In Development - Sage 300 ERP (Accpac) R&D Team Blog

Many people are happy to use the mouse extensively while doing data entry, are happy looking up everything in Finders and are happy to consider many fields when entering an accounting document; but, Sage ERP Accpac 5.6A has many productivity features to help you enter data very quickly and efficiently like keyboard shortcuts, good default field values and hiding unused fields. This blog post covers a number of Accpac features that can effectively make you more productive. We will look at the Accpac Order Entry screen and what features are available to make you more productive. Below is the Accpac Order Entry screen:

This is a fairly large screen with many options and potentially many fields to enter. You certainly don’t want to think of and type something into every single field.

Over the past couple of months the Sage Accpac User Assistance Team (aka Documentation Team) has connected with several of you (our partners and customers) to get your feedback on Sage ERP Accpac messaging, in-product help, and online documentation. Here’s a summary of what you’ve told us, and the improvements we’re working on.

Messaging

You have made it clear that we need to improve not only the content of the messages, but their delivery. You’re either bombarded with too many messages, or the few that you do encounter are too cryptic to be understood. Many of you mentioned downtime and frustration trying to resolve issues messaged as cryptic tech-speak, such as “Cannot connect to database (error=2)” and the more esoteric “Database error (operation=GET-NEXT, error=3112)."

And you also told us that it can be a struggle to resolve an issue because messages rarely link to contextual help topics that address the specific issue.

This is great feedback, and we intend to dig deeper into this problem and make our message text jargon-free, with links to specific in-product and online assistance to help you resolve issues.

In-product Help

You also told us that Help Search frequently fails to deliver good results. You find good content now and then, but getting to that content using Search is a challenge. Sadly, the search technology in help authoring tools hasn’t evolved much over the years, but we do have some tricks up our sleeve to improve your search experience.

And, when you do find the content you need, it’s sometimes missing a critical piece of information and you have to wait until the next product update or product version to get updated content. With today’s technology, you expect to be able to connect with us to tell us what’s missing, and have us add content or correct inaccurate or misleading content almost immediately.

You also mentioned that we don’t provide enough “best practice” information and answers to frequently-asked questions. We do a very good job at explaining how to use particular screens in the application, but we don’t always give you the best advice on completing an entire process or workflow.

Here are some improvements that we are working on:

• Web-based help. The new web Portal in Sage ERP Accpac 6.0 has web-based help. Web-based help is server-based, so you can access it across a network. That’s a big improvement over our current HTML-based help (CHM files), which you can only access from your local PC. Also, if you don’t like the search in the web-based help, you have other options, including Windows search and Google. And we’re looking to move content online to give you more options to find what you need.

• Going online. We do update the help with product updates, but that’s just not immediate enough! So, we'll be going online. In addition to having immediately-updatable content, we can also connect with you in real time, and get you the content you need must faster than ever before.

• Faceted classification and search. With our current authoring tools, we can provide faceted navigation to help you find the content you need. In a faceted classification system, content is tagged with a specific set of attributes. Content can then be arranged and sorted on these attributes, allowing you to limit search results to a specific category of information.

Faceted classification and faceted search systems are very common on the web. For example, when you search for something on Google, do you notice the pane on the left? It's a list of facets that you can use to filter your search results. You'll see facets at work across the web; for example, on Amazon, and Wikipedia.

• Synonym support. Most current help authoring tools provide stemming and synonym support. So, if you search for the term “dashboard” in the new Sage ERP Accpac 6.0 Learning Centre, you will find information about our new “snapshots.” Stemming support ensures that the help system finds words that derive from the same base or root, so if you search for “reporting,” the system will also find topics on “reports.”

• Embedded help. We’ve implemented some forms of embedded help in Sage ERP Accpac 6.0, and will continue to add more help in future versions. Embedded help is all forms of assistance that appear within the application rather than in a separate Help window. It can be text that is integrated into the user interface, such as grey hint text in a date field that identifies the acceptable format for a date entry (mm/dd/yyyy), or instructive text provided right next to the part of the interface that it applies to. You don’t have to do anything to request this form of “help” — it just simply appears on screen.

• Video-based help. Many of us learned how to do something by watching someone else do it first. Video learning is engaging, and you can perform the actions while you watch.

We’ve created a set of videos for Sage ERP Accpac 6.0 to give you an overview of the new web-based Portal, and show you how to use new features such as Fiscal Period Locking, and Inquiry. You will be able to access online videos from the Help, and we will be providing more video content over time. Delivering videos online opens up some great learning opportunities for our customers — you’ll be able to use RSS feeds to get new content the moment it’s added, and you can share the videos with peers simply by sending them a link over e-mail, a Twitter message, or other communication method of your choosing.

Here's a video that shows you how to use the new Snapshots feature in 6.0.

Documentation

You’re also wondering where the guides are. They are online in PDF format, but we choose not to include many of them in Sage ERP Accpac v5.6 and v6.0 because they are not current. Our mandate is to provide you with accurate, updated information, and that’s what we’re working on doing. We’re moving away from static, “dead-wood” technology to provide you with real time content.

Many of you told us that you find it challenging to print conceptual and background information from the help, and many new customers would like Getting Started information. You'd like this material in PDF or other "book-like" format so that you can easily print pages or sections for offline reading and review. We are working on providing updated content, which we'll make available in the Sage Customer and Partner portals.

Thank you for your honest feedback. We value your business and will strive to exceed your expectations. Please connect with us on twitter or e-mail us at sageaccpacdoc@sage.com to tell us what’s working and what we can do better.

We're excited about the future of Sage ERP Accpac, and we're looking forward to working with you to create a better information experience.

Sharon Murphy
Mgr, Sage ERP Accpac User Assistance

As we finish preparing Sage ERP Accpac 6.0A for release, much of the buzz around this release is the new Web Based technology platform. But for existing Accpac customers, what is the compelling business value? Why will existing customers want to upgrade? Will this upgrade be disruptive?

Upgrade Costs

A lot of times choosing to upgrade is a matter of balancing the costs of the upgrade versus the benefits of running the new software. This release is a little different from the past few releases where we were updating the accounting functionality. In the past few releases the costs of an upgrade were taken up by things like the time to convert the database to the new version, the time to verify and update customized reports, the time to verify and update macros and other customizations and then the time of training on any new or affected existing features. With version 6, the database conversion is much smaller than the past few releases and the changes to the database and Accpac Views is very minimal. This means that database activation should be relatively quick and painless, and that very few changes are required to existing customized reports and macros. In fact you could just install the version 6 update to the existing functionality, activate to version 6 and be done. This would reduce your upgrade cost, but not give you the full benefit of the new version (you would still get the lock fiscal periods by module functionality).

