Web Scraping using object notation
Want to retrieve data that isn’t available via REST or Web Services? What if it’s only available on a website? The data is easy enough for a human to read, but reading HTML data with a programming language isn’t so simple. Some developers try to use Position and Substring, others try Regex, but it’s unpleasant and time-consuming. A very different approach is to convert the HTML into an object and get the data via object notation. Table rows are handled as collections and are easy to loop through!
This blog post describes how to use this approach and provides some handy tips.
How to notarize your merged 4D application
With Catalina (macOS 10.15), it’s highly recommended that you notarize applications distributed over a public network. A significant number of developers transfer their applications using a connected storage device or via file sharing, notarization isn’t required in these cases where the user already trusts the developer. The purpose of notarization is to assure users that the application isn’t malicious and is only required for applications downloaded from a website.
If you use our built-in signature feature when building your applications with 4D v18, your application is ready to be notarized. This process is conducted outside of 4D. It involves adding an electronic signature to your application and submitting your signed application to an automated inspection service. Here’s everything you need to know:
Get your macOS applications ready for notarization with 4D
Catalina (macOS 10.15) is now available and Apple has announced that the notarization of software distributed outside of the App Store has become a requirement. This may raise a few questions: what if my 4D application isn’t notarized? Will I be able to notarize it? How? Don’t panic! We’ve got you covered and this blog post provides the answers.
Customize the admin dialog with 4D code
There have been requests to modify the 4D Server administration dialog, with some customers wanting to remove information and others wanting to add customized information. This AdminWindow component shows you how to do just that. You can use it “as is” or modify it to fit your needs.
4D Project: Embrace a new era of collaboration
4D has been a longtime supporter of team development, ever since 4D Server 1.0. The greatest benefit of working together on the same source code, is allowing both team development and team testing. However this can create some disadvantages for distributed teams since they may not be able to work on the same source.
Following a complete rewrite, 4D now supports two ways to work with sources: binary and project. Binary is the 4D we all know and love, with the source in a binary file to allow team development with 4D Server. Project makes it easier for distributed teams to work collaboratively by storing the source in a source control system in plain text files.
Compatibility settings – all the rest (Part 4)
We began a series of blog posts on compatibility settings and the secret options that can drastically help improve the performance and behavior of your applications (QUERY BY FORMULA, Transactions and period and comma). This final post of the series will give an overview of the remaining settings.
Compatibility settings – Nested Transactions (Part 3)
Welcome to our ongoing series about compatibility settings and “hidden” features for improved performance. In the first post, we looked at the QUERY BY FORMULA command and its impact on an application’s behavior. The second post was about the “Use period and comma as placeholders” compatibility option to avoid running into “the numbers are displayed as >>>>>>>>>” hassle.
In this third installment, we’re going to explore Nested Transactions.
What are transactions and how do I use them?
Imagine transferring €200,000 from one bank account to another. You withdraw the amount from the source account, and then you deposit it in the destination account. So far everything is normal and in a perfect world the operation will succeed. Unfortunately, here in the real world things can go wrong. Something happens and the money is lost. That’s very bad.
Well, transactions are here to ensure that this doesn’t happen with your applications! In this blog post explore in detail the use and importance of transactions, as well as several scenarios showing how they can save your business.
Compatibility settings – Use period and comma as placeholders (Part 2)
We’ve started a series of blog posts on compatibility settings and the secret options that can drastically help you improve the performance and the behavior of your applications. The first post was about QUERY BY FORMULA.
The second part of the compatibility series is about international usage of your business applications. This could mean selling to other countries – or having coworkers coming from other countries to work for a while, but using their local systems.
If you’ve ever seen or gotten reports like “the numbers are displayed as >>>>>>>>>”, this blog post is for you.
Compatibility settings – or driving with the parking brake on(Part 1)
In code kitchens, I usually spend some time with the database settings, especially with the Compatibility settings. Often certain settings don’t follow best practices and during discussions with the application developer, I hear “oh, I never changed these” or “I’m not sure about the impact, so better not touch them”.
Since they could drastically impact the performance or behavior of your applications, we’ve begun a series of blog posts to discuss some of these “secret” settings.
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