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Every IT project involves collection of data. Development teams put a lot of thought into database design, middleware programming, business rules. Analysis of data is always somewhere a few milestones away on the project timeline. Sure the charts can make your app look good, but one needs data to feed the charts. Therefore the data analysis and charts will only become a feature of a project if it survives the initial developments stages.

Users Love Charts

Why do users love charts? The charts can tell the story that the raw data cannot.

For example, a typical list of orders hides a treasure trove of information that can be unlocked if data is pivoted, sorted, counted, and summed.  Consider the collection of charts in the screenshot below.

These charts are derived from the orders stored in the Northwind database. The master-detail form with order data is shown next.

Data fields Order Date, Employee Last Name, Ship Via Company Name, and Ship Country can truly illuminate the business processes within the Northwind mail order company.

For example, we can answer the following questions:

• Which countries are the main contributors to the sales?
• Which employee is the most productive?
• How much are shippers utilized to fulfill orders?
• Are sales getting better over time?
• Which employee is contributing the most to the expense of fulfilling orders?
• How do sales compare year over year?
• Which month can be expected to be the busiest?

The charts in the screenshot answer the questions.

Charts Are Created Automatically

Application framework has a built-in ability to recognize what data can be analyzed. “Lookup” and “date” fields are tagged to produce various charts without any need for programming.

If the compatible fields are detected than the “Charts” view style becomes available to end users. Charts are literally everywhere!

Developers can tag the fields for charting by default.  A typical “chart” tag in a data controller XML file will cause the chart above to become available when “Charts” view style is activated.

<dataField fieldName="ShipVia" aliasFieldName="ShipViaCompanyName" 
           tag="pivot1-row-pie3d"/>

The server-side code of application will pivot the data and package it in the fashion suitable for chart presentation. Application produces multiple pivots while reading the same set of records from the database.  A single request to the server will retrieve all pivots for the charts displayed when “Charts” view style is activated.

The built-in ability to pivot data can be utilized to create custom charts and data presenters.

Responsive Presentation of Charts

Charts are responsive. Users will be able to interact with charts on any device. The small form factor will cause a simple list of charts to be displayed. The height of the charts is computed based on the available width and the height of the display.

Application will try to fit as many charts as possible on screen without requiring user to scroll horizontally to see the entire set of charts.

Activating “Charts” View Style

The option to activate “Charts” view style is visible on the sidebar as shown in the illustration above. The sidebar may not be visible on all screen sizes.

Context menu provides “Charts” option in the list of data presentation styles. A single touch or click will show the available charts.

Shaping The data In The Charts

Users shape the data set rendered in the “Charts” style with the help of Quick Find, Adaptive Filters, and Advanced Search.

For example, a user can specify a criteria for “deep search” that requires data to match the ship country to France and Italy and have associated line items with products in categories that include “Confections” and “Seafood”.

Here is the result set rendered in the “List” style. User can access “Charts” view style by touching or clicking the context menu button on the right side of the toolbar.

Here is the set of charts reflecting the “deep search” criteria that required searching in orders and related order details.

This screenshot shows charts for orders shipped to Canada, USA, and UK and placed by employees Buchanan and Fuller.

User may activate responsive grid view style to see the data behind the charts.

Wider window will show charts distributed in three columns.

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.