The main new features of Accpac 6 are accessed from the new Accpac Web based Portal (or in the case of the new CRM Integration, requires that this be installed). This requires a Web server to run. If you are already using SageCRM then you already have a Web Server and just need to determine if it has the spare capacity to run Accpac as well (which it might already be doing via the current CRM integration). Or you might have a file server that is only doing file serving and has plenty of spare capacity to run the Accpac web components. Otherwise you will need a new server. Installing the new Web components is largely the same as installing Accpac on a current file server, since all the new web components are installed as part of this process. For more information see: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/installing-and-deploying-sage-erp-accpac-6-0a/.

Upgrade Benefits

When we were deciding on the roadmap for rolling in out the new Accpac 6 platform there was a lot of debate about whether to roll out modules (like G/L) ported to the new web based architecture first, or to roll out new features first. A lot of this discussion focused on who would benefit: new users versus the installed base. We do a lot of surveying of customers and a lot of visiting customers to determine what the real pain points are and what the real business needs are. From these studies it was clear that improved reporting, improved business intelligence and improved CRM integration were of a higher need than getting existing modules in the new framework. So below we’ll quickly mention each feature and its benefit to current Accpac users.

Locking Fiscal Periods by Module

One very frequently requested feature is the ability to lock fiscal periods by module. This is now incorporated into Accpac and available to all users whether you use the new web component or not. This is a top vote getter from our idea suggestion web site. This feature gives you the ability say to lock a fiscal period for AR, AP, IC, OE, PO but keep it open for GL as you finish up month end. For more information on this see: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/sage-erp-accpac-6-0-%E2%80%93-locking-fiscal-periods-by-module/.

Reporting and Business Intelligence

SageCRM is already a nice modern Web based application. A common complaint about our CRM integration is that whenever you run an Accpac screen a Windows form leaps up out of the nice CRM web pages. This is disjointing and makes it clear you are running two applications. With Quotes to Orders we have developed web based versions of various screens to do with quote and order entry using the new framework and included them in our CRM integration. So now the Accpac screens are styled like CRM pages and make it appear as if you are staying in one application as you move between CRM pages and Accpac pages. In addition the quote and order screens have been made far easier to use by sales people so that they can be more productive taking orders. For more info on Quote to Orders see:  http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/sage-erp-accpac-6-0-quote-to-orders/.

Summary

Sometime people just see upgrading as a cost of doing business; that they have to do it now and again to remain supported and to work properly on the newest versions of Windows, Office or other components. We do want to make upgrading have a lot more value than this. And we do want to reduce the disruption and cost that upgrading entails.

We’ve worked hard to reduce the costs of upgrading and worked hard to maximize the value by listening to what you the customer really wants. Hopefully this approach has provided sufficient ROI that people will want to upgrade and the percentage of people that do will be quite high. Hopefully this approach gives you confidence in the future of Accpac that we are actively developing useful new features and technologies while protecting the investments you have made in the present.

 In Accpac 6.0, Fiscal Periods can be locked per module. This provides the user the capability to lock down some modules while leaving others open. A new UI for period locking looks like:

A user with the proper security rights can lock/unlock the fiscal periods.

 We are going to discuss some details about this new feature.

    1.    When a database is converted to 6.0 from 5.6, the old fiscal period setting will also be converted. All fiscal modules (see below) will be set to open if the period is open and the fiscal year is active in 5.6.

Notice that not all modules show in the UI because some modules are not related to fiscal periods. A module is called a  fiscal module if it uses fiscal period data (e.g. BK, GL, AP, AR, OE, UP, etc.) or a non-fiscal module if it has noting to do with fiscal periods (e.g. TX, EW etc.). Only fiscal modules will display their statuses in the above UI. The fiscal status of a module is defined in its .ini file (e.g. BK.ini). If there is an entry:

      FiscalApp=Y

Under the [General] section then it is a fiscal module. Otherwise it will not be considered as a fiscal module. For a 3^rd party application, by default it is not a fiscal module. To make it a fiscal module you will need to add the above entry in the .ini file.

However, as a user, never manually edit this line since it could cuase fiscal period function to stop wroking properly.

2. As you know, dependencies exist among the ACCPAC modules. You need to be aware of this when locking fiscal periods for the modules. For example, when you post an OE transaction, data will flow to AR then to BK and GL. What happens if the period is locked in BK in this case? Answer: a ‘fiscal period is locked' message from the Bank will be given and the process cannot be completed. This is because BK does not allow to post transactions to a locked period.

Basing on the dependency, ACCPAC core modules can roughly be divided into four levels:

     Level 1   IC, OE, PO, PM, CP, UP
     Level 2   AP, AR 
     Level 3   BK
     Level 4   GL

As a general rule, always lock the highest level (level 1) first, then the lower ones.  Do not lock a lower level module if you still need to post transactions from higher levels. This way, you won't receive messages like above when you post transactions.

The only exception to that rule is Bank reconciliation, where BK also depends on another sub ledger. In this case, both Bank and the sub ledger should be open in order to complete the process.

The idea of making it possible to lock some modules is to allow the user to gradually lock down all modules during a period of time. So locking from the highest level to lower levels does make sense.

3. There are several fiscal period related programming changes in 6.0. Any 3^rd party fiscal module will need to make adjustments accordingly.

         a.  API
             Two functions are obsolete but still work: GetPeriod, GetPeiodDates. (Status will return Open if all modules are open in a period).   
              Four new functions have been added: GetPeriodInfo, GetPeriodFromDate, GetAllPeriod, IsFiscaqlApp.
          b.  Period Picker
               A new property PGMID has been added to specify the fiscal module.
          c.  VB UI.
              Like API changes, two functions are obsolete and four new ones have been added. Old functions must be replaced. Please see the DDP web page for more details.

Since fiscal period locking is a new feature for 6.0, there may be room for further improvements in terms of usability. Any suggestion/comments are welcome.

