New Potential User, General Questions

[bubba]

If this is the wrong place to ask, please point me to the right place.

I'm a long time FM user, heavy already into FM7, and experienced with Omnis Studio/7 and other front end type tools.

Servoy looks interesting, based on some experimenting. I like the simplicty of the FM model, and being able to use a "real DB". But I have some issues.

1. How is the server deployed and what does it costs?
2. The basic interface look seems "plain" compared to Filemaker. Can I make Servoy's interface (fields, etc., look as "rich" as Filemaker?)
3. Can there be multiple open copies of the same base "form" with it's own found sets, as in FM7?
4. Can someone explain where the basic pieces of Servoy "live" in a Web environment? Ie. is data for found sets downloaded to the "client" or is the client "run" on the server in a deployed environment? If it runs on the server, how are sessions handled?
5. Can I get the equivalent of the ability in FM7 to have a Portal show records staring at record X to Y?
6. Are there any good online apps. that I can see/try in operation?
7. What is the stability/ownership of the company?

We have a huge investment in FM6/7. The bugs are a pain, but moving to something else is an expensive undertaking. If the benefits and safety of the investment are reasonable, it may however be worthwhile.

I'd appreciate any sharing of experiences from those who have made this committment and what the experience/satisfaction level has been thus far.

Feel free to contact me back channel at "lsnover@tplus.com".

Sincerely,
Lee Snover

[jcompagner]

just filling in some points:

1> See www.servoy.com (the server is free you only pay for the clients)

4> the foundsets are on the client. The server is there for data handling (getting data from the database to the client) and data change notifications to all the clients.

6> there is a demo server: http://demo.servoy.com:8080/

[Harry Catharell]

Hi Lee,

Some more snippets about your points for you to review :

2> See this thread from Bob Cusick about recreating a FM contact Manager in Servoy : http://forum.servoy.com/viewtopic.php?t=2014
The Servoy version compared to FM is more or less indistinguishable from a GUI view and with the use of style sheets could make your Servoy solutions more consistent & rich !

3> FM7 uses non modal floating windows whereas Servoy currently can use what is termed 'FormInDialogues' which do allow you to show several forms simultaneously but they are modal in that you must complete your action in one form in order to return to a prior one - Pros and Cons are really down to how you need to have the data displayed

5> I think that you are referring here to the ability of FM7 to nominate a start row and a number of rows from that start point so that you can have several portals from the same relationship on a layout but have different record sets in each.
Servoy cannot do this as a native property of a portal object but you could probably use SQL queries and return your appropriate subsets in that fashion. Display then becomes dependent upon what you want to do with the different data sets !

-----------------------
MaJic Solutions is a contract developer and a 'gun-for-hire'

We are proponents of the 'best tool being used for the job' and so there would not currently be a point in time when we could say that we would never use FileMaker and switch completely to Servoy !

We are driven by our clients' needs

Servoy is a very powerful and very flexible addition to our armoury.

There are now many more opportunities for us to be able to say 'yes' with confidence to our clients and prospects when they have asked for particular types of functionality where FM would have left us wondering how it would be achieved !

If you come from a FM background then I would suggest that the learning curve is not steep in order to be using Servoy to a similar level as FM for 'new' projects.

Converting existing FM solutions into Servoy is a different matter altogether.

But, whether you convert to Servoy or to another application then the conversion would not be painless anyway !

My main piece of advice is to initially check out the FM conversion tutorial from Bob Cusick and get a feel yourself for how you may adapt to using Servoy as a tool.

Stay on this list as it is a great resource - one of the best lists that I have ever been on.

Experience for yourself how quickly the Servoy team can work on bugs and enhancements and how responsive they are to virtually any issue which is posted.

Remember that Servoy is a new product and is evolving as we read this and it is impossible for any current user to say what the future will bring as there is no real history yet to refer to !

You would need to quantify more your comparison criteria in order for you to know whether a 'switch' would be viable but there are many developers on this list who have done just that and they may hopefully add their comments to this thread.

