GitHub 4D Awesome List — Call for Contributions
To stay competitive in the software industry, one should always seek innovation and build momentum for change.
In that spirit, 4D has always given you the right technology to grow and expand. Project mode is one example that comes with a tremendous benefit: the ability to use Git to get your 4D application up and running in a more productive development environment.
So we decided to create a 4D Awesome list, where we gather all the collective wisdom in one place to make 4D developers’ life a little easier.
If you’re a Git/GitHub user and have a fantastic project that you believe could help fellow developers, you might want to contribute to the 4D Awesome list, where awesome projects live!
This blog post explains the concept of an Awesome list and how you can contribute.
4D and Git: From Beginner to Expert
So by now, you know that projects come with a tremendous benefit: the ability to use Git (the revision control system) and GitHub (the hosting service) to get your 4D application up and running in a more productive development environment.
Newbie or full-fledged senior developer version control has been a staple in every work environment where multiple resources collaborate to participate in what could be called a software chain of production.
To help you get familiar with Git, we’ve made available many resources at your disposal. This blog post is a compilation of everything we’ve provided on this topic… so far. If you feel lost and don’t know where to start, keep reading; we’ve included:
- other blog posts,
- a detailed guide,
- a top-rated summit video,
- and even a training course.
How to browse GitHub to find all 4D projects
With the introduction of projects in 4D, the source code of components, demo applications, and other tools in 4D are hosted on GitHub.
4D has three GitHub organizations.
- On 4D, you can find the source code of the internal 4D components. So you can adapt them to your needs.
- 4D Depot contains all the help tools: HDIs, demonstrations, application examples, etc.
- 4D Go Mobile hosts all custom list forms, detail forms, login forms, formatters, and input controls.
You can find these links to the various GitHub repositories from the 4D websites; for example, from the 4D blog to illustrate new features, from the Resources page of the 4D website for demo examples, or from the gallery for Mobile.
But, you can also from GitHub, search, bookmark, and so on… This blog post will introduce some basic features to improve your usage and navigation on GitHub.
An introductory guide to 4D and Version Control Systems
For many years, 4D has allowed you to develop binary databases as part of a team with a 4D Server. This way of developing is straightforward, but many developers asked us to be more efficient on source code management to deliver better traceability. 4D has heard them and developed Project mode to fit this need. This mode opened a new era of collaboration thanks to version control systems!
How to take advantage of GitHub actions with 4D
Your project is now on a source control system. This means that managing several versions of your software, monitoring changes, and integrating corrections or new features is much simpler now.
Why not also take advantage of continuous integration?
Starting with 4D v19, you can launch the compilation of your project with a command. As a result, you now have all the building blocks needed to automate your integration chain.
This blog post will give you an example of automation with the GitHub manager and GitHub Actions.
Extensive library of 4D applications available
With projects and the ability to share project application source code via a source control system, we’ve published more than 35 repositories to GitHub (at the time of writing this blog post). This includes HDIs, components, and full example applications. Speaking of full example applications, two more have recently been added:
Project Databases: Build your own documentation for components
In a previous blog post, we showed you that documentation for methods has returned in the Explorer. Want to take things even further and use them as documentation for your components? In this blog post, we’ll show you how!
News flash: 4D components available on GitHub!
In 2017, 4D initiated a new program to share the source code of 4D internal components to 4D Partners.
Sharing the source code of 4D components lets you customize them and make them your own! With project databases and the ability to share an application’s source code via a source control system, we’ve converted our 4D internal components into project databases and pushed the source code to the 4D GitHub account. It’s open to everyone, all you need to take advantage of it is an account on Github. Why did we do this? To make your life easier by keeping track of changes and modifications to both code and forms.
Project databases: Git. Commit. Pull. Push & more
In a previous blog post, we introduced you to Git (a version control system) and Github (a cloud-based hosting service) and how you can share your 4D code with other developers. In this blog post, we’ll go a bit further by exploring some scenarios a developer may encounter, such as cloning a remote repository, ignoring already committed files, and solving merge conflicts.
How to share your 4D code via Github
So you’ve been testing out project databases … maybe you’ve created one or perhaps you’ve converted an existing binary application. Now, it’s time for us to show you how to use Git (the revision control system) with Github as the hosting service for your 4D application.
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