Wesley Deng

Introduction

A key goal of the Sage ERP Accpac 6.x series is to completely revamp the Accpac User Interface technology. The goal is to transform Accpac into a technologically leading product again. We want to ensure that through this technology transformation we make Accpac an extremely competitive market leading product. This blog post will look at the technologies being incorporated into the Accpac 6.x platform and compares them to other technologies to highlight a few of the differentiators that set Accpac apart. We will also examine what we will be able to do with the building blocks being put in place.

This blog posting talks about the technologies being incorporated to make Accpac more competitive. However there is much more to competitiveness than the technology platform being used. We are also making changes to business models, marketing, product features, integrations, migrations, verticals, etc. All of these have just as big an impact on competitiveness as technology. All of these reflect that Accpac isn’t sitting still, but that all departments are moving ahead at a rapid pace to stay ahead of the constant change that we see in the market today. But I’ll leave those topics to other people’s blogs.

Usability

We’re only a month or two away from the launch of Sage ERP Accpac 6.0A (for details see: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/preparing-for-the-sage-erp-accpac-6-0a-launch/). A major goal of this release is to provide a smooth upgrade transition from 5.x to 6.x. There has been some concern that the new Web based components will make the product harder to install or increase the hardware requirements of the product. This blog posting will go into some detail of the parts that are the same, the parts that are new, what is optional and what you need to watch out for. We’ve put a lot of effort into the Accpac installation program to make the process as transparent and simple as possible. But sometime it’s helpful to know what’s going on behind the scenes and what is being setup for you.

Accpac Classic

If you don’t want to worry about the new Web technologies, you don’t have to. From Accpac’s installation screen you can de-select the “Portal” feature and install just like you always have.

Of course you can always add the Portal feature at any later time.

Here in R&D we are working hard to release Sage ERP Accpac 6.0A. This is a really major release for us. It introduces our next generation of Web Based UIs. Whenever the major number in Accpac’s version changes it signals the introduction of a major new technology (1 – Windows, 2 – SQL Server, 3 – Crystal Reports, 4 – 32 Bit, 5 – VB ActiveX UIs). Version 6 is no different, introducing our Sage Web Toolkit (SWT) based zero-client web based (HTML/JavaScript) UIs and the introduction of SData REST based Web Services. I’ve already written quite a few articles on the new features and technologies in Version 6:

·         The Portal: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/the-sage-erp-accpac-6-0a-portal/

·         Inquiry: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/sage-erp-accpac-6-0-adhoc-query/

·         Quotes to Orders: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/sage-erp-accpac-6-0-quote-to-orders/

·         Data Snapshots: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/sage-erp-accpac-6-0-data-portlets/

·         User Assistance: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/sage-erp-accpac-6-user-assistance/

This posting is to look at what we are doing now that we are code complete. Many of you can see some of the activities as you participate in the Alpha, Beta or Controlled Release programs, but behind the scenes there are many things going on to prepare for release.

Code Complete

We reached code complete back on August 20, 2010. This was after completing 20 3-week agile scrum sprints (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)). Prior to the start of the scrum sprints, quite a bit of work had been done working out the framework and doing the underlying research. But these 20 sprints were the bulk of the work. This was our first project where we used agile scrum as our development methodology. As a result we had a few problems along the way, but we learned a lot and are all in agreement that the agile method is far superior to the old waterfall methodology we were using previously. The goal of agile is that each sprint is self-contained, in that any feature (or story) is completed entirely within one sprint including development, QA and documentation. Ideally the product is in a releasable state at the end of each sprint.

Regression

Once we reached code complete, we started a regression test phase. This is intended to be a thorough regression test of the entire product to ensure nothing is broken. Ideally if you are perfect at using the agile methodology, you shouldn’t need to do this. You just ship when you are code complete. But we aren’t perfect and we are still learning how to do agile better. In fact agile is a continuous improvement (or kaizen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen) type of process that never sits still. You are always striving to improve. However Accpac is a large and complicated product with many interactions between all its parts. So we really do need to run a full regression to find and remove any funny bugs that were introduced unawares during the sprint process. We continue to do this testing until we release.

Security Audit

Version 6 will still be an on-premise application. For this version, Sage won’t be hosting it as a SaaS product. However we suspect that some customers will expose the Accpac Web Portal and other screens to the Internet at large. They won’t keep it safely hidden behind multiple layers of corporate firewall protection. Once Accpac is exposed to the Internet, security becomes a much larger concern. Application security is more than just switching to using HTTPS instead of HTTP. To this end we embarked on educating our programmers and QA on Internet security threats and added security related practices to our coding standards. Doing this is often called adding a SDL (Security Development Lifecycle http://www.microsoft.com/security/sdl/default.aspx). As part of this we had an external security firm do a complete security audit on all our new web based technologies. The external firm did find a number of important security vulnerabilities that were all fixed, and we learnt a lot to avoid these problems in the future. This way we received external confirmation that we were following good security practices and would provide a challenge to hackers trying to break in. This testing was started just before code complete and finished during regression.

Performance Testing

With any Web application performance is always an important priority. Over the past couple of releases we’ve been putting more and more performance testing into place to ensure the Accpac application performs well in all areas. This include the performance of a single user doing things, how long does it take for screens to appear, how long to perform processing tasks, etc. Then we have multi-user testing where we want to ensure that the single-user performance doesn’t degrade badly once many users are in the system doing the same thing. Over the web there are a couple of extra complexities such as how good is your network connection. We want Accpac to work well over any Internet broadband network, not just on a fast corporate LAN. Some of the testing we are doing is:

·         Using Selenium (http://seleniumhq.org/) to run a wide variety of user tests and record the performance on a weekly basis and compare to benchmarks set by Product Management. These are single user tests to make sure performance is good for a single user. We also use Selenium for automated functional testing.

·         Using JMeter (http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/) to run a wide variety of tests under multi-user load. JMeter doesn’t test what runs in the browser, it simulates what the browser does at the network level to test the server under heavy load. Again these tests are run weekly and tracked to watch the trends.

·         Perform weekly manual multi-user testing. Every week we have all of QA test against the same server and run “scripts” of typical tasks that real customers would do. This gives us confidence that we work well in a real customer environment and it validates that our automated tests are testing the right things.

·         Using Fiddler (http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/) to record all HTTP requests made by Accpac and to ensure that these are kept to a bare minimum and that each one is responded to quickly. This is to ensure that we will work well over slower Internet connections with higher latency.

·         Continue to use VBA macros to ensure any changes haven’t had a detrimental effect on the business logic performance.

