I suggest everybody stops acting/reacting (certainly the last ).
This leads to nothing. It is not worth the energy imho…
So it works perfectly with smaller datasets. It’s just not suitable for your large dataset needs.
I’m sorry, a bug is an unexpected behaviour. Nothing in the how to post, warns that it may no work with large datasets. It’s presented as if works period.
So, someone can use it in good faith with large dataset and gets unexpected unreliables results. In some case he may not notice it.
So it’s my duty to say, “beware this is buggy”, as it doesn’t fully work the way it’s supposed to be.
HJK who wrote it, didn’t argue about the fact it’s buggy, and I’ve nothing to bitch about him. In fact I thanked him a lot for that code.
I feel there’s nothing offending to say facts, so I’m not slapping anyone in the face buy telling that fact.
People offended here, are offended by my tone at the begining, now, they don’t bother to read what I write, their mind is set : evrything I say is wrong.
Sorry that’s not the case.
And again, this thread is a rant, not meant to get help.
I just did a check with 25.000 records! No problem at all.
But if you don’t want help, that’s fine with me.
HJK,
could you send me the example.servoy file you just tried ?
The “bug” I encountered seem to occurs, when there’s already a large foundset displayed.
The firts import goes weel, but if you do another import afterwards (with different data) then all the new data aren’t added.
having you .servoy file (and data source) could also help me to make sure I’ve implemented you solution as it should
Vince:
How can the one that created servoy because filemaker is so limited, design an import function that can’t be programmed. This truly baffles me !
This is incorrect. Servoy was created to make writing software easier it is not designed as an alternative to Filemaker but as an upgrade from any 4GL environment. The team with whom I created Servoy was mainly coding in Java before we invented Servoy as we found Java to complicated and inproductive. Servoy is mainly a programmer’s tool and unlike Filemaker not a knowledge workers tool. In our experience learning Servoy takes less time than Filemaker if you have a programming background and a bit more time if you have a knowledge worker background.
Have you considered following a training or hiring a consulting firm to help you out? It sounds like that could save a lot of frustration.
Ok, Yes, I’m a knowledge worker (but can do some php, sql), I was probably mislead by what I’ve read all over the web as Servoy trouncing Filemaker.
I’m 100% sure its true, I’m willing to overcome the steeper learning curve as I know that with filemaker you pay the first time easyness by unsormontable complexity down the road, with stupid tricks here and there.
And, contrary to some may feel it, I’ve a lot of respect for the servoy community and the servoy company.
You said servoy was made by developpers, for developpers, so why repeating the filemaker flawed thinking : providing GUI only tools.
You took the time to reproduce a GUI for imports, which is much more difficult to create than a mere function, without providing us the function that lies beneath, even though it is written !
This baffles me, that developpers, that knows the pain of GUI only tools, didn’t provide the servoy community an import function.
And there’s a clear lack here, as we can see on your forum that imports and export are needed by a lot of people.
Ok we can say, they’re all developpers so they’ll figure it out, but it’s just a waste of time for the community.
If that scripted import would have been built-in, some parts of my database would be running as of today. And I won’t be frustrated.
So my rant, is that I’ve wasted some time for nothing, just reproducing a much needed function, that you already wrote, but concealed beneath a useless GUI.
And I don’t understand, how developers, who like effeciency and want to reach other developpers could have created something that fundamenttaly ineficient.
If there wasn’t any import and export function built-in at all, I would have better understood (other time/ressource priorities)
But here you made a lot of work, and you concealed it, to PREVENT developers, your target after all, to actually use it in a productive way.
So all devs have now to reinvent the wheel, and it causes majors frustration for some. That’s effort and frustration, that shouldn’t exists.
So why concealing your work, and when can the community enjoy a scripted import and export.
So all devs have now to reinvent the wheel, and it causes majors frustration for some. That’s effort and frustration, that shouldn’t exists.
So why concealing your work, and when can the community enjoy a scripted import and export.
Hi Vince, those that really need scripted import and export during the lifecycle of an application (not only to get started) quite often go for the data plug-in.
Right now there is no user interface for it but that will be included in one of the next versions.
You can check it out at http://www.it2be.com/plugins.htm#data.
Hope this helps
Hi Vince,
WOW! You’ve been using Servoy for a whole week and you’ve come to the following conclusion:
"How can the one that created servoy because filemaker is so limited, design an import function that can’t be programmed. This truly baffles me !
For me it’s as if the dev did it to piss newbies off. "
The programmers and architects of Servoy are brilliant… end of story. Not only have they written an amazing development environment, but they continue to turn out phenomenal improvements at an astounding rate. They are passionate about their creation, and listen intently to all requests and suggestions.
I have to push back on you. Yes, I recognize that you are frustrated, but that does not give anyone the right to wholesale offend a group of people that care deeply about their product. I’d suggest that you come to ServoyWorld and meet these folks. You’ll find them very willing to listen and able to provide insights into the logic behind their development decisions. I learn every time I speak with them.
Everyone learns at a different rate. Servoy has a different learning curve than FileMaker because, well, they really are very different tools created for different audiences. It really is best that you approach Servoy with a clean slate, without trying to apply prior skills to this new development paradigm.
