I’m not going to comment directly on any of the previous posts as the majority isn’t that constructive in nature, I think.
As for something constructive: we are working on making it possible for registered users (users having an account to log into the Support system) to also be able to log into the Wiki, which will allow people with the skills and time to contribute documentation, tutorials etc. We’re planning to have this available by SW11.
Secondly, just like all previous releases since Servoy 5 we will update the existing online documentation to match the capabilities of the new version and we’ll publish (at least) one new Guide.
As for the suggestions that we (Servoy) would not deem documentation important and/or not take our responsibility to provide documentation serious: I beg to differ. Starting Servoy 5 we have started the major task to rewrite all documentation. We have provided several completely rewritten Guide since the Servoy 5 release and have kept these rewritten Guides up to date with the newest capabilities. For example, with Servoy 5.2 we released the Getting started Guide. Besides that, we supported the start of ServoyForce and ServoyUniversity, two valuable resources for starting and more advanced Servoy Developers. Does this mean that the documentation if finished? No. Does this mean we’re taking it serious? Yes.
How can you help? If you have time at your disposal to contribute documentation and/or tutorials, you can contact me.
Thanks for the reply, I will contact you directly and look forward to “helping” with the Wiki
For the record I think its an excellent idea to enable registered users to contribute to the main Servoy managed Wiki. This is will not only allow Servoy to maintain the standard but also hopefully greatly increase the variety, level and languages of content available. The ideas behind ServoyForge and Servoy University are outstanding, I agree they are valuable resources both to new and advanced users. I can certainly vouch for the fact that I watched some of the demo videos on the main Servoy.com site several times not to mention to various recorded demo presentations that have been done subsequently.
I hope this thread has now run its course and that with all these new resources available existing and new developers alike will be more than happy with the available docs.
I have to agree with Paul and Gordon. If there is no constructive and positive criticism, we will all be affected. As Gordon stated, “as a group of developers our success is very much based on the success of Servoy.”
My impression is that since the launch of Servoy 4, Servoy product’s capabilities (not just features) has grown exponentially, and so all of the effort that Servoy as a company had put into the documentation cannot be appreciated because it does not equal the growth of Servoy’s product.
Still, for the reasons that Gordon stated above, we as developers are better off while comparing support from other parties. In many instances ‘Servoy has more than made up for the lack of documentation.’ I am glad to hear that Servoy is working in a manual around each of the sample solutions. This is a great step forward. Please, try to make it part of Servoy installation
In addition to the options that Servoy already have in place for the Wiki, I have an idea about how you (or anyone else) could help with the Wiki:
IMHO, we need to find a way of channeling the great opinions, to-dos, and recommendations found in the forum into the documentation/wiki. The easiest way to achieve this will be by tagging a point(s) in the wiki to a topic(s) in the forum or vice-versa. However, because the ‘forum tends to wander off message,’ an optimal solution will be to rewrite something found in the forum and insert into the wiki.
I am not an expert, but I know how to learn and understand a message fairly well. I think I could help with this. Paul, Gordon, if you think I could help, please contact me.
What is the “realValue” parameter when the field in your table is null? It turns out that the answer is “-1”. (It may be important to know this so you can avoid an unnecessary query.)
[/quote]
-1? that looks very weird to me, then that is the real value of the dataprovider
Where the dataprovider is null the global valuelist is not queried… for that value
So i don’t know where that -1 really comes from but that is not something we do on purpose when the dataprovider is null
In what context do you use the global method valuelist? what component in what kind of client uses it where you get the -1
So the doc for this is should be correct, we query with a real value when we want to know the display value of a real value (and that real value != null)
We currently dont really support a “null” default value, sending -1 is a bit weird because that could be a valid realvalue just fine…
Yeroc:
When is my global method called when a form enters find mode and what are the parameters? No mention at all is made of find mode in the sample code. Again, through experimentation I was able to determine that when entering find mode the “record” parameter passed in is not actually a JSRecord at all! Since this behaviour isn’t documented I don’t know whether this is a feature I can rely on or merely a bug (being able to differentiate when in find mode is important because I need to return a different valuelist based on whether I’m in find mode or not.
[/quote]
Yes what you get is the same as when you are in find mode, you get the “find record” and yes that is not a real record so it doesn’t have the records methods (like getPK)
but for getting a dataprovider value it works the same as a record.[/quote]
jcarlos:
I am not an expert, but I know how to learn and understand a message fairly well. I think I could help with this. Paul, Gordon, if you think I could help, please contact me.
JC
JC - Thanks very much for your post, its great that you want to be involved and I am sure we can collectively make a real difference. As Paul mentioned he is in the process of making changes to the wiki to enable helpers and will coordinate the efforts. Thanks again for your very positive post, will look forward to working with you!! GM