Quality Debt Reduction

With every release we want to improve the quality of Accpac. With this release we have cataloged all known defects at the start of the release and a release certification requirement is that the number of total defects must be lower at release. So from release to release the number of open defects is reducing. There is also a lot of work going on so we prioritize these defects so that the ones that affect customers the most (based on severity and frequency) will be fixed first. We want to ensure this isn’t a numbers game where we just fix lots of issues about under-lining or field widths in reports. The real aim to ensure we have real measurable metrics that are published in a dashboard that is visible to everyone in Sage up to the CEO, to ensure we are improving quality in a real and measurable way.

Alpha

To help our ISVs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_software_vendor) come up to speed quickly, we’ve released “alpha” versions of the software for them to work with. We release these versions well ahead of code complete so ISVs have plenty of time to learn the new Web UI programming model and incorporate it into their products. We’ve been holding training classes on this; this year at South African Insights (Feb), North American Insights (May) and TPAC (August). We will be holding this training again in Australia and Asia. Having ISVs on board and developing using the new Web based technology is crucial to its success.

Beta

We have now had two Beta releases. These are to start to get business partners familiar with the new features; to test it and to provide feedback. Beta started just before code complete and allows some room to incorporate feedback (which we have) as well as provide enough time to fix bugs. This gives BPs a chance to run test conversions of client data to ensure it can be upgraded to the new version, plus to determine any work that will need to be done to customizations. Since ERP applications tend to be mission critical, we don’t want the beta installed in live environments, just test environments.

If any BPs can send us their client’s data, this is a great help for our real world testing. For the client and BP this ensures that we have used their data as a test case and they will know it will upgrade without problems. Of course the customer has to be OK with sharing their possibly very sensitive data. But if they do, we greatly appreciate it. Sage has a data retention and protection policy that spells out the steps we take to safeguard the data and how long we will keep it.

Controlled Release

Next is controlled release. This is when we take a release candidate of the software and install it in live environments. Due to the mission criticality of these environments, we ensure we have Support and Development on call to quickly address any issues. This is the final test to ensure everything works fine in a real customer environment. We will then help to move the customer to the final version (if necessary). The controlled release program is very important to us and we put a lot of weight in how it goes when deciding whether to release.

Release Certification

Now that all the testing is completed, all the alpha, beta and controlled release programs are finished, we need to decide if we should release. We now prepare a “release certification” report of the results and statistics from all the testing and all the feedback, bring all the stakeholders together and have a meeting to discuss the release. Beta and controlled release feedback is very prominent here. At this meeting we approve, reschedule or reject the release. This is more than just development, this meeting is to also ensure that all training material is in place, documentation is complete, language translations are done, marketing material is ready, the Sage Web site is ready, etc. Once we have the go ahead from this meeting, the release will proceed and you will be able to download the product.

Summary

This was a quick summary of some of the tasks that are being performed prior to the release of Sage ERP Accpac 6.0A. This is a huge project that involves many people. All of whom are working hard to make this a successful release and to launch the next generation of Accpac technology.

I started getting familiar with Excel spreadsheet features when I learned FR. The spreadsheet can be an instrument for calculating the total and average values from a range of cell values.

FR can not only provide me information for account history amounts in General Ledger (GL), it can also interpret a designed spec (a piece of information written in a spreadsheet containing FR formulas and spreadsheet functions) to produce an output I wish to get. It is a tool to print formatted statements from a spec such as quikinc1.xls in GL. By running Print Financial Statement for a spec with selected fiscal period and account ranges, I can get a generated statement.

In some reports, I may not wish to print output which is not useful to me. Take for example, the generated output from quikinc1 are only shown with zero totals when all retrieved amounts are zeros. The last line of the printed output is on row 75. I do not want to print the generated statement if the last line of the output is up to row 75.

In this case, I can put two words like “The End” at row 46 and column E in the spec. When zero history amounts are got through FR, these words are expected showing at row 75 and column E in output.

I can hide the words located at the spec by using font color same as background (white) so I cannot see them in generated output too.

Then, I can go to the visual basic editor to add an available workbook event in quikinc1.xls under “ThisWorkbook” as

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

 Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
    If Cells(75, 5).Value = "The End" Then
        Cancel = True
    End If
End Sub

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Before printing the output, Excel detects whether the output located at row 75 has the words “The End”. The output will not be shown in printer or preview when the words are found.

After saving the workbook, I can take a test by running the changed spreadsheet under Print Financial Statement. If I cannot get the desired result, I can change the page setup of my workbook to print with row and column headings and the hidden words in the spec back to visible form for further testing. By reading the generated printout, I may check whether the cell location specified in the added workbook event is matched with the location of the printed words.

Do you have any tips and tricks using Financial Reporter with Excel? Feel free to share them in the comments section below.

In the beginning, there was the View. The View is a Sage ERP Accpac Business Logic object, for an introduction to Views see: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/accpac%e2%80%99s-business-logic/. The View is a Windows DLL with a set interface. Views expose a common set of functions, which are displayed below (this set of functions has grown over time):

There are functions to control the View, manipulate fields, get meta-data, manipulate records and manipulate sets of records. Each of these routines has a corresponding function inside the View DLL. In the early days all these functions were exported from the View DLL and theoretically could be called directly. However we never endorsed this, did it ourselves or provided instructions on how to do that. In a way calling these functions directly in the View DLL was the first View interface, even though it was never used. Not listed here is the real function that is called in the View DLL, namely rotoEntry. This function takes a structure as its argument that specifies the function to call and has some generic arguments that are used as the arguments to the various functions following a set convention. Again the users of Views have never loaded the View DLL and called the rotoEntry function directly.

When Sophocles wrote, "No one loves the messenger who brings bad news," he wasn't thinking about a software error message -- but if he was alive today and wrestling with a tricky document formatting error, he might well pen the same sentiment.

People love to hate software messages -- and there are many good reasons to hate them. They usually arrive bearing bad news: you've made a mistake, or you're about to make a mistake, or something very complicated is broken.

