Blog: Posts from August, 2023

The release 8.9.31.0 fixes the corruption of the code generation library files that was taking place occasionally during the installation with the new browser-based installer. It will re-enable the ability to create new projects with the Unlimited Edition of Code On Time.

App Studio is replacing the Windows-based design and development tools of Code OnTime with the browser-based alternative. Please make sure to install this release and try out your existing projects. The new capabilities will be added to the App Studio with every new release. The project management will migrate from the start page of the app generator to the homepage of the App Studio. Eventually the app generator will start the App Studio in the default browser on the developer’s workstation and exit. App Studio will invoke the generator in the command-line mode to generate your apps.

Code On Time release 8.9.30.0 moves the installation of the code generation library from the Windows-based executable to the browser-based App Studio. The studio homepage performs the check for updates when Code On Time starts on the developer’s workstation. The code generation library files are downloaded automatically. Developers are prompted to install the update when the new product releases become available.

Learn about the new Installer in the App Studio.

App Studio offers the new option to generate the HTML template for the active form. Select the “more” menu in the top toolbar of the App Studio and choose the Form Template command. You will see a prompt to save the HTML file with the corresponding form layout. The layout will be configured to render when the window matches the width of the selected device. Make sure to choose the right device and experiment with device orientation.

The following features and enhancements are included in the release:

• (App Studio) The 'Form Template' command in the studio context menu will create an HTML file with the template of the active form.
• (Touch UI) The radio button list and checkbox list with horizontal scrolling and cascading dependency on another field will not cause the fields below to shift while the values are fetched in response to the changed parent field.
• (App Gen) A tap on the product activation code will send the default browser to https://my.codeontime.com with "studio parameters". Developers must sign in with their credentials to activate the product.
• (App Gen) Up to 10 attempts to access the started app are performed before the default browser is launched at the app URL. This eliminates the “site not found” error displayed by the browsers while the app is being configured for the first time to run with Microsoft IIS Express.
• (App Gen) The news feed has been removed from the start page of the app generator. The newsfeed is now displayed in the App Studio application that will be launched when Code On Time is started on the workstation.
• (App Gen) The news feed area provides the links to the v9 roadmap.
• (App Gen) The installation of the code generation library is now performed by the App Studio application. The app generator will hide when the installation of the code generation library and product updates are performed. The app generator will reappear when the updates are completed.
• (Touch UI) Content pages preserve the scroll top with the new $app.touch.contentScrollTip('save|restore') API.
• (Touch UI) Notification toasts appear above the active progress screen.
• (Touch UI) The width of the progress text depends on the view port of the device.
• (RESTful) The binary parameter values can be specified in multipart/form-data payload in the custom actions of the RESTful API. The name of the parameter is specified as "parameters.PARAM_NAME". The value of the parameter is set to file://request/FILE_NAME by the RESTful API Engine where the FILE_NAME is the name of the file. Custom business rules can fetch the binary value from HttpContext.Current.Request.Files by using the value of the FILE_NAME as file index.
• (RESTful) An improved detection of the invalid link name specified in the 'hypermedia' option.
• (RESTful) The action ID specified in the path with the POST method will trigger the action identification on collections.
• (RESTful) The arguments in the path are validated against the primary key fields if the target is the singleton object.
• (Touch UI) The "cancel" icon on the form toolbar will call the _cancelCallback property of the dataview if specified. Otherwise the navigation will return one step back.
• (App Gen) Library downloader included the builderVersion key into the studio.json exchange file. The builder version is used to install the code generation from App Studio.
• (App Gen) Metadata builder now reports errors when the data provider is not able to return the requested information. Metadata builder queries the database to find information about data types, reserved words, tables, columns, relationships, etc. On rare occasions an exception may be raised if the database server is missing some configuration settings, which makes it impossible to fetch the metadata.

Our next goal is to deliver the hierarchy of the project settings directly in the live apps. The new Properties Window and Project Explorer will make it easy to configure the apps.