Examples... Examples! EXAMPLES!

Classic Servoy
21

Bert:
First, one can buy all the printed books, but can’t study them all at once.
What do you suggest with what book to start and why etc.
Maybe some explanation what the intention is for example between the reference guide and the user guide and in fact all the other manuals.

Bert,

Click on any of the “info” links below to read a brief description about the
content of a Servoy book OR you can visit the Servoy Store as described
below:

Servoy 2.1 Books

These Servoy 2.1 books can be purchased from the online Servoy Store:

Servoy Developer Edition Volume 1: User’s Guide [ info ]
Servoy Developer Edition Volume 2: Reference Guide [ info ]
Servoy Client Edition User’s Guide [ info ]
Servoy Application Server Administrator’s Guide [ info ]
Servoy Advanced Programming Guide for FileMaker Developers [ info ]

For more detail about a Servoy book in the Servoy Store:

  1. Click the Servoy Store link.
  2. Scroll down to the “Books” section in the Servoy Store.
  3. You will see an information button [ i ] located to the left of each Servoy Book title.
  4. Click the information button [ i ] for the Servoy Book you are interested in.

Marc Norman
Servoy

22

I’ve been a lurker on this forum (I read a lot but don’t post) but I feel I have to speak up against some of the ‘whiners’ who post here. Having developed in many different environments I can’t believe what you are complaining about. Servoy has way more documentation than most tools out there and on top of that you have this forum! First of all with Servoy I barely feel the need to even look at the documentation as everything is in the right place and with autocomplete, samples, move code I can get nearly everything done faster than in anything else out there.

Servoy team: keep up the good work! And thanks for the ultimate dev-environment!

And for the whiners (is it just me or have many of them been using desktop databases like FileMaker): instead of typing long posts fire up the debugger, turn on your brains and start working. You now have the right tool for your job. And if you post comments be specific enough so the Servoy guys don’t waste their valuable time on trying to read your mind.

23

I also love to have more manuals, more doc, more examples, more plugins, etc etc

BUT

I used to program in Fortran IV, the manual (Daniel McCraken) was less than 250 pages… everything on the language was in there..(do, if, integer, real, byte, equivalence, common, function, subroutine THAT IS nearly all you had in Fortran…). I used to program in C, the MANUAL (Kernighan Ritchie) was around 300 pages… and that was all you needed … nice, fast, challeging…You just needed an editor, a compiler and a compiler. Some of my Fortran and C applications are still running, and I’m still able to maintain them if necessary!!!

I used to program in Clipper, and also a lot of my applications written in Clipper are still running.

But those were other times… text times.. 80 characters x 24 lines on black and green screens.

I also used Access, spent quite a lot of money in additionals useless documentation books and the applications used to loose a couple of records from time to time, Then I switched to Filemaker, spent money on tips-books; then on developer licences, and had to buy a plug-in to write to file, was not able to copy and past scripts and had to wait that everybody disconnected for a few minutes to make a little update to my application!!!.

Now I love Servoy!!. We have a forum were every question is answered (also the stupid ones) politely and afer few hours (if not minutes), a developer team that LISTENS to what we need and solves OUR problems, a product that each month is growing with more and more power but in a linear way. Have you noticed for example that images handling in 2.1 is a lot faster than in 2.0, or that work with related recordsets can be accomplished with a few lines of code. I could connect Servoy with my ISP’s mysql in my first ‘servoy’ week (more than a year ago), and discovered that my first servoy application was accessible and usable even for Bob Cusick, 15000 Km away from Italy by simply sending him an ip adress by chat!!!. Have you noticed that nobody in the forum complains about missing application data, and the forum is NOT filtered!!! How many companies have an open feedback forum where they let you discuss what you don’t like about the application and listen to you to improve their product? With how many companies can you interact directly with the engineers that actually program the application? Think about it!

You all complain about the few examples and documentation BUT: It has never been so easy to experiment as it is with Servoy. It is easy to test Servoy, just start a new application or a new version of your application or a new Developer and try it. (Again in my first Fortran times… I punched my programs on the cards, drop them to the operator and then, after one hour or two.. went for my listing that usually reported that there was an unkown error at line xyz). Compare that to Servoy’s debugger where you can instantly see what’s going on!

