Your data live … in a web interface
As a 4D developer, you may have dreamed of visualizing your data immediately and easily while you update/create it. Or maybe you’re a 4D administrator and you need to quickly find a record that causes an error due to inappropriate data. This has been possible with 4D’s built-in query interface and output form, but it can take time to customize this form and you may need a more responsive tool.
How about a modern and user-friendly web interface to view your data? And for a cherry on the top, what if this interface comes with a powerful query engine? Dream no more! All this is now a reality thanks to Data Explorer, a new tool provided as a Preview for you to evaluate it and give us your feedback.
Of course, it will be enhanced in future versions.
Let’s discover it now!
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.
Move to shareable entity selections smoothly
In this blog post, you discovered the power that shareable entity selections can offer. 4D focuses on data sharing because, in the long run, it leads to performance.
But we’re aware that this strategy might not be your current strategy. We’ve followed the discussions on the forum and understood your comments and feelings.
To soften this step and give you more flexibility and tools, we’ve made some enhancements regarding the nature (shareable or non-shareable) of entity selections.
Before continuing, we highly recommend that you read this blog post and this one so you can make sense of the enhancements described below.
ORDA – Share an entity selection between processes
4D v16 R6 introduced a new concept of communication between processes: shared object and shared collection variables! Thanks to this, you’re able to easily share information between processes.
Until now, entity selections weren’t shareable between processes. However, that has changed … we’re pleased to announce that in 4D v18 R5 entity selections are shareable!
Gone are the days of building a list of primary keys to move a selection of entities to another process. Enhance your multi-processes code by including ORDA entity selections as shared objects.
Keep reading to learn more.
ORDA – Improve your API with function scope
4D v18 R4 and ORDA made it possible for you to create high-level class functions above the data model. This allows you to write business-oriented code to hide complexity, reduce errors, and speed up the development process.
With 4D v18 R5, we’re bringing even more features to help you optimize and organize your code. For example, you might need to run a function locally on the client to improve performance when working in client/server mode. It’s now possible! Or if you expose your database as a REST server, you might want some functions to be available on the server-side but hidden for your REST clients. This is also possible!
Tips: ORDA Data Model Classes
By now you’re aware of the availability of ORDA classes. In this blog post, you’ll learn a few handy tips to get the most out of them!
ORDA Data Model Classes and REST
In a previous blog post, you learned about ORDA classes and the possibilities they offer to make your coding experience smoother. In this blog post, you’ll see how to use them with the REST server.
Let’s see it in action!
ORDA Classes to handle your data model
In a previous blog post, we introduced you to the world of ORDA data model classes. Now it’s time to get our hands dirty and learn more!
You already know that ORDA’s structure (datastore, dataclass, entity, entity selection) is made up of objects. But they’re not just objects, they’re strongly-typed objects linked to specific ORDA classes. This means that you can write functions to hide the complexity of your data’s physical implementation.
Welcome to the world of ORDA classes
ORDA was a revolution with 4D v17. It opened a whole new world of possibilities and took you to another programming dimension. A dimension where you can easily develop applications using an object-oriented approach.
We didn’t stop there! We continued to add enhancements to ORDA through a set of features in each subsequent feature release. Now with 4D v18 R4, we’re thrilled to be going another step further with the availability of ORDA data model classes. Classes dedicated to your data model.
This will greatly elevate your code. Your applications can now easily expose services, be more manageable and easier to maintain, and seamlessly integrate with other applications.
This is another big feature made possible thanks to the projects!
ORDA: an up-to-date datastore without restarting
We’re thrilled to announce that 4D v18 R3 includes an enhancement that will have a huge impact on the developer’s experience. A feature many of you have requested, and 4D delivers!
When you work in 4D standalone mode during the development phase (writing and testing your code), you’re no longer required to restart your database in order to have an up-to-date datastore (ds) when the structure is updated!
Now you don’t need to restart the database each time you need a new attribute or a new table in your code! It’s all automatic!
When you call the ds command, you get an up-to-date datastore object. This means that several versions of this datastore object are handled at the same time … depending on when you updated your structure … without breaking running processes.
If you work in client / server mode, this works fine for code running on the 4D Server.
For remote clients, you simply need to restart the client requiring the structure’s update.
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