be written in English (if you want to submit a question in another language email it and we can translate from Spanish or Portuguese, but we want to keep the public support in English only). In this case the tag should be GXUSA-Core.

We will have more information about this here soon.

Thanks for your interest!
-Laura

To reuse or to redo.. that’s the question…

2010-02-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

Redoing recreation….
When we were children we used to watch repeatedly that movie we enjoyed so much, we used to read over and over again that book that was so fun for us before sleeping. We loved to play once and then again the games… and we still do that. We still enjoy going to eat at the same restaurant, visiting the same friends, playing the same sport, listening to the same music etc.
It is very enjoyable for us to “redo” some aspects of our lives, we like it, we do it and redo it, and we feel happy about that, don’t we?

Redoing work…

Didn’t we listen or say something similar to this before? “Oh no! There is no milk in the refrigerator, I have to go again to the supermarket!” – or – “I wish I had a robot to prepare my coffee, to bake a cake every morning, to dress my children and take them to school, laundry”…

We “redo” everyday a lot of tasks that we do NOT enjoy and we would prefer them to be already done, wouldn’t we?

A solution not to redo what we don’t like to: REUSING
When developing and analyzing web applications we realized there are certain common problems for all web applications, even if the ways of solving them are different.
As a result of that, when we start to develop a new web application, we need to develop the same components we have done repeatedly before, in order to assure that the “common problems” will be solved for this new web application too. So we need to REDO; we don’t like that, and maybe we can’t do that because time is precious and it is not possible for us to spend so much time doing something we have already done so many times in the past.
So, we ask ourselves what would happen if we had “that robot” to “redo” all this solution for us? Maybe, to prepare coffee or to fry an egg it’s not affordable to have or maintain a robot; maybe we cannot buy a machine to redo for us a complex task. But, what about redoing something that can be saved and reused without effort?

The GeneXus USA CORE

GeneXus USA has developed a GeneXus core module which is used at the beginning of every web application project. It is a set of Transactions, Tables, WebPanels, Procedures, Structured Data Types; a set of basic developed functionalities very useful for all applications. It is “table driven.”
The driving forces for creating Core were SECURITY, Menus, and to save time. Core still lets developers customize their application for their particular application by simply implementing some GeneXus objects that will be explained.

A very simple example
Starting a new KB with a very important base: the Core, I have created three very simple transactions and applied to them the Work With Pattern. Now that I have my web application, I would like to make it a secure web application; so I will reuse the core security module and by implementing a very simple set of procedures my web application will be ready to be used by different users, with different roles and permissions!

What did I have to do?

1. Initialize/Create all the pages
2. Initialize/Create the application Roles
3. Add pages to Roles
4. Create Users
5. Add Users to Roles
6. Add menu/submenu
7. Set the application parms
8. Prepare and run the RoRunOnce routines

1. Initialize/Create all the pages

We call initialize a page to add a reference to the page into the system database. A page can be either a Transaction, Webpanel, Report or a WebComponent.

The core provides a “Pages” table where the system checks the security for each page. In other words, security is defined by page. In order to do this all the pages must be defined in the system using a procedure. By default the core will load its own pages in the page-table but each application will need to create their own pages in this table.

If we have a lot of different “pages” that conceptually are different modules, we should create a special procedure for each module that inserts into the Pages table (CePages) the reference for the transactions I have created. It also adds the reference for all the pages that were automatically generated for the Client, Invoice and Product by applying to them the WorkWith Pattern.

2. Initialize/Create the application Roles

Core comes with two preset roles: ADMIN and Root.
In the majority of the cases, these 2 roles are not enough for our application purposes; that’s why we could need to have a bigger set of roles. In order to easily achieve that, the core has a “Roles” table which saves for the system the different accessible roles (by default it comes with ADMIN and Root).

I have created a procedure that inserts into the Roles table (CeRoles) the reference for two new different roles.

3. Add pages to Roles
Once we have defined the pages and the roles our application will have, we need to tell the system what their relationships will be. In other words, which roles will be able to access which pages.

