In Development – OpenInsight 9.3.1

OpenInsight 9.3.1 is currently in beta testing and it is planned to be released in early March 2012.  The 9.3.1 release of OpenInsight will provide the following new components:

1. OpenInsight for Web (O4W v1.3)
   O4W v1.3 includes additional integration with the new Banded Report Writer, support routines for RSS feeds, and a new “ad hoc” report builder, along with a number of additional mobile enhancements such as mobile-specific menu and report output.  Through O4W’s integration with jQuery Mobile (the companion library to O4W’s jQuery), web pages can be built using “finger friendly” user interface elements and design.  For a preview of this interface click here to view some screen images of Megamation Systems DirectLine Mobile application.
2. OpenInsight for QM Connector
   The OI for QM connector provides the ability to connect with the OpenQM Database from Ladybridge Systems Limited.

Also included in OpenInsight 9.3.1 are a number of patches and enhancements for the Banded Report Writer, Table Builder, Database Manager, SQL Connector and Arev32.

ISV Catalogue and General Discussion Forum

As many of you will know, the WORKS discussion forum has been O4W driven for sometime.  That same format has now been used to rebuild the open discussion forum on www.revelation.com using O4W.  I really like the new format and I hope that you also find it better than the old Lotus Notes solution.

Continuing with the O4W theme and the US website, Revelation have also rewritten and updated their ISV Catalogue using the O4W toolset.  I am currently working on updated product information for the Sprezzatura Freeware and other chargeable utilities that we offer for the catalogue and Revelation are also offering any OpenInsight VAR the opportunity to have their OpenInsight based application/s listed on the page.  Please contact info@revelation.com should you wish to have your application featured.

DirectLine Mobile by Megamation Systems

O4W is fast becoming the tool of choice for OpenInsight developers who need to extend their applications to the web.  These solutions consist of full desktop browser based solutions, through to solutions for small handheld devices like smart phones.

Megamation Systems  have used O4w to create a solution for such devices and Revelation have recently published some images of the handheld solution.  This is a great example of how O4w can be used to address a modern business need. You can view the example screens by clicking here.

Cheat Sheet for HTML coders using O4W

Whilst the wizards in O4W can help developers and power users to build some very nice online database driven applications in super quick time and without the need to write, debug and maintain Web2.0 code, it is no surprise that the true power of O4W is held within O4W’s extensive API.  However, whilst most OpenInsight and ARev developers take to building web pages using the API like a duck takes to water, HTML coders with only a little (or no) BASIC+ knowledge might flounder and find themselves on a shallow, but still unwanted, learning curve.

It is for this reason that Bryan has put together a very, VERY, useful cheat sheet to help developers with HTML knowledge to quickly and efficiently apply that knowledge to building O4W pages using the API.  The cheat sheet is split into three key sections with each showing the HTML tag, attribute, style, etc. and the corresponding O4W API attribute (I hope that I am using the correct terminology here, but someone will correct me if not).  The three sections include:

1. A non-exhaustive list of the HTML generated by O4W.
2. A non-exhaustive list of the attributes and styles that O4W generates.
3. A variety of HTML5 compliant APIs used to support both mobile and newer (HTML5) browsers.

O4W API calls generate HTML in addition to javascript, and occasionally it is useful to know which O4W call generates which HTML.  For example, when searching the internet for a particular solution to a problem, the results will usually be displayed as “regular” HTML; to convert that information into useable O4W calls, it is important to know which O4W calls will return the desired HTML.  This cheat sheet is therefore especially useful when used with the main O4W Reference Guide which documents all of the O4W API calls.  If you are familiar with HTML, then you can look-up the HTML in the left column of the table and then the sheet will give you the corresponding O4W API call to use in the right hand side column.  Armed with this information, it is then a simply task of checking the O4W Reference Guide for more detailed information about using the O4W API call.

As Bryan says, “It’s likely that at some time you’ve found yourself working in O4W, and wondered how to accomplish a specific task (like changing the borders on a table, or generating pre-formatted text).  You probably turned to Google (or your favorite other search engine) (but most likely Google) and found the answer in a few seconds – but the answer told you what HTML you need to use to generate your desired results.  How do you translate that HTML back into O4W API calls?”.  It is this cheat sheet that directly addresses this need.