Many of the complaints we hear from our partners and customers about messages in Sage ERP Accpac fall into one of three categories:

1. Messages are unfriendly. A lot of our error messages begin with technical and negative-sounding category statements such as "Incorrect procedure" or "Invalid input." These can make it sound like we're assigning blame -- in fact, one  of our business partners compared the tone of these messages to "a slap on the wrist."
2. Messages interrupt workflow. This doesn't apply only to errors -- even a seemingly positive "success" message can become irritating if it pops up and forces you to click OK to continue every time you post a batch. If a message like this is part of a workflow that you repeat many times each day, it can add up to a lot of extra (and pointless) clicks.
3. Messages are impossible to understand. This happens when messages are written by developers to help them find and fix bugs, but aren't rewritten for customers before the product is released. "94 - Invalid use of Null in ProcessDet_Actual" might make sense to a developer, but most people would prefer a message that says "You must create and post a batch before running a filter."

As we move Sage ERP Accpac from the desktop to the browser, we're adding new messages and revising many existing ones. Here are a few ways we're working to address known pain points with messages and create a more positive experience for our customers:

• Focus on helping customers understand and solve problems. We're doing our best to translate messages written in "developer-ese" into plain language. Where possible, we're adding short, descriptive titles to help you get the main idea at a glance. And if we're able to suggest a solution, or at least the first step toward a solution, we're including that information in the body of the message. 
• Minimize interruptions. There are many cases in which simply changing the way a message is delivered can make it less disruptive to workflow. For example, a dialog box (which forces you to click a button to continue) can be replaced with an inline message that fades in and out while you continue working uninterrupted. If you're working on a data entry screen and you make a typo while tabbing through fields, an inline message will allow you to continue and correct the mistake later, unlike a dialog box, which forces you to stop and fix the error before moving on. 
• Keep it short and friendly.  A well-written message communicates necessary information in as few words as possible -- but if adding a few words will change the tone from terse to friendly, we'll do that. (And by "friendly," we don't mean "cute," so don't expect to start seeing messages like Firefox's "Well, this is embarrassing" anytime soon.)

Is there a Sage ERP Accpac message that makes your life miserable? Do you have other ideas for how we can improve messages? I'd love to hear from you.

Every week, I receive newsletters and other publications for translators and localization specialists. There seems to be every time more hype going on about Machine Translation. Just yesterday, SDL presented a webinar on Post-editing machine translations. Some say post-editing will inevitably become part of a translator's job.

Despite the many fears this phenomenon can inspire to professional translators, machine translation is unlikely to replace human translation. MT systems are mostly used as an alternative option when human translators cannot be used (for example due to the volume of the data). The translation is used per se (when quality is not a factor) or as a draft and then reviewed by a post-editor/translator.

Machine translation is being used by companies, organizations, government agencies that have very large amounts of data that need to be translated. The list of members of the Translation Automation User Society gives an idea of who is moving towards a greater use of machine translation (not only will you find the most translation/localization solutions' providers in the list, but also companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec - to name just a few - as well as a fair number of universities). For example, Microsoft uses machine translation to make its knowledge base's articles available to non-English speakers.

Machine translation targets for the most parts Internet and technical texts and doesn't work well with contents that are not clean and clear. The automated translation I use (SDL Trados Studio) offers the opportunity to connect to automated translation servers and out of curiosity I created a dummy (empty) translation memory and opened two documents for translation. In the project setup, I added the 3 automated translation servers (Free versions) and ran the documents through it. For the first document (which contained long and complex sentences), the translation provided by the servers made no sense and would require extensive post-editing before it could be used.

In the above screenshot, the text underlined in green can be reused; all the rest needs to be edited. Needless to say that machine translation is of no help for this kind of texts.

With help files nevertheless, the results are much better:

The text underlined in red needs edit as well as some capitalization edits. There are still some translation segments that sound funny but the amount of editing seems reasonable and tough it is not perfect, most of the translation is understandable.

Combining this technology with existing translation memory might still be an interesting option to make documentation and support materials available to non-English speakers where they wouldn't otherwise be provided with any information in their language.

I thought I might spend a few blog postings talking about Sage ERP Accpac’s Business Logic. With all the talk about version 6’s new web based UIs, the Business Logic hasn’t been talked about much lately. However the Business Logic is still the heart and soul of Accpac. It contains all the difficult application logic that provides the true business value and ROI to the product. This blog posting will talk a bit about the architecture and an overview of Business Logic, then in future postings we’ll go into some of the details. Below is an architectural diagram of Accpac showing the Business Logic as the middle tier of a three tier architecture. The Business Logic talks to the Database layer through a database independent API layer (which we talked about here: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/accpac-and-it%E2%80%99s-databases/).

Then the various users of the Business Logic talk to it through a number of standard APIs that are part of the Accpac System Manager. Individual Business Logic objects are called Views (not to be confused with database views).

TPAC (Third Party Advantage Conference,  http://www.tpac.biz/) is a conference for Sage ERP Accpac third party developers, that is held yearly in Vancouver, Canada. This year it was held at the River Rock Casino Resort (www.riverrock.com). The idea is that this gives a venue for all the Accpac ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) to showcase their wares to Accpac Business Partners. There is a trade show where everyone gets a booth and each vendor gives a presentation on their products. Then there is plenty of time for networking and education (including a dinner boat cruise). This year there were 32 exhibitors and around 150 attendees. This show is run independently of Sage, though Sage is a sponsor.

Sage’s big North American conference is Insights (http://www.sageinsightsconference.com). This conference highlights all of Sage’s many products, and although the ISVs have booths and presentations, the main focus of the show is Sage, its direction and announcements. TPAC is nice because it is a more intimate affair with only Accpac partners and ISVs, many who have known each other since the Accpac Plus days. The focus in on the ISVs and they have the spotlight. This makes it a very focused and valuable conference for everyone that attends.

The main development center for Accpac is in Richmond, B.C., only a 10 minute drive away from the conference. This meant that many Sage Product Managers and Developers could attend either the whole show, or at least attend for part. Business Partners also have to option of visiting the Sage development center as part of their visit to Vancouver if they want to.

Pre-conference we ran SDK training for 24 or so ISVs on how to develop Accpac 6 Web Based User Interface programs for their applications. This training ran over 2 days and was held at the Sage Accpac development center in Richmond. The training was very successful and a couple of Web Based UIs based on this technology were being displayed at the TPAC tradeshow.

Although Sage isn’t the focus of the show, Sage people give a few presentations including a Sage ERP Accpac 6 roadmap presentation to highlight the road ahead. Sage ERP Accpac 6 is now in beta, so promoting the beta program, highlighting the marketing plan being put together for the release and showing what comes next. There was also a town hall session given by Laurie Schultz, Accpac’s General Manager. There was generally a very positive reception for version 6.0A and a lot of positive feedback on the current version 5.6A.

