List Boxes: Time Columns and Footer Calculation!
List boxes are great, powerful tools to display data in the interface. They can display fields from records, items from arrays, and since recently, entity selections and collections.
While the new list boxes using collections or entity selections are more powerful in many ways, they did not allow time display and automatic calculations in their footers, unlike list boxes displaying arrays or records.
From now on, and as long as you use project mode, all types of list boxes can display hours in their columns, but also have the possibility to display calculations on their footers.
Use collections and lists within forms objects
Collections are increasingly used in 4D programming. Starting with 4D v19, you can use them to define the content of some interface objects, including through the Form function. This is very useful for generic interface management.
We’ve also added improvements to how lists are used. Let’s see this in detail!
ORDA: Easy looping with a new 4D tag
You have probably already used a For each…End for each loop to work with ORDA entity selections or with collections. Its use is simple and straight forward. Would like to use it as a 4D tag in your SHTML pages? Or perhaps with the PROCESS 4D TAGS command?
As of 4D v19, you can! Keep reading to learn more.
4D v19 beta starts today
Beta testing for 4D v19, one of the best LTS yet, is starting today, six months earlier than planned, to provide you with a Silicon native version of 4D!
This includes more than +80 advances, including the introduction of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in 4D thanks to Project mode, major enhancements to existing products, and highly requested features you voted for.
Buckle up, and let’s discover some of what 4D v19 Beta has to offer:
- Apple Silicon support: be ready to give your 4D application a boost right away thanks to Apple M1’s remarkable performance and the brand new 4D compiler.
- ORDA: write business-oriented code to hide complexity, reduce errors, and speed up the development process.
- 4D for iOS: be productive anywhere with our mobile solution. Check inventory in the warehouse, generate invoices during client visits, perform inspections onsite, and more.
- OOP: thanks to Project mode, take advantage of object-oriented programming concepts for greater productivity, better code quality, and lesser maintenance costs.
- 4D language: discover how the versatile tools of the 4D language improve your developer experience.
- 4D Write Pro: Word documents import, PDF export, enhanced UI, more commands to manage your documents with code, and plenty of features to produce beautiful documents in record time.
- 4D View Pro: localized UI. More than +20 new commands to programmatically handle your documents and more.
- And much more (see below).
Apply naming conventions with Form macros
by guest author Michael Höhne, 4D developer (Munich, Germany)
There’s a feature in 4D v18 R5 that may have been overlooked, or at least hasn’t gotten much attention so far: Form macros. To be honest, I hadn’t spent much time on them either, until recently. In this blog post, I’ll show you a macro that saves a lot of time when applying naming conventions to list box columns, column headers, and footers. You can easily change it to fit your needs. A dedicated repo is also available on Github.
Scalable sessions for advanced web applications
Nowadays, web applications are essential modern tools. As machines and processors become more and more powerful, your web applications must constantly meet performance requirements. This is why with 4D v18 R6, the 4D Web Server offers a new kind of web session: the scalable Web session.
Let’s find out more!
List boxes: Manage clicks in edited cells
As a developer, you’re used to handling events inside form objects. The most common is the on clicked form event which can be used in most objects, including list boxes. In this particular object, clicks can be managed either at the list box level itself or within the column methods.
And starting with 4D v18 R6, the on clicked form event is triggered whether a cell is being edited or not, giving you increased control and improving the interface.
4D v18 R6 Beta Starts Today
We’re pleased to announce the launch of beta testing for 4D v18 R6!
Without further ado, let’s take a look and see what this feature release has in store for you:
- Build advanced web applications with scalable web sessions.
- Enhance search functionality by turning your iPhone into a barcode scanner, and build ergonomics 4D for iOS apps with many to many relations.
- Speed up the development process and avoid typos thanks to the display of a function’s prototype and short description in the code editor.
- Connect your mail transporters with an OAuth 2.0 token for increased security.
- Use Find and Replace to search for (and replace) data, formulas, or values in the entire sheet or only a specific part, thanks to a new 4D View Pro command.
- Create 4D Write Pro documents faster and easier thanks to the new toolbar and sidebar enhancements.
- And much more (see below).
Sharing leads to performance
Following this blog post about the new concept of shareable entity selections and the subsequent discussions on the forum, we’ll now take the time to explain how ORDA fits into the future.
6 practical examples on how to use macros
4D 18 R5 introduced form macros. They can be incredibly useful, for example, by providing an ideal way to save time on repetitive tasks. In this blog post, we’ll show you some basic examples to learn more about how macros work and the possibilities they offer. All of the following examples are available on GitHub.
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