OpenInsight 9.3.1 Beta is now available.

Overnight Revelation US released to OpenInsight 9.3.1 beta software to those developers registered for the beta program.  If you are registered, the files can be downloaded from the beta site on www.revelation.com and there is the usual link to obtain an installation key for the files.

This new release’s main feature is the release of the OI4QM connector for Ladybridge’s QM Multivalue database.  This new connector add to the existing TigerLogic D3 connector, Rocket Software U2 (Universe and Unidata) connector and of course the SQL connector which supports several flavours of SQL.

In addition, this release sees fixes and enhancements to the new Banded Report Writer, OI’s .NET functionality, O4W, support for ESENT database and a fix has been made to the DUMP and TEMP tables creation.

I would like to thank everyone that takes the time to review the OpenInsight beta’s and who feeds back their comments and suggestions.

New O4W based public forum goes live.

Those of you that frequently use the Revelation online discussion base will have noticed a big change over the last few days.  Revelation are continuing their move away from Lotus Notes and, like the private WORKS forum, the public discussion forum is now based in Revelation’s own O4W web technology.

Along with the new, fresh, look and feel users now have the ability to set a number of user preferences to enhance their use of the forums on www.revelation.com.  There are a number of sections beginning with some general settings which enable you to add an email address to obtain email notifications to new postings to threads that you follow.  This is a great feature for people who begin a posting and for those who have a specific interest in an existing thread.

The user preferences also enable you to set a preference for new tabs to be opened or for O4w to run the forum in just one tab in your browser.  You can also display summary information by default (useful if you are using mobile devices on the move) and set a default signature for your postings.

Finally, the user preferences (linked from the discussion base menu on the website) displays a list of all of the threads that you are currently subscribed to.

I hope that you will find the new forum useful and we welcome your thoughts on comments. Oh, and if you have bookmarks for the old forum or alerts and other feeds, please do not forget to update them with the new forum’s location.

Outlook made me feel 2 inches tall :(

Outlook PST Compact Now routine window.

The developers amongst you will probably laugh at my stupidity and realise how small I felt over the weekend with my Outlook system, but other users like me that are used to working with OpenInsight’s self optimising database and other simply ‘set and forget’ technologies, this might be a useful posting.

I have been experiencing a number of issues with my laptop over the last few weeks.  The fan was running a lot more than usual, Outlook, Office and a number of other applications (including IE for some reason) were constantly reporting as ‘not responding’.  Then I found that Office wanted to regularly recover and check files and then I began to receive a number of blue screens of death, system memory dumps, etc.

I considered blowing my machine away (I’ve not done this for a few years now), but I asked my support colleagues for some advice first.  Their reply was the usual – check for malware, run another AV check, remove any unwanted files, compress my outlook file, etc.

Now the last of those items got me thinking.  My Outlook .PST file was 6.4Gb and I was having trouble backing it up to removable media sources.  In addition, my Outlook calendar was no longer working.  Furthermore, I deleted over half of my email and still the .PST file remained at 6.4Gb.

I therefore ran the SCNPST application that resides in the Outlook 2007 program folder and after sometime it reported an issue which I opted to have the routine fix for me.  Checking the .PST file, I found that it was still 6.4Gb and reviewing the Outlook menus I found the ‘Data File Management’ option under the ‘File’ menu.  I have no clue why, but I decided to double click on the entry for my main .PST file and a window popped up with a Compact Now button – Oooo Interesting.

With nothing to lose I hit the button and the machine went into a 13 hour long compression.  Not something that you want to begin at 09.00 on a work day and fortunately I was playing around with this on a Saturday morning.  Anyway, 13 hours later my .PST was reduced from 6.4Gb to just 675Mb.

I rebooted the machine and launched Outlook to see if it would still run.  It did, I breathed a sigh of relief and called it a day.

