Application Factory

Data views in an app created with Code On Time may present users with the view style called “Charts”. This view style is either enabled automatically by application at runtime or by developers at design time. The purpose of the view style is to provide instant insight into data.

If the definitions of charts are not a part of application design, then the application framework will compose up to nine charts based on the properties of fields in the data view if possible.  The app will attempt to define charts after examining the presence of lookup, date, or numeric fields in the view. First, it will try creating charts with dates as the rows, and lookups as the values. Then, it will pair a few numeric fields with a lookup.

The picture shown below displays the charts automatically created for the Orders controller of the Northwind sample application.

The automatically created definitions for all of the nine charts are shown below. Each chart is described with one or two tags that start with “pivot-“ keyword followed by properties.  The elegant simplicity of the tag language makes possible sophisticated collections of charts defined both by developers and end users.

Application framework performs efficient server-side data pivots following the tag specification. Data pivots for all charts are performed on the server simultaneously. Data pivots take into account application-level and user-defined filters.

Let’s see how each chart works.

Chart 1 – Stacked Column + Dates

This chart uses the first date field, OrderDate, as the rows. The “pivot1” property assigns the field to the pivot with ID of “1”. The “row” property sets the field as a row in the pivot, and assigns it index “1”.

The property “date” instructs the application to try several date bucket groups and choose the best one available based on the number of rows in the output. Application framework tries not to have too many or too few “date” rows in a pivot. For the dataset in the picture, the framework has produced the pivoted data as if tags “pivot1-row1-year pivot1-row2-month” were specified.

The “all” property ensures that any empty gaps in the data will be included in the pivot dimension.

The first lookup field, CustomerID, is used for the columns. The columns are sorted in descending order by the value of each column. Then, only the top five customers are kept, and the rest of them are dropped from the output. The “columnstacked” property defines the type of chart.

When a value field is not defined for the chart, a count of the first available field is used.

Chart 2 – Area + Dates

This chart uses the second date field, RequiredDate, as the rows.

The second lookup field, EmployeeID, is used for the columns, and the top seven employees sorted in descending order are used. The “area” property specifies the chart type.

Chart 3 – Column + Dates

This chart uses the third date field, ShippedDate, as the rows of the output.

The ShipVia lookup field is used, and only the top five values are kept. The type of the chart is defined as “column”.

Chart 4 – 3d Pie

The fourth chart uses CustomerID as the row values. The top ten values are displayed. The “other” property commands the server to sum up the rest of the values in an “Other” row. The type of chart is “pie3d”.

When no column field is defined, there will be only one column to display the value.

Chart 5 – Columns

The fifth chart uses EmployeeID lookup field for the rows. The top ten values are displayed, and the rest are summed up into an “Other” row. The type of chart is “column”.

Chart 6 – Line

The next chart uses the OrderDate field as the rows. The “date” property will generate multiple sets of data, differentiated by bucket size, and use the best result for the chart. The property “all” will ensure that there are no missing values in the date range. The type of chart is “line”.

Chart 7 – Columns

This chart uses the RequiredDate field for the row values. The type of chart is “column”. The server will compose multiple results and pick the best one that fits in the graph when “date” is used. The chart will not miss any gaps in dates with the “all” keyword.

Chart 8 - Area

This chart shows values grouped into rows by the ShippedDate field.

Chart 9- Donut

This chart uses the ShipVia lookup field for the rows of the result. The “top10” tag is disregarded as there are less than ten values in the result.

What is Touch UI?

Touch UI is the new user interface of single page apps (SPA) created with Code On Time database application generator. This responsive user interface is based on jQuery Mobile and adapted to work on both mobile and desktop devices with any screen size. It also integrates popular Bootstrap framework to simplify content creation and content oriented SPAs.

Choose Project Type

Touch UI is available in applications created as Azure Factory, Mobile Factory, Web App Factory, or Web Site Factory project.

End users of your application will not be able to tell its project type. 

Developers will notice that Mobile Factory and Web Site Factory project files are grouped in folders, which allows Microsoft ASP.NET to compile the code dynamically. Web App Factory project has a more complex folder structure and uses a solution file to keep track of the project components. It must be compiled in Visual Studio explicitly. These three project types can be deployed to any physical or hosted Windows Sever.

Azure Factory project type is similar to Web App Factory. It is designed specifically for deployment and hosting in Microsoft Azure as a cloud service.

The most versatile and simplest to maintain project type is Web Site Factory.

Start the app generator and create a new application by choosing the desired project type.

Framework and User Interface

Make sure that application framework is set to .NET Framework 4.5 or higher. Also select Touch UI as the user interface default option.