4. Create Users
The core already comes with pre-defined ADMIN and SYSTEM users, which are allowed to use all the pages of the system. Both are saved into the Users table (CeUsers) from where the system takes the information for the login.

If we want to add more users to the system, we can do it either at the beginning of the project, by adding the information from a procedure (like in the previous examples), or by inserting them manually with the WorkWithUsers webpage on the web application.

We recommend inserting them by a procedure in order to be able to reproduce it in a specific case.
I have created for this kb two users in order to make the first one have the first role I had added, and the same for the second user with the second role.

5. Add Users to Roles
Once users and roles are ready, it is time to tell the system which users will be configured for which roles.

6. Add menu/submenu
The core implements a User control (JSCookMenu) and it comes with a predefined menu.
The “predefined” menu is a dynamic menu that loads it titles and links from a “Menu” table (CeMenu).
If we want to add menu tittles with their submenus and links, we have to create a set of procedures that initialize that information into the CeMenu table, in order to load that information at the beginning.

7. Set the application parms
The core uses a “Parameters” table (a very often-used and known concept for applications) that already comes pre-loaded with some useful parameters.
If needed, we can add more parameters to that table and simply access them from anywhere by calling the related procedures (already developed into the core) to access, delete or update any parameter.

8. Prepare and run the RoRunOnce routines
Once we have defined all the settings that we need in order to customize the security of our web application, we need to call all the procedures that initialize the information, from a unique webpanel that will be called just once, before starting to use the system.
Therefore the name of the webpanel: RORunOnce.

The RORunOnce webpanel is the one in charge of loading all the preset information into the system. Once it has been run, the system is ready to be used with security and menus!

My top 3 User Controls

2010-02-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

The User Controls start with GeneXus X. Basically a user control is a control that encapsulates the presentation layer of a given functionality.

User controls are extremely easy to use and any person with a very few knowledge in JavaScript or HTML can build there own user control.

With the release of GeneXus Evolution 1, there was an explosion of user controls in the GX Community. The Community started developing not only user controls, but also developed libraries of User Controls. The user controls are not only just a simply menu or chart, they become controls with very complex functionality.

Nowadays there are around a hundred of user controls, and I want to share my 3 preferred ones.

Query Viewer

The query viewer is used to display, in a web form, the result of a Query Object or a Data Provider. It has several visualization options, such as pivot table, table or chart and this property can be changed on run-time. With the QueryViewer User Control and the Query Object we can achieve very complex queries in a very simple way. We just need to define a query objectand we use the query viewer to show the result of the query.

Here is an example of how easy is to use it.

First define the query on a Query Object:

After we have the query defined we need to drag and drop the query viewer user control from the user control section on the toolbox to a web form and set the Object we want to use for the query, for this example, we choose the Query Object KPI_Cost.

That is all we need to do to display something like this:

With the query viewer and the query object we can create and display very complex queries like the following in a few steps.

As a reference here is the link to the query viewer control in the wiki. There you will find a full explanation on how to use it and several examples.

http://wiki.gxtechnical.com/commwiki/servlet/hwiki?Query+Viewer+Control,

GXScheduler

The GXScheduler user control allows managing a schedule of chronological events. As most calendars, there are three different views; by day, by week or by month.

Apart from showing the calendar events in a very nice and modern way, it is also extremely user friendly as it allows to add, edit and delete the calendar events directly from there. As an example, the user in order to create a new event, just needs to click over the date on where he/she wants to put the event. This is a clear example of how the user controls are not just anymore a simple chart or image gallery.

This UC provides a very complex functionality and is also extremely easy to use.

In order to use it, we just need to create a data provider from the data that we are loading into the calendar. After that we need to drag and drop the UC to a web form and we set the Data Provider, then we need to set the property LoadEventObject of the user control.

As a reference here is the link to the GXScheduler control in the wiki. There you will find a full explanation on how to use it and several examples.

http://wiki.gxtechnical.com/commwiki/servlet/hwiki?Scheduler+User+Control,

gxui Library

The gxui Library has 11 user controls, most of them are used to create cool and user friendly user interfaces.
Which are: gxui.EventObject, gxui.Grid, gxui.Layout, gxui.Menu, gxui.Message, gxui.Panel, gxui.Settings, gxui.TabPanel, gxui.Toolbar, gxui.Treeview and gxui.Viewport.