Look at CRM example, there is a lot of stuff in there, look at Bob Cusick’s tutorials, look at Servoy Magazine, look into reference guide, look at the move sample. And only then, if you cannot find the right way, then look at the forum or post your help request!. If you find a missing argument in doc or a missing sample in editor point it out to the forum.. they will improve it!!

I’m helping a couple of Italian developers to get started with their fist applications …and we are having a really good time working together. It is a good and fast way to learn…Of course I get paid for my service but … Servoy is so productive that they learn Servoy and at the same time gets their project done in time.

Sometimes I think: if you honestly don’t understand how this works - you should really consider if you should even be developing applications in the first place. How many examples do you need for styntax that is self explaining. For example: Appliction.writeFile(filename) [which part of writeFile confuses you?]
Or, like in your post above: application.setValueListItems(listName, dataset). I know that having 10 examples for every possible scenario would be great but hey: don’t you want to do at least one “fun” thing on your own when you develop an application? learn Servoy and at the same time gets their project done in time.

24

Hi all

I agree with much of Enrico’s eloquent post.

Servoy is a wonderfully rich envionment for a Developer, the Servoy team provide incredible support, they encourage feedback, and even admit to bugs and post when they’ll be fixed.

However, the learning process can be frustrating when, in my case, previous experience is limited to desktop programs like Filemaker, Alpha and 4D. You can do so much more with less effort in Servoy, but I frequently wasted a great deal of time constructing elaborate work-arounds before realising that the capability was built-in and just a click away.

With 1800 pages of documentation, sample code,this Forum, and the great new Servoy Magazine there is a wealth of information - now if only I could build a fully searchable database to store it all :)

We now also have the London User Group which is meeting on 19th Oct and should be a great forum to swop ‘how I done it’ stories.

I found that the fastest way to learn was to build a sample application then go to a Training session with a list of problems and points I didn’t understand. I came away with all all my problems solved and numerous tips on how to do things the straightforward Servoy way.

Graham Greensall
Worxinfo Ltd

25

Jan Aleman asked for specific recommendations. Here’s mine.

But first some points of background. I’m very, very appreciative of the resources we have. I can’t compare them with other programming environments because other than FMP I haven’t seen any. Clearly what Servoy currently provides jumps way beyond what FMP has ever offered. This forum and the existing Servoy docs go way beyond.

Servoy is way more capable than FMP, past or present. As a result there’s so much more to learn. Plus, for me, the JavaScript coding environment is totally unfamiliar. Until this past June I’ve known and seen nothing other than FMP’s Scriptmaker, which is really like training wheels bolted permanently on a bicycle. I feel sure if I had a deeper background in the meta-language of programming I’d catch on far faster and/or had daily access to other experienced hands. I don’t. As far as I’m aware I’m the only Servoy developer in Toronto. If there indeed are other Servoyans in the Toronto region let’s start a Servoy user group. I was the founder of the Southern Ontario FileMakers Association.

Okay, concrete recommendations.

Literally today’s self-assignment is to learn the foundations of i18n. I’ve already looked for an introductory overview and haven’t found one yet. What I’ve seen so far has the quality of jumping into the middle of a movie. I need an essay that walks me through the major stages of putting i18n into service, links to relevant websites, commentary on best practices, things to avoid, etc. Plus an example file I can pick apart.

I’d be equally delighted if there was something similar for styles. When I’ve enquired about this subject I’ve been effectively told this is beyond the scope of Servoy and given URLs to this general field. A quick look at the sites were overwhelming; the subject is vast. Not wanting to be sidetracked on the guts of Servoy I’ve not followed up those URLs. It would be useful to have an introductory essay from the Servoy point of view. Perhaps one exists, I just haven’t seen it. Again with examples and tutorial I can experiment with.

Starting last June I was 100% green with JavaScript. I spent several weeks building a routine that lets users create and break links between individuals and organizations, choose an individual as the default contact, delete the master record and all its links. One of my major problems developing this was my bewilderment at why the current found set of records was other than what I expected. Coming from FMP Servoy’s behaviour was very unexpected. It took me a very long time to realize foundset was not tied to the table (as in FMP) but is tied to a form.

