Application Builder

Code On Time release 8.5.2.0 significantly improves the speed of loading of complex master-detail pages in Desktop UI and introduces new user interface options in Touch UI. Both presentation modes can now take advantage of more than 250 icons  from Bootstrap library  integrated in the generated apps. Meta-data compression reduces the size of JSON responses for requests to read data by more than 60%.

Master-Detail Pages in Desktop UI

Desktop applications with complex master-detail pages will see immediate increase in speed of initial page loading and refreshing of selected master rows and linked children. We have recently discovered that a large number of data views may lead to degradation of page rendering. One customer has close to 40 data views connected in various master-detail configurations on a single page. Application essentially uses data views to create an electronic data record giving a comprehensive understanding of a business process at a glance. Application has been created two years ago and has performed very well. Recent modifications have uncovered that the same page is rather slow when produced with newer releases of Code On Time. We have corrected the issue – the page with 40 data views loads fluidly and rapidly.

Touch UI Enhancements

This release brings the action bar to Touch UI. Compare the screenshots of Products screen presented in two different interfaces.

User interface components of Touch UI look almost identical to the Desktop presentation. If the promoted actions are turned “off” in settings then the floating “+” button will disappear and New Products action will migrate back to the action bar.

Summary views now display “See All” button with the count of records when only a subset of records is visible. Summary views also keep track of the current selection.

Also note that the page title is not displayed anymore on the toolbar if there is enough space to display at least three menu options. The title will reappear in the toolbar on devices with narrows screens. The navigation menu migrates under “menu” button on the left-hand side of application toolbar.

We are committed to transforming Touch UI in a true replacement for the legacy Desktop user interface of generated apps. Future releases will allow displaying all levels of master-detail relationships on the pages in Summary mode. This release finally introduces complete support for cascading lookups in Touch UI. We now support dynamic lookups for Drop Down List, List Box, Radio Button List, and Check Box List with full processing of Context Fields.

Icons in Actions

It is now possible to use glyphicons from Bootstrap library as icons of actions in Desktop and Touch user interface. Touch UI also supports a dedicated set of icons from jQuery Mobile. See sample icons at http://demo.codeontime.com/northwind/touch/icons.html.  Follow the link to see configuration instructions. The screenshot below shows a custom glyphicon-leaf icon in configuration of New Products action.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

Here is the list of fixes included in this release:

• Annotations are disabled in Touch UI. Multiple file upload will be implemented in the future instead of "one note" + "one file" at a time in Desktop UI.
   
• New drag & drop file upload works with annotations in Desktop UI.
   
• Desktop UI shows summary on first selection of a master row when a child view with "Show In Summary" = true is placed on a different tab.
   
• Touch UI supports creating new lookup values with context filter based on the current field values.
   
• Cascading lookup works with Drop Down List, Radio Button List, Check Box List, and List Box.
   
• Dedicated login page issue on iPad has been resolved in Touch UI.
   
• Pivot API: Quarter calculation fixed.
   
• Minifier now adds ";" to every script file as a fix for DNN script compression.
   
• Fixed transparency issues on iOS and made enhancements to the keyboard input on android.
   
• Charts: Added ICU Decimal Format support with "pivot1-val1-format:'##'" tags. Supported .NET-compatible formats are “c”, “C”, “d”, “D”, “e”, “E”, “f”, “F”, “n”, “N”, “p”, “P”, “x”, “X”.  Example of Orders chart:

EmployeeID Tag: pivot1-row1-column

Freight Tag: pivot1-val1-sum-format:'c' 

• It is now possible to use $row.FieldName and $master.FieldName syntax in business rules and various expressions instead of old syntax ([FieldName] and [master.FieldName]).
   
• Dates are correctly processed in JavaScript business rules in Touch UI.
   
• Enhanced error reporting when compiling JavaScript business rules.
   
• Data access objects correctly convert dates to Universal Time when using PageRequest to retrieve data.
   
• MySQL will hide string primary key fields of length 36 (GUID).
  
• Bug with "Remember Me Checked" in HTML page implementation has been fixed.
  
• MySQL Session State Provider will use mediumblob instead of longblob.
   
• Embedded ASP.NET membership provider for Oracle is now generated if membership feature is enabled.
   
• Membership business rules correctly handle representation of GUIDs and "bool" in Oracle databases.
   
• Synchronization command wraps primary key field names in "quotes" specific to the database engine.
   