If you are creating your project with Unlimited edition of the app generator, then your application will support both Touch UI and Desktop UI. The secondary user interface will work with browsers that are not compatible with HTML5. Your app will automatically downgrade to desktop user interface as needed. If you choose Desktop UI as a default user interface option then Touch UI will only be activated on mobile devices.

Note that dual user interface is not supported in other product editions.

Click Next until your reach a page that allows configuring a database connection for your project.

Configuring Data Provider

 Code On Time allows creating apps straight from your database or from external data sources such as web services or file system.

The default data provider for the app is Microsoft SQL Server. A variety of other database engines is also supported.

If you are not planning to use a database engine as a source of data then choose Custom Data Provider option in the drop down.

Click on the button with three dots next to Connection String input to configure the connection string for the selected provider.

Setting Up a Sample Data Set

If you are creating a project for Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Server Express then you can configure a sample database that is used in the tutorials.

First make sure to specify your server address. If you have Microsoft SQL Express installed on your computer then make sure to enter “.\sqlexpress” without double quotes in the Server input field.

Enter Northwind in the Database input and click Create button. A confirmation will be displayed when an empty database has been created.

Select Northwind  in the drop down under Sample Tables. Click Install to create a sample data set. Wait for the confirmation to be displayed.

Add a security system to your project by clicking Add button under Membership section.

The new database with sample data is configured and you can click OK to save settings and see the application connection string parameters.

Controllers, Pages, or Empty Project

Now it is time to decide if you want the app generator to create sample data controllers and pages (single page apps) from the contents of your database.

If you are planning to build a collection of single page apps using jQuery Mobile or Bootstrap then choose only Data Controllers to generate. Consider taking advantage of the automatically created SPAs and choose Data Controllers and Pages. If the pages are not matching your needs then you can always delete them later in Project Designer.

If your plan to define data controllers later then choose Empty Project instead.

Choosing Database Tables

The app generator can created data controllers and SPAs for every table and view found in the database. This will be the case if you proceed to the Next step.

For the purpose of the tutorials click Change  next to “All database tables and views are included in this project” and choose tables listed at the bottom of the next screenshot.

New database tables and views can be added to a project later. 

Press Next until your arrive to Reporting configuration section of your project.

Reporting

Application framework  creates dynamical reports in PDF, Word, Excel, and TIFF format. Complex master-detail custom reports can also be created.

We recommend enabling reports even if you are creating SPAs with jQuery Mobile or Bootstrap without relying on data presentation capabilities of Touch UI. Reports can be defined on the server and invoked with minimal  JavaScript code via custom user interface.

Generating Application

Continue pressing Next and you will reach a page with a summary of data controllers that will be created in your project. The summary will be blank if you are creating a project with a custom data provider.

Click Generate button and wait for the  web browser window to open.

Application generator will create the source code of your project, compile it, launch IIS Express, and start the web browser with the home page address of your app loaded.

Exploring App with Touch UI

Touch UI application is a collection of pages (single page apps) that provide access to content or data. A unified navigation system allows switching between single page apps. The default application will have a single SPA called home with several virtual pages.

Click on Site Map or Instructions to transition to the corresponding virtual page of the SPA. The default transition on Android devices is “fade”. Other mobile devices and desktop computers will use “slide” transition animation.

Proceed to Instructions and click or touch Login button. Enter admin/admin123% as user identity and hit Enter key.

SPA Home will reload and three  options will be displayed in the sitemap.

Option Membership allows administrators to access user and role manager built into the app.

If you have an app created with Data Controller and Pages then the navigation menu will have numerous SPA options.

Application SPAs will provide access to data stored in database tables and views. This particular single page app allows managing employees stored in the sample database in Employees table.

Changing App Settings

Click or touch Menu button on the left side of the application toolbar. Select Settings option in the menu and change the application theme to Dark.

This is how the Membership Manager will look in Dark theme. There are 37 themes to choose from.

Touch or click Menu button again and select Logout in the slide-out drawer panel. The current SPA will reload.

The original application theme will be displayed. You are now an anonymous user and the default theme will be activated.

If the last SPA has required authorization than that application page will not be loaded. Instead user will be transitioned to the home SPA accessible to anonymous users and asked to log in.

Many application settings and features are user-configurable and stored in the local database of your browser.

Configuring Default Settings of Touch UI

You can specify default settings of Touch UI for your project such as global display density or label alignments in data-enabled SPAs.

For example, if you notice that transition animations between virtual pages are not smooth enough on the hardware of your end users than consider changing default settings for transitions. Select your project on the start page of the app generator and choose Features in the project settings.

Select Touch UI section and set Transitions to None. This will disable transitions between virtual pages of SPAs by default.

Application end users can still choose their preference for transitions on their own.

Developers can remove various settings from the user interface with a few lines of JavaScript.