More sophisticated ORDA queries with formulas
In 4D v17 R6, ORDA queries are becoming increasingly more powerful and concise. This blog post is for those of you who need more sophisticated search criteria than just a simple syntax like “name = Smith‘”. With this R-release, you can use any project method or 4D expression in the query() member method by using formulas.
What better way to explain this feature than with an example? Let’s dig into the details.
Write generic code with the latest ORDA features
ORDA has its share of features with 4D v17 R5, including various ways to write generic code.
Writing generic code allows you to centralize your code to facilitate updating it. Not only does it enable you to write reusable code that can be used in different use cases, freeing you from having to reinvent the wheel again and again, it also lets you add extra functionalities on top of what you’ve already done.
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.
Use ORDA to boost performance in Client/Server mode
Using ORDA to access large tables (especially those with relations) in Client/Server mode has been greatly enhanced. With 4D v17 R5, you’ll see 2-3xs improved LAN performance and up to 30xs faster WAN performance. And best of all – there’s no need to change anything in your code, it’s all automatic. Interesting, isn’t it? Well, let’s delve into the details.
ORDA member methods to get the structure information
“How can I know the dataClass of an entity? I need it to write generic methods“. “I need information about a field in a dataClass: what is its type? Is it indexed? Is it unique?“. These are the kinds of questions we’ve heard you asking on the forum. 4D v17 R5 provides the answers: introducing new ORDA member methods to provide useful information about your database. Keep reading, because you’ll appreciate the benefits of reducing the size of your code and making it reusable and easy to maintain!
More information about web processes
You asked for more information about web processes to better identify requests that might be slowing down or blocking your server. We heard you and in 4D v17 R5, we’ve added information about the URL used by web processes. This information can be retrieved two ways: via the 4D Server Administration Window or via the 4D language with the Get process activity command.
Placeholders for attribute paths in ORDA queries
The ORDA features keep coming with 4D v17 R5! In a previous blog post, we showed you how to create generic queries with named placeholders for values. This post will focus on how to use placeholders for attribute paths (field names in tables).
Who’s who? A new way to identify users
As a 4D developer you often need to manage end users with your own directory system. For internal users, you might create a few profiles with different rights or you might just use the default Designer account for everyone. The problem is when multiple people use the same profile, everyone has the same name and it’s difficult – sometime impossible – to differentiate them. Fortunately, 4D v17 R5 resolves the headache of trying to figure out who’s who. In this blog post, we’ll explain a new command and new selectors that’ll help you set the 4D user identity by defining a custom name to use instead of the current 4D user account name.
Add values to your generic ORDA queries
By now you’ve surely noticed that ORDA queries are not only light and readable, they also make it easy to navigate through the entire data model using object-oriented concepts! In this blog post, we showed you how to write powerful and easy-to-maintain queries. One of the methods recommended was providing the query and values separately via placeholders. 4D v17 R5 takes placeholders a step further by allowing you to write generic ORDA queries: say hello to named placeholders for values!
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!
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