Servoy 8.0.0

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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby david » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:18 am

paronne wrote:
david wrote:Is the responsive editor and related bootstrap components supposed to be working in this version?


Hi David, yes is possible to build responsive form with the latest version of Servoy. As Johan already mentioned we are still working to make it better and easier to use; your feedback would be important for us.
I recommend to use the Eclipse's Outline View in combination with the Form Editor. Since the 12Grid containers of bootstrap are nothing else then empty Divs, is not always immediate to understand the structure of the page with the WYSIWYG. The Outline View tells you exactly which is the structure of the form. You can also add nested elements (right-click) and re-arrange elements position (drag & drop) directly from the outline view which is really handy.

There is a Responsive Design pre-conference training at Servoy World, if you are interested to it don't esitate to register http://servoy.com/content.jsp?t=1546

Paolo


Have you tested the responsive editor on mac? I say this because I have extensively tested everything you mention — all the way down to detailed examinations of all of your public source code over more than a year of iterations — and I can't build a responsive form with the responsive editor.

So either I need to get a Windows VM rolling or you guys need to fire up the last remaining bondi-blue iMac I'm sure Johan hid from everyone in his closet :)
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby david » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:24 pm

Testing: what works...

1. Grids: container > row > column
2. A few bootstrap components: inputs, label for, generic div

Testing: buggy...

1. editor, outline and component panes are all in quite a rough UX state
2. label component only works as a "label for", not stand alone

Testing: not working at all

1. responsive grid: can't get a list based on a foundset working
2. tab panels
3. form wizard: component is there but it can't be placed (and it's important to place all inputs inside of a form container with bootstrap)
4. lot's of missing core bootstrap components

Summary
Proof of concept state...not something usable. Again, maybe this is just a Mac thing?
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby rwanink » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:24 pm

Hi,

(just to introduce myself, I have joined Servoy as CTO last June).

It’s apparent that building responsive designs (especially on Mac) is not the most pleasant Ux we have to offer, and that the out-of-the-box components have some issues.
Just to give you some background of this, I have decided to release Servoy 8.0 for two reasons; number one being a number of our customers were really in need of the performance of the NG client to go live (and they obviously don't want this with a RCx) and the second being that making a very nice working responsive NG- and mobile-compatible editor required more work than the developer community initially hoped for, and especially it requires more rounds of user feedback and interaction testing.

For the latter reason I have decided to ask a limited number of people for feedback to improve the responsive design experience in Servoy 8.x

So in case you want to work with us making the Ux of building responsive designs in a 4GL-worthy manner to be immaculate, feel free to contact me, I would love to cooperate with some more people on this.

Otherwise, of course, be welcome to share a drink at Servoy World!

regards, Ronald (& a Mac user)
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby jcompagner » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:37 pm

david wrote:
1. editor, outline and component panes are all in quite a rough UX state



outline should pretty much be like it already is (thats a pure eclipse view still)
we just added stuff to be able to create and delete stuff right from the outline view.

What issues do you exactly have for the outline? Can you create a case for this?

david wrote:2. label component only works as a "label for", not stand alone

https://support.servoy.com/browse/SVY-8710


david wrote:Testing: not working at all

1. responsive grid: can't get a list based on a foundset working
2. tab panels
3. form wizard: component is there but it can't be placed (and it's important to place all inputs inside of a form container with bootstrap)
4. lot's of missing core bootstrap components



i think point 1 should be doable already just fine, not sure what you exactly encounter

what do you mean with a form wizard? (the create new form?) Or do you mean the form editor where you have to pick one a form (like tabpanel and then the form property)

Yes the bootstrap components are just for now a small example, we will increase/enhance that library in the time to come.

Also should we really spend a lot of time todo bootstrap, or should we move to material design and use flexbox (css standard) as the layout standard..
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby sbutler » Mon Sep 07, 2015 10:59 pm

david wrote:Summary
Proof of concept state...not something usable. Again, maybe this is just a Mac thing?


Its not a Mac thing. Same experience on Windows.


rwanink wrote:Hi,

(just to introduce myself, I have joined Servoy as CTO last June).


Ronald, Welcome to Servoy :D I hope to see you on here more. First post since June!

