An enhanced UX with AJUI_Progressbar
Have you ever executed an action, nothing seemed to happen, and you didn’t know if you should click again or continue waiting? There’s no feedback provided, even if the application is performing an action in the background? Perhaps the action requires some time to return a result? As you may know, 4D already provides a built-in progress bar component that makes execution time more tolerable, but if you want something with a more web like design then keep reading, because that’s what the AJUI_Progressbar gives you!
An ORDA Cheat Sheet
Blog post by guest author Cannon Smith, a 4D developer from southern Alberta, Canada:
The introduction of collections and entities has dramatically changed the landscape in 4D, giving developers new ways to map business rules to code. Just recently I refactored several thousand lines of code that were central to the business rules of our application, resulting in a significant speed improvement (5xs faster) which our users are very happy about. This refactoring was largely about moving from old code constructs to objects, collections, and ORDA.
Power of objects and dot notation
With 4D v17 R5, we showed you how easy it is to manipulate an object to retrieve the attributes of a file or folder. Things have gotten even easier thanks to object notation! In this blog post, we’re providing you an HDI with a user interface to manage files and folders. This isn’t new in 4D since you could do it with classic 4D commands, but now you can do it easier and with fewer lines of code!
Easily customize the entry order of your dynamic forms
The power of dynamic forms was introduced with 4D v16 R6, allowing you to build your forms on the fly by building them in an object or loading them from a text file. This is very convenient in a world where forms are frequently changed to meet an application’s needs.
In 4D, the entry order typically follows a z order for both binary and dynamic forms. With 4D v17 R6, you can now define an entry order that’s not necessarily associated with the z order.
CSS color strings for better readability
Improved and simplified 4D commands just keep coming. Now you can set colors in your form objects using CSS strings instead of numeric values. Previously CSS colors for objects were declared with a 4-byte longint (e.g., 0x00RRGGBB). But if you feel more comfortable writing BLUE instead of its numeric equivalent 255 (0xFF), we’ve got good news … 4D v17 R6 makes it possible!
Retrieve the current execution call chain
When programming an application, you may need to know where you are in your code, especially when one method calls other methods, which may then call other methods. That’s why it’s very helpful to see the chain of methods, or the call chain, during the debugging process. For this, 4D v17 R6 provides the new Get call chain command to give you an insight into the executed code. Now you won’t have to worry about getting lost anymore!
AJUI_Tip: A tooltip engine for 4D
Have you ever been flooded by confirmation dialogs, alert boxes, and contextual help windows that make it nearly impossible to locate the form window on which you were working? Wouldn’t it be more user-friendly to stay on the same page and see help bubbles pointing directly at the original target?
This is possible thanks to the 4D component AJUI_Tip. It’s a powerful tooltip engine based on the technologies available in 4D such as ORDA, New Formula, SVG, SubForm, CALL FORM, to name a few. In this blog post, we’ll highlight the component’s usage, and show how you can design beautiful tooltips to enhance your applications’ UI. A download link can be found at the end of the blog post.
4D Write Pro: a new way to set TABS!
We’re thrilled to announce an exciting enhancement in 4D Write Pro! In addition to the features we’ve rolled out so far, 4D v17 R5 also includes a new feature for tabs.
Object notation to handle files and folders
4D already provides commands to handle files and folders, but what about new commands that take advantage of the power of object notation?
Objects have changed the way many 4D developers write code, making it more generic, flexible, easier, and faster. Now this wave of change is extended to files and folders. In this blog post, we’ll show you how easy it is to manipulate an object in order to retrieve the attributes of a file or folder (rather than calling several commands and storing the information in multiple variables). Things are getting a lot easier!
Convert an existing database into a Project
As of 4D v17 R5, you can create a database project. One of the greatest benefits of projects is how easy it makes collaborative work for distributed teams … by storing the source in a source control system in plain text files. Whether you’re a single developer or part of a team, this opens a new world of possibilities.
But what about existing databases? Can they be converted to projects? Yes! This blog post is all about showing you how to do this and making you aware of a few things to know before proceeding.
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