ISVs are of crucial importance to any ERP software vendor. No vendor can do everything on their own. The key goal of each vendor is to provide a compelling software development platform along with a core set of applications developed on that platform.  This is a huge undertaking. Then the ERP vendor relies on ISVs to take the platform and develop all sorts of vertical applications for specific industries, useful add-on programs or integrations to other stand-alone applications. For Accpac, the System Manager is the development platform that provides the frameworks, structure and supporting APIs for developing ERP modules. The System Manager is the runtime component and the Accpac SDK contains all the samples, documentation and tools to develop ERP modules to run on SM. Then Accpac provides the core accounting applications including General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory Control, Order Entry, Purchase Order, Payroll, and Project and Job Costing. Then we rely on ISVs to fill in other industry specific modules like POS (Point of Sale), Manufacturing, Service Management, etc.

To provide some concrete examples of Accpac ISVs, here are the ones that exhibited at TPAC. This isn’t an endorsement of any particular vendor; it just means they exhibited at TPAC. This isn’t meant to exclude anyone, if an ISV isn’t on the list it’s only because they didn’t exhibit at TPAC or I made a mistake. Many of the ISVs below have more products than I list, these are just a sampling.

·         Altec (http://www.altec-inc.com/):  Provides an integrated document management solution.

·         Norming Software (http://www.norming.com/): Provide Asset Management, International Payroll and Timesheet entry.

·         Orchid Systems (http://www.orchidsystems.biz/): Inter-entity transactions, Information Manager and Info-Explorer.

·         Smart Hotel Software (http://www.smarthotelsoftware.com/):  A Hotel Property Management System.

·         Accu-Dart (http://www.accu-dart.com/): Warehouse Management.

·         Accellos (http://www.accellos.com/): Warehouse Management.

·         AutoSimply (http://www.autosimply.com/): Manufacturing.

·         Avalara (http://www.avalara.com/): Sales and Use Tax Management.

·         BI-Metrix (http://www.bi-metrix.com/): Business Intelligence.

·         CGS Datapool Services (http://www.cgsdatapool.com/): EDI Services.

·         Configur8or (http://www.configur8or.com/): Product configuration software.

·         DataSelf (http://www.dataself.com/): DataHabitat Business Intelligence.

·         EDISoft (http://www.edisoft.com/): EDI Software.

·         Enabling (http://www.enabling.net/): QuickCost Time Billing Management Software.

·         Escape Velocity Systems (http://www.evs-sw.com/): zFind Enterprise Application Search.

·         Iciniti (http://www.iciniti.com/Home.aspx): Iciniti Store, Credit Card and Order Reader.

·         Industrios (http://www.industrios.com/): Manufacturing.

·         Liaison Software (http://www.liaisonsc.com/): Business forms distribution.

·         North49 (http://www.north49.com/): Webtelligence eCommerce software.

·         Pacific Technology (http://www.pacifictechsol.com/): AuditLogger, Commitment Accounting, Purchasing Workflow.

·         Paperless Business Systems (http://www.paperlessbusiness.com/): Consulting Services.

·         Red Tail Solutions (http://www.redtailsolutions.com/index.asp): EDI Software.

·         RockySoft Corporation (http://www.rockysoft.com/index.php): Inventory Management.

·         Stonefield Software (http://www.stonefieldquery.com/Solutions/SageAccpacERP.aspx): Business Intelligence Reporting.

·         TaiRox (http://www.tairox.com/): Advanced Financials, Backup, SOX Compliance.

·         Technisoft (http://www.technisoft.com/): Service Manager.

·         TelPay (http://www.telpay.ca/): Payment Technology Solutions.

·         V1 Document Management (http://www.v1documentmanagement.com/): Document Management and Imaging Software.

·         Websitepipeline (http://www.websitepipeline.com/): Web Site Development.

·         Wellspring Software (http://www.wellspringsoftware.com/):  PrintBoss

·         XM Oxygen (http://www.xmdevelopments.com/): eCommerce Solutions.

We discussed how to create Accpac 6 Web based UIs in http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/creating-a-web-form-for-accpac-6/ and how to write code that runs as JavaScript in the Browser in http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/client-logic-for-an-accpac-6-web-form/. This blog posting looks at how you can write server side code in Java to assist your UIs do their job more efficiently.

Accpac 6 Web UIs communicate with the Server using SData (http://smist08.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/sdata-in-sage-erp-accpac-6/ and http://sdata.sage.com/) which is a REST based Web Services protocol. On the Server we run a Java application that converts incoming SData requests into Accpac View calls. Accpac Views are the business logic objects within Accpac. The Accpac business logic is remaining largely unchanged in this new environment and it’s the job of this Java application to convert the new world into the older world.

Theoretically then, you could do much of what we are talking about directly in the Views. We could expose new calculated fields or new functionality directly from the Views. However Views are used by all sorts of things including VB based UIs, macros, import/export as well as by third party applications. We don’t want to clutter up the Views with lots of extra logic needed to support or optimize the new Web based UIs. What we are looking to do is split the code that used to run entirely in VB UIs to half run in the browser and half run on the server. We also want to provide support for our Web based UIs to minimize program size running in the Browser and to minimize the number of RPC (remote procedure calls) they need to make to the server. The current VB UIs call many Views at once to do what they need, but this won’t work so well over the Internet since it will require many SData calls to do things, we really want to consolidate all the info the UI requires in one feed, so it only needs to do one SData call to get everything it needs.

Within the SData server’s configuration are a number of XML files that define all the SData feeds for the various accounting applications. For each application there is a classmap.xml file that lists all the feeds and the Java class that processes that feed. Then for each feed there is a specific resourcemap.xml file that defines various properties or configurations for that feed such as which Views is sits on, or some extra fields to present. To add an SData feed on top of an existing View is easy and just a matter of creating these simple XML files. There is a generic class ViewResourceKind that will provide standard SData functionality for any View. But if you want to add your own functionality you need to extend one of our classes and add your own logic.

The hardest way to implement an SData service is to create a class that implements our SDataResourceKind interface. This interface defines what a class needs to implement in order to be used as an SData feed from our SData application server. Here you need to do all the work, but if you want to implement a feed that hasn’t got anything to do with normal Accpac processing, perhaps this is a way to go. Fortunately we provide a class that implements this interface that you can extend. This is the ViewResourceKind class, mentioned previously, that implements SData on top of a View. This is really intended for data type Views. You can extend this to add fields and/or provide other helpful services for your UI form (or other consumer of your SData feed).