I was also bewildered for quite some time on how to move a variable from one method to another. Most contributors to the forum missed just how basic the explanation had to be to get through to me.

Which leads me to this recommendation. An introductory JavaScript tutorial from the Servoy point of view that visits such fundamentals – along with crafting loops, arrays (what are they, how to build them, how to use them), major operands such as =, ==, +=, &&, || etc.

IMHO a Servoy-focused tutorial would not be a wasted effort. I’ve visited online JavaScript learning sites and found them focused too much on crafting games or websites and always too voluminous. I’ve got the O’Reilly JavaScript The Definitive Guide and Andy Harris’s JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner. Both have been helpful and I still use them.

I’ve said again and again (as did Providence in starting this thread) the documentation indexing is, as yet, inadequate. I’d dearly like an alphabetical index of ALL of the functions, irrespective of their categories or kind. At the moment I have to guess both what a function might be named AND where it might be located.

Indexing would also be helped with adding in references such as “Count, see whatever”, “Go to Related Record, see whatever”.

I’m saying nothing about whose responsibility all of this is – whether Servoy Inc., Servoy Magazine or whoever. Just that these are some of the things that would make my life much easier wherever they might come from. I’m sure there are others, just that these are what’s top of mind this morning.

Jan, thank you for asking for recommendations.

Kind regards,

26

Hmmm, I have followed this thread from the beginning and I do understand all those that feel like, on one hand, kids in a large candyjar and, on the other hand, like driving a car in the fog on a sometimes slippery road (wow)…

On the other hand I wonder where all of those asking for all those examples come from. I have had NO professional experience programming a serious solution before starting with Servoy a year ago. All those sources put aside by some of you helped me to get started and start learning.

I benifited from the forum when nothing else helped me. The Servoy guys helped me often as did the rest of the forum community. And that’s going to be my point. I noticed that the forum grew a lot but contributors (and for me that are people that help others out) didn’t grow equally.
The downside of that development is that I (and with me i guess the group of developers that do contribute), as one of the more experiences in the community, feel the need to help somebody (read beginner) getting started where I think others could have done so too. As a result I don’t have the time to pay attention to the more complex questions. And that’s a shame because for me answering questions was a way to learn too. Simply putting my answer on the forum made me think about the question and answer and replies telling me how wrong I was helped me to elevate my knowledge a level upwards over and over.

In short, let’s help each other even more than we do today and we will ALL benefit. That will give the Servoy team to work on the indexing thing :-) (although I haven’t missed it but ok that’s the way I work).

BTW I have already trained others to work with Servoy and I love that job so anybody out there that wants a training (in Europe) let’s see if this can be organized. Anybody out there in the US, david workman is working to give a training over there…

Cheers

27

My personal preference of developer documentation is the way Lasso does it:

http://www.blueworld.com/Lasso/LDMLReference.LassoApp

Well organized, easy to browse, easy to search. I keep it open constantly while writing Lasso code.

In any case, the consensus seems to be that Servoy’s documentation is fine (could be indexed better? I don’t know I rarely read the docs), the forum is great but a bit of a black hole, and Servoy Magazine is helpful but will turn into another black hole at the rate it is going (we’re working on getting it indexed better ourselves but if you think JavaScript is strange to learn, try working through the plethora of Movable Type tags WITHOUT an editor or a debugger…).

The information is there and can be found if you’re persistent enough. And you can ask questions all you want on the forum and you know you will get an answer. Agreed so far?

What I am hearing is that there is a lack of help on how to put it all together. Large tutorials that go from the beginning to the end. Something that shows how experienced developers get a real project done from start to finish and shows all the little techniques that I take for granted but which are not obvious to someone new to Servoy.

Am I on the right track here?

David

28

Morley:
Jan Aleman asked for specific recommendations. Here’s mine.

Literally today’s self-assignment is to learn the foundations of i18n. I’ve already looked for an introductory overview and haven’t found one yet. What I’ve seen so far has the quality of jumping into the middle of a movie. I need an essay that walks me through the major stages of putting i18n into service, links to relevant websites, commentary on best practices, things to avoid, etc. Plus an example file I can pick apart.

Attached is an i18n sample file. When importing, DO choose to import the i18n stuff, but NOT the data (it’s based on the “example_data” connection). I’ll also be working on a tutorial for that. Thanks for the suggestion!