Please post any more specific questions which you may have or feel free to contact me back channel

Cheers

Harry

[bubba]

just filling in some points:

Thanks for the info. to follow up.

Is there any provision for an unlimited server license for applications that are basically being made available to a wide number of users?

1> See www.servoy.com (the server is free you only pay for the clients)

4> the foundsets are on the client. The server is there for data handling (getting data from the database to the client) and data change notifications to all the clients.

Is there any provision for server side processing within the Servoy environment. (I'm aware it can be done in Stored Procs)

6> there is a demo server: http://demo.servoy.com:8080/

I'll check the demo.

How is User security handled at teh SQL Database level. Are individual sessions and users created in the DB, or is there a provision for that?

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,
Lee Snover

[jcompagner]

users (in the client) don't log into the database. They log into the solution itself.

Servoy uses the database just like webapps do. The servoy server has an (one) account to the database which he uses to pool connections for request servoy clients makes.

Clients don't do anything with the database.

[bubba]

Harry:

Thanks for all the info.

Starting to get the gist, and I think I like the potential.

I'm doing a rewrite of a very complex app. in FM7, and still hitting walls, despite the impressive list of new features. Biggest issues are redraws and performance with large dbs, and general lack of flexibility in scripting. My superiors will no doubt want to see this finished, as there are a variety of reasons we like FM here that have little to do with my desires as a developer (Ie. quick import/export into Excel), quick and dirty DBs for a variety of short lived tasks where a SQL database just slows down the process.

I personally am an Oracle nut, but I see the benefits of both camps. My goal over the next couple months is to get the developer version and attempt to make a Servoy version of our main window and it's functions on my own and then show management the potential.

As a long time Omnis developer, and reluctant FM developer, my biggest concern is the long term viability of the company. The time investment is far greater than the dollars spent for the product. I've seen lots of good tools flounder for lack of support and marketing (Omnis is one of those products). I love Omnis for thick work, but it has gotten way to complex for many projects, and the Web portion of the program even more so.

I like the potential simplicity factor of Servoy, with the option to use the complexity of an Oracle level product, for the key areas where the complexity does some real good.

I'll check out Bobs demo. It's always too busy to learn something new, but I think this looks like it's worth some more in depth investigation.

Thanks again,
Lee Snover

[bubba]

users (in the client) don't log into the database. They log into the solution itself.

Servoy uses the database just like webapps do. The servoy server has an (one) account to the database which he uses to pool connections for request servoy clients makes.

Clients don't do anything with the database.

John, very interesting. Can different solutions have their own log-ins to the database? For example, I would like to take advantage of Virtual Databases within Oracle. This is dependent on how the user is logged into Oracle.

When you say the client doesn't do anything with the database... I hope that is an option? For example, I have a very complex "script" that I've written in both FM and as an Oracle stored proc. In FM it takes over 30 seconds per record set to process, in Oracle, it takes half a second. I want to leverage this in a Servoy application. What facilities are available to do this?

Additionally, what provisions are there for optimizing queries? What is the effect of database level triggers on displayed data? Ie. if Servoy is handling updates, and I update a record that causes various database level triggers to update other data that is in the current found set/form. How does servoy get that updated info. back to the form/set? Are there provisions for these issues?



Thanks again for the additional information.

Regards,
Lee Snover

[jcompagner]

you can call that stored proc. in servoy to. No problem

The client does 'do' things with the database like query for data or calling a stored proc. It just doesn't make the connection to the database because that is a thing servoy server does.

Servoy server has the property file where all the connections are specified that the different solutions need.

In a picture it looks like this:


[client1] <->
[server] <-> [database]
[client2] <->

So the server has the database connections and the client has a server connection.

[bubba]

you can call that stored proc. in servoy to. No problem

The client does 'do' things with the database like query for data or calling a stored proc. It just doesn't make the connection to the database because that is a thing servoy server does.

Servoy server has the property file where all the connections are specified that the different solutions need.

In a picture it looks like this:


[client1] <->
[server] <-> [database]
[client2] <->

So the server has the database connections and the client has a server connection.

John:

So it's possible to setup individual users for each solution and potentiallly for each client?