SData provides data type feeds similar to Views built closely over database tables, but it also provides “service” feeds that are similar to Accpac superviews. These feeds are meant to perform service type operations like printing a report, posting a batch or doing a calculation. They can operate asynchronously, meaning the originating call returns immediately, but then can poll the service for status updates (which can be used to update a meter control).

Here is a bit of sample code from the SData service that provides the data for the pie charts in the G/L Balance Sheet data snapshot.

public class GLBALSHTService extends BaseService

{

   private final SDataView            viewGLFSUM;

   private final List<ServiceField>   requestFields;

   private final List<ServiceField>   responseFields;

   private static final String        STR_RSCID  = "GLBALSHTSP";

   private boolean                    bPermitted = false;

   private GLLanguageResourceContents GLLanguageResource;

   public GLBALSHTService(final ApplicationContext applicationContext, final ResourceContextImpl resourceContext,

         final Resource resource, final Service service, final SDataViewSet viewSet)

   {

      super(applicationContext, resourceContext, resource, service, viewSet);

      viewGLFSUM = new SDataView(getResourceContext().getAccpacProgram(), GLFSUM.VIEW, resource);

      bPermitted = getResourceContext().getAccpacProgram().isPermitted(STR_RSCID);

      if (!bPermitted)

      {

         String appVersion;

         String appLang;

         //language dependent resource content is only used when access is not permitted.

         appVersion = resourceContext.getAccpacProgram().getActiveApplications().get(GLLanguageResourceContents.APPL)

               .getAppVersion();

         appLang = viewGLFSUM.getProgram().getSession().getUserLanguage();

         GLLanguageResource = new GLLanguageResourceContents(appVersion, appLang);

      }

      requestFields = new ArrayList<ServiceField>();

      responseFields = new ArrayList<ServiceField>();

      setupRequestFields();

      setupResponseFields();

   }

   @Override

   public void shutdown()

   {

      if (this.viewGLFSUM != null)

         this.viewGLFSUM.dispose();

   }

   private void setupRequestFields()

   {

      requestFields.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_YEAR)));

      requestFields.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_PERIOD)));

      requestFields.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_PERIODS)));

   }

   private void setupResponseFields()

   {

      responseFields.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_ENDDATE)));

      responseFields.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_CASH)));

     // … Lots more response fields defined …

   }

   protected List<ServiceField> createRequestFields(final SDataRequest request)

   {

      return requestFields;

   }

   @Override

   protected List<ServiceField> createResponseFields(final SDataRequest request)

   {

      return responseFields;

   }

   @Override

   protected List<ServiceField> execute(SDataResourceElement payload, SDataRequest request, AsyncStatusListener listener)

   {

      List<ServiceField> list = new ArrayList<ServiceField>();

      if (!bPermitted)

      {

         throw (new RuntimeException(GLLanguageResource.getValue(GlobalContent.ACCESS_DENIED_MSG.toString()), null));

      }

      int errorCode;

      this.viewGLFSUM.recordClear();

      setGLFSUMViewFieldsValue(payload);

      MeterEventListener meterListener = null;

      if (listener != null)

      {

         meterListener = new MeterListener(listener, listener.getProgress().getProgressPct(),

               TrackingPayload.PROGRESSPCT_GET_RESULT);

      }

      errorCode = viewGLFSUM.process(meterListener);

      if (errorCode > 0)

      {

         throw (new RuntimeException(null, null));

      }

      list.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_ENDDATE)));

      list.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_CASH)));

      // … Lots more reponse fields added …

      return list;

   }

   /**

    * function to set field value

    */

   private void setGLFSUMViewFieldsValue(SDataResourceElement payload)

   {

      for (SDataResourceElement elem : payload.getContents())

      {

         final String name = elem.getName();

         String value = (String)elem.getValue();

         if (value != null)

         {

            viewGLFSUM.putBySDataPropertyName(name, value, Boolean.FALSE);

         }

      }

   }

   /**

    * set the default value for the request fields

    */

   @Override

   protected List<ServiceField> createTemplateFields(final SDataRequest request)

   {

      List<ServiceField> list = new ArrayList<ServiceField>();

      this.viewGLFSUM.recordClear();

      list.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_YEAR)));

      list.add(ServiceHelper.viewFieldToServiceField(viewGLFSUM.getFields().get(GLFSUM.IDX_PERIOD)));

      return list;

   }

}

This service is then defined in the GLServiceMap.xml file under the tomcat\portal directory:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<serviceMap>

<services>

                        <service name="glbalsht"

                                                className="com.sage.accpac.gl60a.common.server.GLBALSHTService">

                        </service>

… other definitions …

</services>   

</serviceMap> 

In the execute method, notice the View calls to the GLSUM View. You can see calls to recordClear and process. Basically these are calls to our Java JNI layer (Java Native Interface, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Native_Interface). Here we have a hierarchy of classes very similar to what we had in COM for VB programming where you can access all the View methods as well as a selection of convenient other System Manager APIs.

The basic logic here is to first initialize the operation in the constructor, get the input fields from the SData feed (the request fields as in setupRequestFields), perform the various View operations that are required (the execute method) and then setup the response fields to send back to the UI running in the Browser (created in setupResponseFields and then set in the execute method).

Hopefully, this gives a bit of a flavor for what sort of programming goes on the server for helping User Interface programs from an SData point of view.

Last week we talked about creating Accpac 6 Web UIs (http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/creating-a-web-form-for-accpac-6/). Part of the process is creating the XML representation of the Web Form which we discussed previously: http://smist08.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/how-to-layout-forms-in-sage-erp-accpac-6/. Now suppose you have an XML form designed either in an XML editor or using our SwtUIDesigner and you want functionality beyond that which is given to you by default. By default you have record navigation, save and delete. From last week’s article you will now have a simple runnable project. So where do you put your client side code? Within the client files is a file xxFeatureModule.java which contains:

/**

 * Copyright 2010 Sage Software Inc. All rights reserverd.

 */

package com.sage.accpac.SS60A.ss1005.client;

import com.sage.swt.client.ui.builder.AbstractSynchronousFeatureModule;

import com.sage.swt.client.ui.builder.InstanceContext;

public class SS1005FeatureModule extends AbstractSynchronousFeatureModule

{

   public String getDebugName()

   {

      return "SS1005 Feature Module";

   }

   protected boolean handleInstanceLoaded(InstanceContext context)

   {

      // TODO: Handle what happens when an instance context is loaded.

