April 7, 2017 - Dayton, OH - (www.profoundlogic.com), Profound Logic, a leader in IBM i modernization solutions, is pleased to announce the release of Profound UI 5.8.
Profound UI is a comprehensive suite of modules that transform outdated, 5250 green screens into modern, HTML5 web and mobile interfaces. Profound UI natively modernizes RPG applications for the IBM i platform, without the need to use Windows middleware or re-write applications in another language. Modern applications improve end user productivity and are easier to maintain and improve by developers.
Version 5.8 adds new capabilities to the JumpStart module and widgets within the Visual Designer module.
JumpStart Enhancements
JumpStart is a module within the Profound UI suite that enables developers to quickly generate RPG or PHP application code.
Prior to 5.8.0, JumpStart could only generate code to operate on a single file. Often, data is split across multiple physical files. User-friendly programs often lookup fields from the related file to save the user from needing to lookup keys for desired values.
In 5.8.0, JumpStart can generate code to handle multiple files in a file-maintenance, or CRUD, program. This new feature allows a program to use lookup fields in grids and detail screens. A SQL preview feature has also been added to the module.
Another improvement to JumpStart is template macro capabilities. In the past, JumpStart templates could become complex and difficult to read. The #evalQ macro allows templates to set internal variables to allow more flexibility and reduce complexity.
Additional improvements to JumpStart includes the ability to handle null database fields in the RPG program and support for alternative field names to be used in the display file and RPG or PHP program.
Visual Designer Widget Improvements
The Profound UI Visual Designer comes out of the box with over 150 Rich UI widgets that enable developers to add everything from subfile grids to Google maps to their modern RPG applications.
Improvements to widgets in Profound UI 5.8 include:
- Unicode is now used throughout, enabling you to have data stored in any language or character set and it will be shown correctly in the widgets.
- HTML and AJAX containers now support EJS, a syntax that supports dynamic JavaScript templating code embedded within HTML. This capability makes it simpler to implement custom dynamic HTML output for responsive design and integration with CSS frameworks, like Bootstrap.
- Subfile Grids loaded with the "custom sql" property were limited in which SQL SELECT statements they could use. We have added a new property "allow any select statement" that can be enabled to remove this limitation.
- It is now possible for the "onsubmit" event to add fields to the screen response without hard-coding the field or format names in your program.
- Instead of loading external JavaScript and CSS for every user's session, it is now possible to load those extra files only when needed. This is accomplished via a "dependencies" parameter to the custom widget code:
- It is now possible to create your own custom layout widgets, and load them with the pui.retrieveCustomLayoutTemplate() API. More information can be found here: http://www.profoundlogic.com/docs/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=31260909
- Updates to FusionCharts, including database-driven maps and clickable maps
For more information about this release, plus a complete list of Profound UI 5.8's features and capabilities, visit: http://www.profoundlogic.com/docs/display/PUI/What%27s+New
###Baker College