The gxui.Grid is a very powerful grid in which you can sort for each column, hide and show the columns at run-time, interchange the columns, or (display in this example) swap the Price column with the Change column. It also allows multiple row selection. It has a search criteria section and automatic paging. This UC is not very simple to use but in GeneXus Evolution 1 we can give the appearance and functionality of the gxui.Grid just setting a property on a common grid.

Another user control from the gxui Library that I really like and use is the gxui Layout.

This UC divides the screen in 5 sections, north, south, east, center and west and the user can expand or collapse each section. Another functionality that it provides is to drag and drop a panel of each section to another section so the user has the ability to customize their own screen. In this picture there are almost all the user controls from the gxui Library.

As a reference here is the link to the gxui Library in the wiki. There you will find a full explanation on how to use it and several examples.

http://wiki.gxtechnical.com/commwiki/servlet/hwiki?Category%3Agxui+Library,

You can find a lot of documentation for user controls. Here are some useful pages on where you will find all the information you need to start using them or discover new user controls.

Each time you are going to start a new development or feature, take your time to see if there is a user control that already solves what you need to do, you will save a lot of time!

Wiki user control page:
http://wiki.gxtechnical.com/commwiki/servlet/hwiki?Category%3AUser+Controls,

Gallery:
http://gallery.genexus.com/

User Control samples:
http://wiki.gxtechnical.com/commwiki/servlet/hwiki?GeneXus+Live+Samples,

In reply to Harry's XPM questions...

2010-02-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

This post started as an answer to one comment posted by Harry, but then I thought it was better to publish this in the main-stream, so it does not get lost in the comments section that currently is not being used that much.

XPM & qControl

Harry: How does XPM relate with qControl

[Note: qControl is the tool that we currently use for issue-tracking]

XPM supersedes qControl. In truth XPM was developed from qControl but we changed the name and not just the version because in many ways it is a different product. It has a more flexible/open design, a complete redesign of the UI, etc -. We will stop using qControl soon.

XPM & SCRUM

Harry: How can we merge this technology (XPM) with agile methodlogies (ie SCRUM)?

XPM is not tied to a specific methodology though it is influenced by the methodology that we follow in-house to track our projects, so it does support an agile-development process. The issue-tracking module in XPM really allows you to use the methodology that you want (though you will not see labels that are related to that methodology, i.e. in XPM we have a "work-item list" insted of SCRUM'S "backlog").

Our idea was to create something that is open enough that it supports different scenarios/methodologies. If your team follows SCRUM you would need to do some mappings between SCRUM concepts and XPM's - for example in SCRUM you might define that a task in the backlog has a low fidelity (i.e. it is a 'vague wish') that would prevent this task to be part of the 'sprint-backlog', until it is properly defined etc. In XPM you would handle this with different statuses of the work-item (i.e. if it needs to be specified it will be in status 'To-Specify', if the functionality is not really clear and cannot be specified yet because it is a vague wish it would be in status 'To-Review' etc.. The list of possible statuses in XPM can be defined so the descriptions and the steps are up to you)-.

Similar to SCRUM, each item in our work-list is really anything that needs to be done (i.e. software functionality, marketing, non-functional requirements, etc). You can define work-item types and categories to classify them in case you want to assign the work-items based on that. We do have the idea of priorities that can be used to define what's in the sprint or what's in the product backlog.

XPM allows all the team members to participate and gives different rights to different roles - so for example you could have the Product Owner and Business Owner or the Scrum Master (those would be your roles) with the ability to update priority but do not give that ability to Scrum-Team-Members.

We also have the idea of releases that include all the Work-Items that are ready to be deployed depending on the environment (i.e. release for testing, release for QA, release for Prod). We do not associate the work-items with a specific sprint but we could do so and maybe it is actually a good idea, because currently we know what we deployed and when, but many times the work-items that are reopened and maybe it is interesting to see by cycle which work-items were new and which ones re-opened from a previous sprint/cycle.