Morley:
I’d be equally delighted if there was something similar for styles.

The “Introduction to Styles” tutorial is also done - and will be released (on Servoy Magazine first, then on our site) next week.

Morley:
Which leads me to this recommendation. An introductory JavaScript tutorial from the Servoy point of view that visits such fundamentals – along with crafting loops, arrays (what are they, how to build them, how to use them), major operands such as =, ==, +=, &&, || etc.

IMHO a Servoy-focused tutorial would not be a wasted effort. I’ve visited online JavaScript learning sites and found them focused too much on crafting games or websites and always too voluminous. I’ve got the O’Reilly JavaScript The Definitive Guide and Andy Harris’s JavaScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner. Both have been helpful and I still use them.

Servoy uses standard JavaScript. Are you asking for a tutorial that goes through all the items in the JSlib node? Don’t the JavaScript books help with that part? I guess I’m trying to figure out where you’re having the hard time understanding. Is it mainly just the = for assignment and == for comparisons in “if” statements?

Morley:
Indexing would also be helped with adding in references such as “Count, see whatever”, “Go to Related Record, see whatever”.

The hard part here is - what if people are used to 4D or Access or PowerBuilder or Oracle Forms? Different functions, different tools - would be impossible to do that for every product out there. However, if FileMaker developers would take the time to map those type of things - then I’m sure they could charge for a similar solution, or post it so others can learn from it.

THANK YOU for your solid, specific recommendations - this is VERY helpful.

Bob Cusick

29

david:
Something that shows how experienced developers get a real project done from start to finish and shows all the little techniques that I take for granted but which are not obvious to someone new to Servoy.

Am I on the right track here?

Exactly! Probably the same sorts of things you like about Lasso’s support (which I’m unfamiliar with).

30

bcusick:
Servoy uses standard JavaScript. Are you asking for a tutorial that goes through all the items in the JSlib node? Don’t the JavaScript books help with that part? I guess I’m trying to figure out where you’re having the hard time understanding. Is it mainly just the = for assignment and == for comparisons in “if” statements?

The books are indeed helpful. But…

When I first got started your tutorial on taking a very simple FMP demo file and rewriting it for Servoy was absolutely critical in breaking my mental log jam. I’m sure I was seeing a very early version of that file – found lots of typos, a few actual bugs and places that left me baffled. Nevertheless that’s the kind of thing I needed then, and still need.

That tutorial would have been greatly improved if it had included some of the specific JavaScript issues I mentioned in my earlier post – migrating variables from method to method, the concept of arrays, fundamental operators, etc. All this likely needs a series of tutorials.

Morley:
Indexing would also be helped with adding in references such as “Count, see whatever”, “Go to Related Record, see whatever”.

As they come up, I’d be quite happy to post the things I’m looking for and failing to find in the Index.

Kind regards,

31

Morley:
The books are indeed helpful. But…

When I first got started your tutorial on taking a very simple FMP demo file and rewriting it for Servoy was absolutely critical in breaking my mental log jam. I’m sure I was seeing a very early version of that file – found lots of typos, a few actual bugs and places that left me baffled. Nevertheless that’s the kind of thing I needed then, and still need.

That tutorial would have been greatly improved if it had included some of the specific JavaScript issues I mentioned in my earlier post – migrating variables from method to method, the concept of arrays, fundamental operators, etc. All this likely needs a series of tutorials.

Did you notice the price of that tutorial? :lol: You get what you pay for.
In the Servoy Training Class we hand out a huge, 200+ workbook that includes a basic JavaScript primer. If you look in the FREE Servoy publication that I co-authored called “Servoy Advanced Programming Guide for FileMaker Pro Developers” (http://developer.servoy.com/docs/ServoyAdvProgGuideFMP.pdf) - you’ll notice a 116 page section called “JavaScript Primer”. This talks about Arrays, Operators, If’s, Loops, etc. There is also a whole section in there called “SQL Primer” if you’re interested in learning the basics of SQL.

Morley:
As they come up, I’d be quite happy to post the things I’m looking for and failing to find in the Index.

That would be very helpful. Same with tutorials topics. We don’t know what you don’t know… :D

Bob Cusick

32

That price just ain’t right!