And finally I suggest that you pay close attention to the advice you’ve received on this forum. There are some wonderful people who are very intelligent and experienced trying to provide help. If you choose to ignore their wisdom it is you who will lose.
Sincerely,
Rich Coulombre
The programmers and architects of Servoy are brilliant… end of story. Not only have they written an amazing development environment, but they continued to turn out phenomenal improvements at an astounding rate. They are passionate about their creation, and listen intently to all requests and suggestions.
I’ve absolutely no doubt at all about that.
That’s why it’s even more weird.
That’s as if einstein couldn’t do 2+2
If I’d thought that servoy people were stupid I wouldn’t care and wouldn’t be here. I know they’re very good and I truly respect them, that’s why I have expectations, and that’s why I can’t understand why they concealed the function they created beneath a GUI and not exposing it to devs.
That’s the opposite of their dna
It seems to me that this rant is coming down to a question of individual expectations - and we all have to realise that they will never be met in full by any software.
Servoy now has 100’s of functions for Devs to work with and I’m sure they’ve got a list of 100’s more that individual Developers have requested. Maybe Servoy could expose all the Import/Export functionality that Vince requires - but in the absence of demand from lots of other people they sensibly concentrate on the functions that are ‘most useful’ and/or ‘most requested’.
I see three options for Vince: use Marcels excellent plugin, persuade other Developers how useful this feature would be so that more people request it, or persuade Jan Aleman to move it up the work list by demonstrating how many extra licenses you’ll be able to sell.
HTH
Graham Greensall
Worxinfo Ltd
IT2Be
Can your data plugin export calculation fields ? even if they involve related data ?
Can it also export related fields, in a 1 to many rlationship ?
Yes and no vince. You can/need to script this yourself…
Which is the yes part, and which is the no part
Hi Vince,
I think you need to realize that your ‘rant’/‘desire’ for how you think Servoy should function is fairly unique both for those who have been working with the software for a long time and for those who are new to it. You can see that this is true just by looking at the forum posts on ‘import’. Personally I would hate to see the Servoy developers spend time on something like this when there are so many more areas they are working on that impact a far broader range of users than ‘importing’ large datasets.
Servoy is NOT a database. There are many cool tools out there that work on an equally broad range of SQL vendors such as Aqua Data Studio that can do that for you. Or the tools that come with your database. And if daily ‘imports’ really are a necessary part of your solution then it is probably worthwhile spending some time doing it right. But when you are talking about 9000+ records every day I know I wouldn’t do that with via Servoy: that’s not what it is meant for.
Of course servoy is a database. What all servoy solution do ? they manage, exploit data. I’m unware of a game or cao program made with servoy.
Ok you can say that servoy doesn’t store data itself and relies upon backend database, so what, who cares ?
Ask your solution users and I’m sure they’ll say servoy is the database, because it’s there why enter, displays, maniupalte data. They don’t care at all to know what’s behind it.
But if you want to end misconecption. Stop talking about filemaker right now all over the place in the forum, the documentation (there’s a filemaker conversion how to so…), the marketing, the reviews etc…
As Servoy’s website states :
Developers can build front-ends to databases in minutes
Well that’s exactly what I wan to do, and I’m sorry, imports and exports are part of decent database front ends.
Moreover imports and export are today a servoy feature. So I’m commenting about a servoy feature that’s unfortunetaly made in a useless way for developpers.
Like I already said, if there wasn’t any import and export function I wouldn’t have complained at all, and that post wouldn’t have existed.
But fact is those feature exists so i’ve every right to coment and them. And they do exists because there’s an obvious need for it that servoy inc people identified.
Finally, I don’t understand what you are defending ?
Is it against the time-space continuum that servoy gets a decent import/export feature ? Wouldn’t it help many ?
ALL my problems are only due to that servoy badly done feature, and that means that that lack is the major hurdle taht every filemaker converts will struggle with. So to me it seems very worthwhile
Now, tell me how do I export 1 to many related fields that are caculations based on another related fields, when all you know is the name of the fields you want to export and the relationship names.
IT2B plugin doesn’t. And I doesn’t because you can’t, at least in reasonably speedy way.
So if my customer wants to export related calculation fields that are on the form he sees, but for the 9000 records he has, then I can either loop though each record and have him waiting for 15 minutes, or I can do it without the related calculation in seconds.
So I think that a decent export function (as well as imports) is needed
Vince
In your opinion Servoy’s import/export functions are not good enough. You may or may not be right - but no development company are going to change their product just because one Developer has a rant.
If import/export is such a big deal for you, and if all the suggestions various people have made so far do not help then maybe Servoy is not the best tool for your situation.
People have successfully converted Filemaker, 4D, Access and many 4GL systems to Servoy using either the built-in functions or 3rd party tools. You seem to be unable to make the move successfully so check out alternatives - there has never been a wider variety of Dev tools available.
You have to accept reality as it is - not how you want it to be.
Regards
Graham Greensall
Worxinfo Ltd
Of course servoy is a database.
