[News] SLUG meeting was held at Space Airconditioning, UK on 13 July 05 and started at 4:15 p.m.

Harry Catharell

Attendees :

• Harry Catharell - MaJic Solutions Limited
• Graham Greensall - Worxinfo
• Chris Michael - hhm
• Rafi Galibov - Positronic Solutions
• Gordon McLean - ClickDigital
• Lee McNeil - Shouri Communications
• Mauro Talevi - Aquilonia
• Edward Callaghan - Space Airconditioning
• Jan Aleman - Servoy

Harry Catharell once again stood as unofficial chair of the meeting.

1) Review of and outstanding matters from previous minutes:

There generally seemed to be no major issues to report as existing from last meeting.

Noted that version 2.2 seems to have resolved most key operational problems

Previous Minutes accepted without dissent.

2) Harry officially welcomed Jan Aleman of Servoy to the meeting and also extended thanks to Space Airconditioning for the use of its facilities in hosting the meeting

3) Specific Servoy Issues - Operational and otherwise

• General vote of confidence given to version 2.2
  Version 2.2 seems to be a very fast and stable release - a trend that seems to be following through the development cycle for the product.
  Expect a minor update (2.2.1) in several weeks time.
• It was noted that Space Air had adopted the newest version and that development was continuing on an approximate 2 year rewrite of the current in house solution into Servoy which is currently sitting at around month 9 in the timeline !
• Remember that if you are testing transactional locking then you may code for it through developer BUT you can only test this activity through the client ! Before taking any solution into production it is recommended to test it thoroughly using client; also during development this is a good idea
• The subject of SQL Views was again brought up to request an update. The good news is that Views are being worked on so the request is to be patient for now. It was mentioned that if you are using Oracle as a backend DB then you did have the interim option of using Materialised Views which Oracle supports !
• Java 1.5 running on OS X 10.4 Tiger seems to give great performance boost for clients - and not just 1.5, even 1.4 on tiger is much faster !
• [tip] If the backend DB is NOT getting data from any other source (e.g. web front end) then always let Servoy manage the PK !
• [tip] If you use a conditional test which resolves a boolean result (e.g. 'If {dataprovider} ) then the test can fail based upon the difference between having a NULL value and having an empty field. Thus it is always better to test for the conditions explicitly as in: If ( dataprovider == null || dataprovider == "" )
• A general discussion began regarding the relative merits of using particular DBMS.
  The general conclusions were:
  Always develop independently of DBMS. Thus you can allow Servoy to render its generic pathways and driver based access to a database which becomes easier to port - for example if you stick with Servoy standard data types (text, integer, number, datetime, media) then these will work with any DBMS with none or only minor modifications.
  There are perhaps three layers of complexity for systems into which certain DBMS will fit.
  High level requirements = Oracle, Sybase ASE, DB2
  Middle level = MS SQL, Progress, Sybase ASA, FrontBase, OpenBase, Pervasive
  Open Source = MySQL, PostgreSQL, FireBird
  This not meant to be exhaustive nor definitive !
• Offline client and synchronisation brought up the subject of Tracking and how it can be the catalyst for successful synch operations, using it to compare and apply the business rules to.

4) Members problem/how to forum etc.......

• The question was raised as to how to invoke a 'Maximise Window' operation - Jan is going to talk to the rest of the dudes about this !
  FEEDBACK from Jan = 'I have spoken to the engineers and they said it could be done from a technical point of view but that have serious doubts from a end user perspective: an application should not maximize windows by itself according to human interface guidelines. Anyone got examples of applications that maximize windows and why doing so would be such a great idea?'
  The gauntlet is thrown down so any of you with a specific reason for the Maximise Window then please send detail !!
• An integral spellchecker add-in has been beta tested and is due for inclusion in V2.2.1 updater
• Cannot 'do' multiline keys as in FileMaker. Complex joins should be set up using join tables as in standard m-m notation
• HTML rendering engine was discussed again. Servoy are now looking at a specific HTML bean from iceSoft which will hopefully be supplied with future versions
• The group waxed fairly lyrical about how good some sort of 'knowledgebase' would be. Some collection/collation of all things good in Servoy. It would sit somewhere between a 'best practice' guide and a searchable digest of the best tips and tricks ! Jan remarked that someone should write one, which is a good idea !!! (Harry. Note to self, write book on next long train journey !)

5) Solution Demos/Tips/Freebies/Widgets etc

• Edward Callaghan gave a demonstration of two OSX Widgets.
  The first took the RSS feed from the Servoy Forum and displayed in within the Widget scrollable window - with full drill down capability and the second sed Headless Client in order to return data direct from Servoy.
  Both of these demos were very impressive !
  By his own admission, Edward mentioned that these Widgets were proof of concept and as such may not be coded in the most applicable way.
  The simple fact of the matter is that they more than amply displayed the tip of an iceberg and there is obviously great potential to be tapped within this environment so huge kudos to Edward for this and keep your eyes open as the widgets may appear and be made available on a Servoy Magazine near you !!! (Harry: Note to self, they are already there, be quicker with the minutes next time !)

6) Servoy Info / Servoy World

• Reminder to everybody that the first Servoy Conference will be held 27th-29th September in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is expected that somewhere between 120-150 developers etc will be in attendance, which is a fantastic turnout for a first event of this kind.
• One interesting portion of this section grew out of some questions from Mauro who asked about the possibility of Servoy being used without a backend DB !
  So it was being postulated that Servoy could still exist without a database and Jan did mention that there was a possibility that Servoy architecture could evolve to take into account a web services environment at some point in the future.
  So you can consider how simple it could be to point a dataprovider at a service and send the parameters off to that service and return your result data into the dataprovider !! Very interesting concepts being aired here !
• Licensing model was mentioned and Servoy is looking at options to allow licenses to be rented over fixed periods and also to look at bulk licenses being paid for only when used !
  So it looks like there could be a whole (r)evolution taking place in the way that the complete licensing model will work !

7) AOB

• Lee McNeil is going to look to racking up some price points for Servoy hosting. This may begin by offering, say, MySQL & PostgreSQL as a starter to see how things take off.
  This is a great opportunity to find and use an established provider who can cater specifically to Servoy deployment.
  News will be posted to appropriate areas as and when.
• Two more feature requests: Field Validations & Annotating fields at SErvoy level with free form help text
• Cannot 'do' multiline keys as in FileMaker. Complex joins should be set up using join tables as in standard m-m notation
• Next meeting: It was suggested that the next meeting should be following Servoy World.
  This would give an opportunity for a briefing to be given by those attending to those members who were not able to be there.

The meeting closed at 8:05 p.m.