• Membership bar extender uses "_invoke" as a path for service requests in SPA applications.
   
• Adding a GUID parameter to an SqlText or SqlProcedure will perform automatic conversion from Guid to byte[].
   
• Partial implementation of ApplicationServices class allows overriding of UserSessionStart, UserSessionEnd, InstanceStart, InstanceStop, and HandleError methods to handle session-level and application-level events. Delete ~/global.asax file to ensure that the new code is being engaged if you plan to use any of these methods.
   
• Custom Session State provider is now generated in Azure Factory, Mobile Factory, Web App Factory, and Web Site Factory projects if installed on database connection settings page of Project Wizard. Use session state provider if application is deployed in  multi-server configuration.
   
• It is now possible to have a "root" page when CMS is enabled. Give it a name “index” with blank path.
  
•  Dynamic Controller Customization in CMS now supports When-SQL and When-Test to allow data-driven customization of controllers
   
• Application framework now support VirtualControllerConditionally method. Developers can call SelectFieldValue method to inspect values of the current row when virtualizing form views.
   
• Added data view tags view-style-charts-disabled, view-style-grid-disabled, view-style-list-disabled, view-style-cards-disabled, and view-style-map-disabled to allow disablement of specific view styles.
   
• Fixed bug in Firefox and IE10 of chart context menu not opening.
  
• Data views can now be configures with the property "Tags" and "data-tags" instead of Tag and "data-tag".
   
• Site content is not visible if Role or User exceptions are detected. Previously, both "Role Exceptions" and "User Exceptions" would have enabled access to content instead.
   
• If a site content page exists in CMS and it is visible to the user then it will override the "design time" page definition. Previous implementation has been using the application-defined page even if a site content page is available.
  

Code On Time release 8.5.1.0 is a collection of several enhancements to the major release 8.5.0.0 that has introduces various enterprise components in the application framework including integrated Content Management System, Dynamic Access Control List, Dynamic Controller Customization, and Workflow Register.

CMS Setup

Now you can setup an integrated Content Management System for you app with a click of a button.

1. Navigate to Project Settings in the app generator and choose Database Connection option.
2. Click on the […] button on the right-hand side of Connection String box.
3. Scroll to Content Management System (CMS) section and click Add button.
4. Click OK and save settings of the connection string.
5. Click Finish and Refresh your project.

CMS becomes a part of your application. Login as admin and select Site Content option in the menu.

Here is the site content management screen in the app with Touch UI.

This is the same page displayed with Desktop UI.

Add an image to the content database.

Now the jelly fish is available on your website when accessed with a custom URL composed of the path and file name:

~/images/jelly-fish.jpg

You can place static content, images, sitemaps, access control rules, pages, data controller XML files, data controller customization instructions, and just about anything else you like directly into CMS. Learn to use integrated content management system now!

The content is stored in the single database table called SiteContent, SITE_CONTENT, or site_content if the CMS was installed as explained above. Application generator will create a standard data controller, which you can customize as needed. Feel free to add new columns to the site content table.

Note that the installation of CMS in this release is supported for Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. Let us know if you would like to see other databases to have a simplified setup of CMS.

Page and Script Compression

Non-hosted projects now  perform runtime compression of pages and JSON responses in SPA apps. Apps implemented with “*.aspx” page model are performing compression on page output only at this time. This new capability is available in apps with Desktop and Touch user interfaces.

JPEG Auto Rotation

Images captured on mobile devices of iOS family are preserving device orientation information in the EXIF metadata of each photo in JPEF format. Uploaded photos will display incorrectly if rotation information is not taken into account. Blob downloader of generated apps will auto-rotate and flip the photos in JPEG format by taking into account orientation of the camera recorded in the image.

Other Enhancements

Other enhancements include:

• Duplicate data fields are not created during data controller customization if an attempt is made to create an existing data field.
• Dynamic Access Control List correctly processes Tags property of data views.
• Workflow Register is now available in all product editions including free edition.
• Advanced Search form in Touch UI correctly processes dates.
• Advanced Search form  correctly handles “include” comparison option and will not raise an exception.
• SPA applications will correctly process HTML tags specified in About property of a page.
• Client library parses integer values with radix of 10 to ensure correct parsing with earlier versions of JavaScript engine.
• Application Framework activates Gregorian calendar for th-TH culture.
• CMS: Added processing of "empty" relative path in ReadSiteContent method.
• Pivot API: added "hideblank" keyword that will remove the "blank" value from that row or column.