I think the issue here is a communication of expectations. Responsive Design was touted as one of the new key features of Servoy 8. It now releases crippled, with core components like a tabpanel just stubbed out (no API or Handlers): https://github.com/Servoy/servoy-client ... panel.spec . Can you do responsive design in the current release version of Servoy 8...sort of, but with so many of the responsive components missing their API, you can't really do anything useful. What you can do is to build your own components, and that works quite well. I just finished a simple navigation Bootstrap navbar and sidebar. Then of course I wanted to throw a tabpanel in, and use it to load the appropriate form based on the navigation item the user clicked on... Doh! no tabpanel API. Back to expectations...
Take a look at the docs on editing a Responsive Form: https://wiki.servoy.com/display/DOCS/Ed ... ayout+form . There is no mention of the missing API functionality in the core components. Leaving folks like David and I to get disappointed when we go to try it, and its not clear if its not working because of an installation issue, or its just not implemented yet. I shouldn't have to go digging through your SVN source code to find those things out.



jcompagner wrote:Yes the bootstrap components are just for now a small example, we will increase/enhance that library in the time to come.

Also should we really spend a lot of time todo bootstrap, or should we move to material design and use flexbox (css standard) as the layout standard..


It really doesn't matter which one you choose (although my personal suggestion is Bootstrap). Once you have one full set of components complete, with their Angular templates, then just about anyone can take those and make their own components. At that point its just about including different JS/CSS libraries and specifying the appropriate markup on the html of the component. I know its a lot of work, but I think once you get one set of them complete, other developers in the community can see your examples and extend it to other frameworks.


PS. And since most of my post was complaining...THANK YOU to the Servoy dev team for all your hard work. Transitioning CTO's while doing a MAJOR new version is tough. Looking forward to seeing whats next :!:
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby jcompagner » Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:11 am

but now we are on api of tabpanel we get into the the discussion what api do we need
We really don't want the same api as the legacy tabpanel. it must be way way less, way more streamed, i could even argue that the current bootstrap tabpanel is fine, because at design time you can set the form and thats what you should do...
And i see tabs property which can be altered at the server side so you can add tabs already on the fly
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby sbutler » Tue Sep 08, 2015 10:53 pm

So I got the current Bootstrap Tabpanel working. I don't think most developers will be fine with this...

Code: Select all
        var tab =  {
                   "active": {"type":"boolean","default": false,"tags": { "scope" :"private" }},
                  "containedForm": formName,
                  "text": {"type":"tagstring","default":"tab"},   
                  "relationName": ""
          }
        var tabs = [tab]
        elements.tabpanel.tabs = tabs


I don't think anyone wants to remember what all that JSON should be and proper format. We need real API calls into it.
I understand wanting to change the API, however many solutions have some base forms / framework code that acts upon tabpanels. If you start separating the logic of the components, just because they are rendered with a different front-end framework, that could get complicated. Having two sets of API's for components that do the same thing is more than my brain can handle :D If you do choose to make a new, more simple API, would you then port it to the non-responsive components, so at least they all share the new API?

I think if the NG Components have a separate API from the Smart/Web Components, then that's ok, we can learn the new stuff going forward. However I wouldn't be in favor of different API for non-responsive NG components and Bootstrap NG Components. If I'm in NG client, and using a tabpanel, I would want the same API's, regardless of whether its responsive or not. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
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Re: Servoy 8.0.0

Postby jcompagner » Wed Sep 09, 2015 10:41 am

Api calls are kind of bad, because those are now in ngclient actual calls going from the server to the client, doing it stuff and then coming back...
(and we then have to send already stuff that is also changed around that so that it is the exact state that the component expect to be in)

Doing it all with model is way nicer, then nothing is send to the client except in the end.

Api calls can be optimized by using server side code in the component, then you can make it again a model api. so that is something we can do for the bootstrap tabpanel
But the bootstrap tabpanel will definitely not get the exact same api. A way more simpler streamlined api.

Its the same for many other components, now a legacy label can do pretty much everything, displaying images,text, rotation you name it. That will also not happen anymore, components should do 1 thing and 1 thing well, not 100 things a little bit.

For example the bootstrap components or any none legacy other components will also not get foreground,background,font and all those properties.. They will just get style/class and and a few other specific ones that they need.

For example a tabpanel, if you get an existing nice (bootstrap or material) tabpanel component where there is already an angular variant of then we should not try to shoe horn the servoy api in it and map it back to the api of the angular component, no we should just expose the angular api, no fighting against the client side component.
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