I never participated in a SCRUM team so personally I'm not familiar with the tools they use. I know that there's probably nothing that prevents you from following this methodology using XPM but I do not know if there's anything that would facilitate its use that we don't do (i.e. A very important part of the SCRUM process is the backlog grooming, so maybe assign tasks to different team members depending on the type of task (marketing plan, test, functional-spec) is something that is very important for a SCRUM-tool and XPM does not have this ability. Currently XPM allows you to route tasks depending on the status (i.e. if the item has to be specified it goes to the team member that knows how to specify, if it has to be programmed it will go to the default developer, if it has to be tested to the default tester, etc .. and of course the defaults can be overruled).

I you are aware of features that a SCRUM tool 'must have' and you want to share that with us, we will be more than happy to consider them and if possible include them in our initial release

XPM & The Gaps

Harry: I have been thinking about how I can improve my own PM tasks, but I always end up needing a tool that is either unavailable or not cost-effective. I am hoping XPM can fill the gaps.

We felt the same way and that is why we were convinced that we needed to build our own tool.

The gaps that we experienced the most were the gaps between the methodology/concepts to the actual practice using the tools available. In the sense that currently our team members need to work and then go to QControl (our current issue tracking software) to record on that they worked (i.e. a developer programs an issue and then goes to QControl to change the status of the issue to indicate that it is completed, etc).

Everybody in our team reports hours in qControl but we do the value-analysis in MSProject so we need to export the hours-reported in qControl and enter it in MS-Project to be able to have status reports regarding the plan. We need to keep these two tools in synch so that MS-Projects has all the issues reported in XPM and so that XPM has all the dates/information that is calculated by MS-Projects.

We write specs in MS Word or in the wiki and then we manually indicate the link to the documentation in the issue. We have some information in qControl (the tracking notes) and some information in the documentation and sometimes we need to integrate or maintain both in synch.

There are lots of tools to do different parts of the work but no real integration to become one seamless task to you our daily job.

To improve our methodologies and manage better our projects we need information, but we needed to find a way so maintaining that information did not become more costly than the value of it. For that we needed to make it easy for every team member to provide the information.

We wanted for every member to provide all the information the team needs right from the place they spent most of their effort. If I'm a developer, I work on my KB, that is where I code, therefore right from there I should be able to see my task-list, to indicate when I’m done, commit my changes to others and from his effort the system should be smart enough to know which issue is ready, which objects were changed for that issue and how long it took (or at least suggest it). We were able to do all this in XPM thanks to the integration features in XML. The integration with Genexus and with the GXServer for us are one of the best features of XPM (even though you can use XPM to manage a team using other development tools, as you can use any issue-tracking tool).

A similar thing happens with the project managers. One of the main tasks of the project managers is to write requirements, specifications and other documents. So in this task there two main objectives combined write and share. Somehow it seems that those objectives are mutually exclusive. Great tools to write like Word are not very good for sharing and collaborating in documents. Tools like the wiki that are great for collaborating are not that great to write. So again integrating we want to have the best of both works. We want to be able in write in powerful word editor like MS Word but publish in tools like the wiki. So we are planning in adding the ability to 'wikify' a document automatically so you can write the documents in MS Word and let XPM “wikify it” by creating automatically the wiki-page (or pages) and link each work-item with its wiki-page.

Basically we want to integrate, coordinate and track all the work that we do from the place we are more comfortable in (or we spend most of our time). For sure there are more gaps that we want to bridge, and we hope to do so in the future (i.e. the process of going from design/diagrams to specs/work-items). Also in this regard we welcome any ideas that you might want to share :)

Help Us Help You!

2010-01-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

One of our goals for 2010 is to grow the English-speaking GeneXus community, particularly the USA community. A few days after our last event in Chicago, we were talking about how nice it was, that in a way, the events feel like a family reunion. It is always good to get together with familiar faces, see what everybody is doing and have a chance to catch up. In one hand the 'family feeling' is a great thing, but on the other hand it also means that our community is small. And if we view our community as a family, I cannot avoid thinking that a family that gets together/keeps in touch only once a year is not a very strong one. So we want to change that.