Also, what about data consistency when triggers and similar backend operations are employed?

Is there a "transactional" model for updates, or is all data committed immediately, etc?

Also, is it possible to have one or two users running against the Developer version for MU testing, or is a client package required?

Can clients "modify" the solution in anyway? I.e. custom report forms, etc.

Are there "form" wizards for creating standard sub-summary reports and the like?

I know I have oodles of questions, and I apologize, but it's all important in the evaluation.

Thanks again.

Lee

[jcompagner]

So it's possible to setup individual users for each solution and potentiallly for each client?

Yes you can make groups for specific solutions and add users to that group ect. Please look at the security model we havei n eclipse (debuger security dialog)
You can give groups rights like able to edit data on that form. See this button ect.

Also, what about data consistency when triggers and similar backend operations are employed?

If you use database triggers that alters data behind the scene. Then you have to take this into account and know when these are triggerd so that you can refresh servoy's caches with the database.

Best is to solve these things in servoy if possible. I think youre script that takes 30 seconds in file maker but only a few in oracle will also cost only a few in servoy.

Is there a "transactional" model for updates, or is all data committed immediately, etc?

If you don't do anything everyting is committed when a save is triggered for a row.
But you can start a transaction if you want and commit or rollback them at one time.

Also, is it possible to have one or two users running against the Developer version for MU testing, or is a client package required?

yes you can test with 2 clients on one developer. Licence restricts you to only testing you are now allowed to use a developer in production (so as a server)

Can clients "modify" the solution in anyway? I.e. custom report forms, etc.

not yet. Is on the planning.

Are there "form" wizards for creating standard sub-summary reports and the like?

We dont have real wizards for that. It is just as building a form and we have some dialogs to help you with that.

Just try it out and make a small demo!

[bubba]

So it's possible to setup individual users for each solution and potentiallly for each client?

Yes you can make groups for specific solutions and add users to that group ect. Please look at the security model we havei n eclipse (debuger security dialog)
You can give groups rights like able to edit data on that form. See this button ect.

Also, what about data consistency when triggers and similar backend operations are employed?

If you use database triggers that alters data behind the scene. Then you have to take this into account and know when these are triggerd so that you can refresh servoy's caches with the database.

Best is to solve these things in servoy if possible. I think youre script that takes 30 seconds in file maker but only a few in oracle will also cost only a few in servoy.

Is there a "transactional" model for updates, or is all data committed immediately, etc?

If you don't do anything everyting is committed when a save is triggered for a row.
But you can start a transaction if you want and commit or rollback them at one time.

Also, is it possible to have one or two users running against the Developer version for MU testing, or is a client package required?

yes you can test with 2 clients on one developer. Licence restricts you to only testing you are now allowed to use a developer in production (so as a server)

Can clients "modify" the solution in anyway? I.e. custom report forms, etc.

not yet. Is on the planning.

Are there "form" wizards for creating standard sub-summary reports and the like?

We dont have real wizards for that. It is just as building a form and we have some dialogs to help you with that.

Just try it out and make a small demo!

Johan:

Again, I appreciate the info.

I've played a bit with the demo, but just asking some of these as it's easy to miss things, and some are more technical.

While I could write my big script in Servoy (Javascript), there are advantages to having this done on the server. It's quite involved, and as many records are manipulated and read, it is much more efficient if it can be done on the server, especially for large batches. There are large tables that an end user (client) would never have to have access to in the front end, that are essentially only used in the calculation engine.

I would know what tables, even records where effected by these routines.
Can you give me an example of how to refresh the Servoy data caches in such situations?

Does the Developer version come with the components to connect to an Oracle databse? I did not see that in the Demo version. I'm planning on purchasing the Developer version in the next day or so.

Regards,
Lee Snover

[jcompagner]

look at databasemanager.refreshRecordFromDatabase() for refreshing/synching records with the database.

if you want to use oracle, you only have to download the latest JDBC drivers from the oracle site and you can connect to oracle (as it is with all other databases, for some we will distribute the driver with our app but due licencing we can't do it for all db's)