      // Return true if the handling was successful; false otherwise.

      return true;

   }

}

This is where you put your code. The handleInstanceLoaded routine is provided for you to hook your code in. Basically this is called once the UI has initialized and the XML form has been processed and everything has been created. At this point you can hook into any UI controls, data sources or do any other initialization you require. The context that is passed into this routine is the object from which you can get to everything else in the UI. It contains the collection of controls on the form, collection of datasources , etc. Below is a snippet of code for a simple handleInstanceLoaded routine that retrieves a button from the context by calling its getWidgets() method. Then it calls addClickListener() to add a listener that will be called whenever the button is clicked.

   protected boolean handleInstanceLoaded(InstanceContext context)

   {

      DefaultAllClickListener defaultAllListener = new DefaultAllClickListener(context);

      SwtButton btnDefaultAll = (SwtButton) context.getWidgets().get

( UIConstants.WidgetIDs.CONFIG_BTN_DEFAULTALL );

      if (null != btnDefaultAll)

         btnDefaultAll.addClickListener(defaultAllListener);     

      return true;

   }

   private class DefaultAllClickListener implements ClickListener

   {

      public DefaultAllClickListener(InstanceContext context)

      {

      }

      public void onClick(Widget sender)

      {

          SwtMessageDialog.showMessageDialog(

UILanguageResources.AppContent.DIALOG_RESTORE_DEFAULT.getValue(),

               UILanguageResources.AppContent.DIALOG_CONFIRM_DEFAULT.getValue(),

               SwtMessageDialog.ResponseButtonSetType.YES_NO,

               SwtMessageDialog.MessageType.CONFIRM, "",

               new MessageDialogListener[] {new ConfirmDefaultAllListener()});

      }

   }

   private class ConfirmDefaultAllListener implements MessageDialogListener

   {

      public void onRespond(MessageDialogEvent evt)

      {

         SwtMessageDialog.ResponseButtonType response = evt.getResponse();

         if (response == SwtMessageDialog.ResponseButtonType.YES)

         {

            defaultConfigInfo(popupContext);

         }

      }

   }

Notice that we defined a new class DefaultAllClickListener which implements ClickListener. Basically this is defining the class for the object that will be called whenever a button is pressed. So in handleInstanceLoaded we call “new DefaultAllClickListener(context)” to create a new object in the DefaultAllClickListener class. This object will now be called whenever the button is pressed. In Java this is the typically way you get event notifications. There is nothing like a COM Event special type of method. Event handlers are just regular methods in regular classes. You hook them up by passing them to the object that does the notifying, usually by some sort of addXXXListener() type method call. It’s up to each routine that does notifications to keep a list of all the objects they need to notify and to call each one in turn whenever anything happens.

This is true for all UI events, notice that even the confirmation dialog displayed has a ConfirmDefaultAllListener() that will be called when the button is pressed on this dialog. All notifications are asynchronous like this. You can’t call a UI action and expect to wait (in the code) for a response. If VB we could just do answer = MsgBox () and our code would wait for the user to choose Yes or No. In the browser, everything is asynchronous, nothing waits, everything is via notifications. This is a different metaphor than people are used to. In languages like VB some things are asynchronous and work via event notifications and some things are synchronous. The big difference is that calls to the server are asynchronous, so whenever you make an SData call, you are notified via this mechanism when something arrives. Contrast this to VB where you make a server call, your code waits for the response and no more code is executed until you get it. In the web world this could take quite a long time and the browser would be completely unresponsive if no code executed until you got this response. This is the world of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming) ). AJAX is the key to creating rich internet applications in the Browser. If we didn’t use this, then the input forms would be quite boring lists of titles and edit boxes followed by a submit button, where nothing happens until you hit submit. This is another reason that you want to put groups of View calls in your server module, where everything works synchronously as normal. Generally you only want to make one server call at a time, since then you don’t need to chain together a number of responses, plus you get the performance benefit of only making one server call over the Internet.

Here we’ve been putting the code in the xxFeatureModule.java file, but unlike VB, there are no restrictions on how many source files you have and no rules that certain things have to be in certain files. So you can freely create as many class files as you like and organize your code in whatever manner you like. The nice thing is that you can follow industry best practices and aren’t under constraints like an event listener has to be in a special file in order to be called. So the expectation would be that you can create common Java libraries to share over UI projects and that you can keep your class files small and maintainable without putting everything including the kitchen sink into the xxFeatureModule.java file.

One aspect of Java that trips up VB (and C) programmers is the use of inheritance. When using an API or framework in C or VB, basically you look for all the functions, properties and events you can use. If you take this approach with Java, you will probably find that you are having trouble finding what you are looking for. This is because Java supports inheritance in a proper object oriented manner. So often the paradigm isn’t to do something by calling API functions, rather what you do is extend a class that does much of what you want and then just add the code that’s needed to make the difference. People new to Java often take a bit of time getting used to this. If you are stuck and aren’t finding an API that you are sure must be provided, instead look for a class that is along the lines of what you need that you can extend.

This code is Java and definitely not JavaScript. Yet this is what we are writing to run in the Browser. To produce the final runnable code we have to feed this through the GWT Compiler to get it compiled into JavaScript. The GWT Compiler will produce 6 versions of JavaScript from this code, one optimized for each major Browser family including WebKit (Safari and Chrome), Gekko (Firefox) and separate versions for IE 6 and 8. This then is the final code that you would deploy to your customer’s web servers to run.

In the meantime while you are developing, you keep working in Java. You can run this code as a Java application inside the Eclipse IDE. You can use the Eclipse Java debugger to single step through the code, set breakpoints and examine variables. You can also use all sorts of other Java tools to make yourself more productive like JUnit (http://www.junit.org/), Emma (http://emma.sourceforge.net/) or TPTP (http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-TPTP-Profiling-Tool/tptpProfilingArticle.html). Plus you can use all the plug-ins that are available for Eclipse such as say SubVersion for source control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion).

All the methods are documented in the HTML JavaDoc which is generated from the comments in the source code. This is included as part of the SDK. Below is a sample of the beginning of the page that documents the InstanceContext. This page documents all the methods in this object.

Customization