One of the opor-threats (opportunities and threats) mentioned by Nicolas Jodal in the USA event was that it’s in our nature to be connected with others. Even if it is in our nature, maybe it is not - or it has not been - one of our strengths to know how to promote the connections between the members of our community. But we want to and we know we must do it, and this blog is just one attempt at achieving our goal. We want to create spaces to communicate with the community and share ideas, what we are thinking, what we are doing, where we are going, lessons learned, keep in touch, etc.

The blog is probably not enough, but it is a start. We've been posting for a while, rotating the writers and each of us writes about what they think might be interesting but one question is always in our minds is….. what do *you* think is interesting?

So maybe we should ask you :)

Internally we debate about which community tools and sites we should promote, and if we should build on top of the current GeneXus community - which has a big portion of its content in Spanish - or if we should somehow have an environment that is English only. We debate about this because the Spanish community is very big, and many of them (including Artech of course) produce most of its content in English already, but it is still mixed with Spanish and we think that is a problem for you. So we ask, is it really? Would you prefer to have an English only community even if smaller?

We also debate about the platforms/community tools we should use... Here is a current list of GeneXus communication groups:

linked-in: There's a GeneXus Community group and a GeneXus USA (only in English) group but its does not have a lot of activity right now

facebook: There's a GeneXus group - with about 507 fans where the GeneXus news is posted. Most of the activity is related with the events.

tweeter: You can follow http://twitter.com/GeneXus though it is also mostly the GeneXus news repeated again

blogs: There are no blogs that we know of about GeneXus, or GeneXus related, in the English community. There are many interesting ones but in Spanish

forums or user groups: Except the GeneXus forums run by Artech we are not aware of any other forum/user group that has a lot of activity. There was a proposal from some of the community members to start using stackoverflow but there's no activity there right now.

So which one should we focus on? All of them? When you need to reach out to the GeneXus community or support sites what do you use? What would you like to use? What kind of things do you look for?

Whenever we think about how to grow our community we have a lot of ideas but more questions. We like the fact that we feel like a family, because that should make building something together easier. But communities are not nurtured by one member only. So we've been debating what is the best approach and what is the best direction for us in order to increase the community ties.

Maybe we are making a typical mistake, getting stuck in the technology discussion without getting to the essence of the matter, the best technology is defined by the one that satisfies the need best... "Increasing the community ties" is the ultimate need or goal but that is too general... I think we have to start with the requirements. We need to understand your needs. We need you to help us help you. Ok, I just wanted to use that sentence because I like it ;) In this case is not exactly "help you" because we are part of the community so it should be "help us" but then it was not the same ;).

So we want to invite you to participate and help us do this together.

XPM News

2010-01-04T04:45:00.000-08:00

During the 2009 GeneXus USA User Event in Chicago, we introduced our Software Project Management Tool called XPM, since then most of you have not heard more about it or do not know what we are working on at this time, so the purpose of this post is to update you with all the new features we have accomplished so far and which features are soon to be completed.

Regarding XPM web, we have been working on fixing bugs so the system is more stable, also we have been enhancing the usability of the system. The main feature we are working on right now is the dashboard (It will be shown in a future post once we have it done), we are redoing it in a collaborative effort with the GeneXus Consulting based in Artech. We have heard many of the needs of customers regarding Dashboards and based on that we are building a Dashboard that will accomplish those needs. XPM will be released in March but we will be doing a beta testing phase with some customers late January.

Now I would like to talk about the Add-Ins and other clients XPM will offer:

GeneXus Add-In

This Add-in was created so the GeneXus developers does not have to login to the XPM in order to know which Work Items have been assigned to him, read the descriptions , specifications regarding the Work Item, etc.

A GeneXus developer can read the detail of the assigned Work Item by clicking on the title column of the WI selected, soon you will be able to also see the complete specification so I will keep you posted

Also the developer can take/release a Work Item (Once he takes it, the timer start to tick and when you release it or complete it, the timer stops). The thumbs up icon will move the Work Item to the next workflow status set for that project, the thumbs down icon will send the Work Item to “Specification” status and also the developer can asks questions, doubts etc to the Front End (Project Manager).