I have used my machine off and on during Sunday and all of Monday in the way that I usually work.  During today I have not heard the fan kick in once, I have had not one ‘not responding message’ and whilst I have not yet run my resource heavy video programs, the machine is running very nicely indeed.

So the lesson for today, is to have your users check their Outlook .PST files on a regular basis (I’m yet to know how 2010 will behave) and compact them.  My experience that was space was being allocated for every received email and that space did not ‘appear’ to be freed up when email was deleted and the file was just needlessly getting more and more bloated.

I should point out, that further research online indicates that I was not alone in running a huge Outlook.pst file and there are plenty of references to both the SCANPST (and SCANOST) utility for fixing issues and the compact utility.  I am not sure how systems behave on Windows XP and the forthcoming Windows 2008, nor with Office 2010 and later because my experiences were on a laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate and Office 2007.  However, this posting outlines the issue and resolution that worked for me.  I am not saying that this will be true for everyone, but it is certainly something worth thinking about if you are an Outlook user with a huge Outlook.pst or Outlook.ost file or where you are having issues like mine above.

I hope that some of you find this useful.

You can also watch my YouTube video related to this posting – Click here.

A date for your diary!!

Mark your calendars! The next Revelation Software Users’ Conference will be held at the Sheraton Music City Hotel, Nashville, Tennessee, USA on April 16-19, 2013. This is your chance to connect with the heart of downtown Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame or experience the awe of The Grande Ole Opry. Spend a relaxing day at one of Nashville’s beautiful state parks, the Adventure Science Center, or the home of President Andrew Jackson – The Hermitage. The Nashville International Airport is also just minutes away.

As well as the wonderful sight seeing, this event will also give you a great opportunity to network with some of the leading OpenInsight developers from around the world and to get yourself on their radars.  Along with these invaluable networking opportunities, you will also hear from some of these leading lights during the highly informative and educational technical talks.  With the emphasis on education, this is one trip that you can’t afford to miss and one that you can (hopefully) put down against your 2013 training budget.

I look forward to seeing you in Nashville on the 16^th April 2013.  It will be interesting to see how the Revelation team will top the ‘amazing’ 2011 conference .

OI 9.3.1 goes into beta mode

Revelation Sofware have just announced that Internal Beta Testing of OpenInsight 9.3.1 has just begun and February 15th is the planned release date.  This version will be a welcome release by many of you looking forward to support for the LadyBridge QM data connector.

Configuring OI 9.3 to use IDX_SETS2

After the initial release of OpenInsight 9.3 it was discovered that the original IDX_SETS routine (IDX_SETS1) no longer returns the correct results when doing indexed selections of large data sets. We are therefore suggesting that all users of OpenInsight 9.3 change their system to use the newer IDX_SETS2 routine.

IDX_SETS1 is the original OpenInsight routine and has been in the product since its inception. IDX_SETS2 is a relatively recent .NET based emulation of the functionality.  With small data sets, IDX_SETS1 seems a little faster than IDX_SETS2, but we’ve found that with large data sets, IDX_SETS1 appears to get “confused” on modern versions of Windows.

You can configure which version of IDX_SETS you use by creating or editing the record CFG_IDX_SETS in the SYSENV table. To use the new IDX_SETS, make sure field 1 of this record contains the string IDX_SETS2; to use the original, make sure field 1 contains the string IDX_SETS1.

Note:
The CFG_IDX_SETS record will control which version of IDX_SETS is used by default for everyone on the current OpenInsight system.  If instead you want to specify, for a specific user and application, which version (IDX_SETS1 or IDX_SETS2), you should create or edit the record CFG_IDX_SETS*<appid>*<username> (ie, CFG_IDX_SETS*EXAMPLES*EXAMPLEUSER); if you want to specify which version to use for everyone in an application, you should create or edit the record CFG_IDX_SETS*<appid> (ie, CFG_IDX_SETS*EXAMPLES); if you want to specify which version to use for a specific user in all applications, you should create or edit the record CFG_IDX_SETS**<username> (ie, CFG_IDX_SETS**EXAMPLEUSER)