Hmmm. How to put this without offending. OK. Can’t be done. Servoy is NOT a database. And personally I think most developers on here feel the same way: we don’t WANT Servoy to cater to our every whim of what we individually would like it to do in an ideal world. That’s the problem with most Microsoft software making it bloatware.
You happen to think that importing and exporting in a no-brainer way from within Servoy is terribly important. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I do this (importing and exporting of data) on a daily basis with SQL databases that have Servoy solutions attached to them. Never have I used Servoy for that purpose nor have I ever wished that Servoy would do that. I have other excellent tools for that purpose.
I’m sorry, imports and exports are part of decent database front ends.
Your opinion, fine. My opinion is they are definitely NOT part of a ‘decent’ database frontend. FileMaker HAS to have built in import/export features because they have their proprietary ‘database’ built in to it. There is NO OTHER WAY to access the database! That is also one of FM’s great failings in that there is no separation of business logic and back end database. With SQL databases long before Servoy there were and are hundreds of tools out there for importing and exporting data. Why reinvent the wheel? True Servoy in trying to accommodate some of the early adopters from the FM world built in some rudimentary import/export tools to get developers started. And they work fine for doing some simple importing and exporting. But when you start talking about doing something complicated, or on a daily basis or that involves many, many rows then choose something else. If you feel hard done by because you thought Servoy would do this in the way that you imagined, well, you could have posted something to this Forum ASKING if it would do what you would like. What’s funny is that in all these ‘rants’ you still haven’t even said exactly what it is that you are trying to do!
John,
I’m aware that servoy doesn’t store the data, so I’m aware that servoy is not a database per say, but that’s only lexical distinction that appeals to devs. Not users. For the users, servoy is the database, they shouln’t care about what’s behind.
So they should be able to import and export data in the thing they manipulate and that’s servoy.
What I want to do, import and exports like filemaker does. I want my user to press a particular button, and then have a file imported. And the same for exports.
And I want to do automated imports and exports on a scheduled basis of a given foundset.
Can you do this using servoy ? can you do this with sql ?
For exports the simple answer is NO. Because the sql dtabase only “knows” half of the story : it ignores calculation fields, that are servoy objects, it ignores the foundset that is a servoy object, it ignores the related fields because the relation is an opaque servoy object.
So if there’s calcultion fields involved, I can go fish, I won’t be able to use SQL tools script or whatever, because the database backend can’t access those calculated fields.
So I have to cycle through every records with servoy. I have 9000 records, so I’ll have a 9000 time loop, servoy will query the database 9000 time to get the fields of the form (if not 9000 x number of different fields), plus calculations, and I’ll get a slow as hell export and then my users wil say to me “why did you go to this servoy crap, filemaker was faster”
The sad truth is that servoy objects like value list, relations, calculations aren’t accessible in a sql way. You can’t translate a given relation into a sql query because servoy misses a function that would telll you the relevant part of the relation (tables involved, key used etc.). See my feature request
What I want to do is an export function that would allow me for any given table, export any of its fields and related fields even if they are caculations, of the current foundset.
So show me how to do this in a fast way and then I’ll shut my mouth. But you’ll have hard time because the loop through is too slow, and the sql way isn’t complete because doesn’t knows calculations.
Vince:
Can you do this using servoy ? can you do this with sql ?
For exports the simple answer is NO. Because the sql dtabase only “knows” half of the story : it ignores calculation fields, that are servoy objects, it ignores the foundset that is a servoy object, it ignores the related fields because the relation is an opaque servoy object.So if there’s calcultion fields involved, I can go fish, I won’t be able to use SQL tools script or whatever, because the database backend can’t access those calculated fields.
You do realize a foundset is in fact the result of a SQL query, right? Also depending on your calculations you can do it in SQL as well.
Now if you use Servoy only objects in your calculations (like object properties like ‘is visble’, etc) then SQL won’t do. But for fields, forms, relationships they all translate to SQL since under water they ARE translated to SQL. And in SQL you can do IF-THEN’s as well.
Vince:
The sad truth is that servoy objects like value list, relations, calculations aren’t accessible in a sql way. You can’t translate a given relation into a sql query because servoy misses a function that would telll you the relevant part of the relation (tables involved, key used etc.). See my feature request
You are putting all that logic in your solution (relationships, etc) at design time. So why not put in a the SQL in design time as well and you don’t need this feature at all. You know about prepared statements ?
Vince:
So show me how to do this in a fast way and then I’ll shut my mouth. But you’ll have hard time because the loop through is too slow, and the sql way isn’t complete because doesn’t knows calculations.
What I want to do is an export function that would allow me for any given table, export any of its fields and related fields even if they are caculations, of the current foundset.
Show us your code so we can tell you why it’s so slow.
ROCLASI:
Show us your code so we can tell you why it’s so slow.
Exactly! There must be something wrong there,
Servoy does NOT query 9000 times for 9000 records. Servoy get’s 200 records in one query, so for 9000 records, that’s 45 times.
I have build multiple exports functions, with Servoy functionality and with IT2BE data plugin, and both are very fast.
So let us see your code!