Once the GeneXus Developer has released or complete a Work Item, a popup will appear so he can report hours in an easy way as shown in the picture. (The hours and minutes spent in that WI will be taken from the timer, also the roles, services and tasks will be loaded as from the defaults set in the XPM).

The feature to complete is to connect to GeneXus server to log all the objects changed by working on a particular Work Item , we are working on this so keep checking this blog for updates.

Microsoft Word Add-In
This Add-In was created so the Front End or Business Analyst can write specifications for a particular Work Item. The Front End will only see the Work Items in status “To Specify” and assigned to him/her, basically he/she will be able to perform many of the features shown in the GeneXus Add-In such as Take/Release and complete a WI, report hours, etc.

The features we are working on are being able to save the word document (Specification) in the XPM database and also to load specific templates to write a specification for different types of Work Item. Keep checking the blog for updates.

Microsoft Project Add-In
This Add-In was created so the Project Managers can keep a transparent relationship between Microsoft Project and the XPM so he/she will be able to perform tasks such as: Creating Project, Version, tasks (Work Items), participants from Microsoft Project to XPM.

Also the Project Manager will be able to update the EVM (Earn Value) from Microsoft Project to XPM so the Dashboard indicators can show the most updated data.

Now we are working on matching the hours reported by the developers in XPM to the assigned hours for that Work Item in the Microsoft Project.

Microsoft Outlook Add-In
The features such as creating a Work Item from an email of a customer, etc have not been implemented yet but you will hear about them in the next posts.

Note: The important thing to mention is that there is a single login for all the XPM Add-Ins, meaning that once you login in any of the Add-Ins you do not have to login again when you use a different Add-In

iPhone Client
We want that XPM be available for Project Managers, Developers, etc wherever they are and that is why we are implementing some features of XPM to be available in the iPhone. The following pictures show the Work Item Tracking where you are able to see the Work Item assigned to you and also the details about them. You can also search Work Items. In the next post you will see more about what it is coming in the iPhone for the XPM.

Happy New Year from GeneXus USA

2009-12-31T15:50:00.000-08:00

GeneXus USA Community,

From the entire GXUSA team, we wish all of you a Happy New Year, and look forward in working with all of you in 2010, building the most important applications with the tool we all love, GeneXus!

GXUSA Team

G2Wconvert: a utility to convert GeneXus green screen applications to Web

2009-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

Around June of this year, we start working, with our friends at Careworks, on the idea of building a utility to automate the conversion of their GeneXus Green Screen Application to the Web. After a few months of R&D, we ended up with a list of what we called "Conversion Issues"; on November 2th we had the opportunity to show a first demo of the utility during our User Event in Chicago, which included only one of the Conversion Issues, the Screen Conversion, which identify the different elements of a Green Screen Form and converted them into an equivalent HTML Form.

Just last week, we demo the current state of the utility, which includes many more conversion issues, so I will like to take this opportunitity to share it with all of you:

We are working now on completing the testing of all the conversion issues on this sample KB, to then move the testing to Careworks' KB on which we will be running the conversion against 3700 objects, our goal is to be able to convert their KB by the end of January 2010.

Stayed tune!!!

4 advices to start creating your User Control

2009-12-15T15:14:00.000-08:00

Of all the new features included in GeneXus X and the new Evolution 1, one of the most moving, and certainly the most visually appealing to the final user, is the inclusion of User Controls.

User Controls (or UC, for short) are wrappers that GX uses to communicate with interface objects written in different languages. Because of that wrapper, GX can invoke those objects to show whatever the developer wants to show, and those objects can reply back to our applications. Web interface veterans know that we can embed JavaScript code inside GX objects for some time now, but those solutions were often hard to maintain, extremely limited and seemed out of place inside the GX code. It is the versatility, potency, transparency and ease of use that makes UC more a necessity than just a new commodity.

GeneXus has a pretty extensive library of UC (available here) that grows daily thanks to user communit, with examples for almost every need. But even then, you may need something particular for your application, a new UC or an modification of a UC to fit your needs. Here are some pieces of advice for you to start in the journey on the User Controls’ world. Hope it helps.

1- Get used to the development interface. This is the User Control Designer. Even when the user control files can be opened with a standard text editor (save for very particular, advanced modifications), that is not the recommended approach. In this easy to use application, you can find anything you may need, from a properties definition interface, to a JavaScript editor. The application can be found in the GeneXus’ installation folder, and if you are going to modify User Controls regularly, we also advise you to create a shortcut on your desktop.

2- Start from the beginning. When exploring a new technology, it is important to start with simple examples and move all the way to the top. With this, as with anything in GX, we recommend an incremental model of development. Here you can find the classic “Hello World” example of UC. It is a pretty deep example on how to start writing a UC from the ground up. After you complete it, try to change something simple, like adding a property to set the message.

3- Research for solutions. Internet is such a rich repository of JavaScript or flash solutions, that you are likely going to find something for your need out there. Integrating a JavaScript solution to a UC is really easy, and can be both a good way of learning, and a solution to your problems. However, we do not endorse piracy, so please ask for permission before using the code, and include the proper copyright notes in your code.

4- Share your success and problems. The GeneXus forums and gallery is a growing community that benefits for every active user. There are some forums in English and other languages specific for user controls, both geared toward the use and development. If you have any problem feel free to ask, as that is how the UC GX Community will grow. So starting developing your UC today, and we look forward to seeing your solutions in the gallery.

Developing Web applications with GeneXus X Ev1 is as easy as it was to develop WIN application with previous versions

2009-12-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

After working with GeneXus X Ev1 for sometime now, I can say, “Thanks Artech” Why? The answer is very simple: “My life as a GeneXus developer is EASY again.” Now developing Web applications with GeneXus X Ev1 is as easy as it was to develop WIN applications with previous version.

There are many reasons why I do like the new GeneXus version:

· Great new IDE

· Full text search

· Extensions

· User Controls

· Data Selectors

· Data providers

But the one I like most is USER CONTROLS. With users controls now we can go and develop a full Web 2.0 application, adding a lot of cool stuff, just by doing a drag & drop of the user controls we need, and just a simple configuration after that, with previous versions it was much more complicated.

An example of this, let’s talk about adding a Drop Down menu, or trying to open a popup window, or having a webpanel to be displayed only with a mouse over. All this things and much more can be done with GeneXus 9.0, but not in a simple way, to do it in Gx 9.0, we must do the following...

· add a textblock to the webpanel

· change the format property to HTML

· add in the start event a textblock.visible = 0

· and finally add to the caption of the textblock all the JavaScript code

I remember adding the JSCookMenu to an application I developed about two years ago, and it took me an entire week to have the menu running. So I tried the exact same thing with GeneXus X Ev1 and it took me only less then a day, to have the same menu up and running, and all I had to do was drag & drop the JSCookMenu User Control, load a Data Provider, and I was Smiling. So now in GeneXus Ev1 we have lots of user controls, that we can add to our applications, without having to learn another development language (JavaScript).

So my personal recommendation is, if you can move to GeneXus X Ev1, do it ASAP, you will have no regrets and be a ton more productive! As usual KB conversion are sometimes difficult and can be complicated, but in the end you will be much happier, and if you are planning to start any new development of a web application even better.

Planning vs Reality - XPM solution, a way of work

2009-11-23T15:43:00.000-08:00

When we are planning how we want to work, we imagine a lot of ideal tasks and activities, we plan them in order and then we estimate how long the effort will take.
Everything seems that will perfectly fall in place; ordered and planned. Everybody has its own set of tasks, roles and responsibilities, with different steps or iterations defined.
But then we crash against reality, reality is not an orderly process, reality does not follow strict pre-set plans.

Some time ago a colleague told me something interesting which I applied for many aspects of my life: "Reality is dynamic".
This phrase doesn’t mean we don't need to plan, but it means we also have to manage. Knowing that our ideal plans will not be perfectly followed (not because we don't have an organized team, but because reality won't let us follow our perfect pre-set plan) we have to prevent the differences between the plan, the schedules and the reality. We have to prevent and manage the risks of each task and step.

But how can we do that? We need to measure our performance, we need to understand how we work and what things that can happen during a project which will affect the schedule, the plan and as a result the deliverable time or even make a project fail, are.

Now the questions remain; where do we take that data from? And what can we do with that data?
In order to acquire the knowledge to manage reality, we first need to learn from it. We need to record our results (our work, how long we work in each activity, etc.). However that is not enough, a good team needs to be highly communicated so that every team member can achieve the member’s goals, while at the same time helping the others also meet their objectives. In other words, each member will record his interaction with the project, in order to let the rest of the team know the status of his work. These "things" that "happen" through the course of the project are what we call "work items". We need to record and track the work items in order to acquire knowledge about problems, new ideas, successes and failures at any point of the project.

So, if you read up to here you might be thinking that if we record and communicate we are ready to manage and to plan; well not really. We still need to transform data into information. By transforming the recorded data into information we can study and analyze the "past experience" in order to predict and plan better. Besides, we are better prepared to manage risks and problems, and to manage reality versus plans.

With our new XPM tool, we are getting into a new generation of projects, we are making project management and project planning easier and more interactive.
We are letting team members focus on their real responsibilities (their role tasks) and bringing information to the managers in order to decide better and know more about the team, clients and projects reality.

XPM brings a set of Office add-ins to let all team members (including managers) record their project interaction in a simple way. XPM lets managers plan and manage risks and reality by simply transforming data to useful and rich information.

As a result, we become aware that our working routines need to change, as XPM is not just a tool, but a new way of work.

My top 5 of GeneXus X Evolution 1

2009-11-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

GeneXus X Evolution 1, the new version of GeneXus released a few months ago has many new features, but in this post I would like to summarize them from my point of view, making an overview of the top 5 characteristics and/or features available in this new version.

1) Extensibility: User Controls and GXextensions

In addition to the standard controls provided by GeneXus, you can create your own custom controls! This helps you to build rich, powerful and interactive web applications, giving you the possibility to integrate any control you may need and use it as you use any standard control.

On the other hand, GXextensions gives you the possibility to add packages to GeneXus since GeneXus development environment is an extensible IDE. Patterns for instance are implemented as GXextensions but you can also implement your own extensions like defining new object types, add part to existing objects, define new properties for any object type, add your own menu options and more...

2) Team Development: GeneXus Server.

GeneXus Server is a new product that makes team development easier. The knowledge base can now be centralized by using GeneXus Server, even if its members are in different geographic locations.

Besides, I would also like to mention a new feature that makes a quite complicated task like application customization easier than ever, Change Defender. This new technology helps you to propagate the changes of your Knowledge Base and then import changes done by your customers without loosing any changes you may have made to the Knowledge Base.

3) Developer Experience: A new IDE, integrated debugger and more...

GeneXus provides a new, intuitive, powerful and focused on usability IDE that enhances the developer experience. It also has now a fully integrated debugger, just switch from Release to Debug mode and you are ready to set your breakpoints and start debugging your code. In addition GXflow and GXquery are now fully integrated in the IDE.

4) Enterprise Level Applications:

Full web 2.0, a visualization library based on Google Visualization is available among other extended controls like GXchart, MediaPlayer, QueryViewer, Scheduler and more... Performance optimization in many areas like web and ajax, business logic, http traffic compression, etc...

5) Testing: GXtest

Testing has been an important part within the application development cycle and this new product distributed exclusively by Artech gives you the possibility to automate your tests in a very easy way.

Bonus Track: Completeness! Not only web generators but also GUI (Java, .NET, VFP), Text (RPG, Cobol) and Mobile generators have been added.

I hope that this brief summary gives you an idea of the great new features available in GeneXus X Evolution 1. Now you just need to download it from here in order to convert your current applications or create new ones taking advantage of them.

2009-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the GeneXus Community blog, where the USA community can share and exchange its experiences among fellow GeneXus users.

This blog is intended to generate communication's within the GeneXus USA community, and any suggestions are welcomed. You will find technical tips, news about GeneXus, general discussions, and much more; but if you want us to cover any specific topic please let us know.

We will keep also posted on the GeneXus USA Wiki and plans to use the Google Wave.

Thanks for your support!

GeneXus USA Team