Does PaaS Need Migration Standards or Standard Platforms? By Phil Wainewright (Excerpts)

Complete article: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/connectedweb/2009/02/does_paas_need_migration_stand.php

In fact, a Coghead rival called Wolf Frameworks has actually released some code that takes a Coghead application definition file, parses the XML and converts it into the Wolf equivalent, to "restore all entities, screens, business rules, complete application design & even import data." Like me, situational apps expert Jonathan Sapir argues for automated migration standards: "if all the vendors could come up with a single standard XML definition for situational application platforms, we could completely eliminate the lock-in problem!"

WOLF Frameworks attempting to bring the much needed PaaS Migration Standards in place, providing application designers with freedom from being locked inside a cloud based software platform. Read more: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/connectedweb/2009/02/does_paas_need_migration_stand.php

Why does the WOLF Platform support IE browser to start with?

If you are wondering why WOLF only supports IE, this is a good post to read further...

A Client platform for deployment. We had to pick one and in the beginning were all Microsoft guys. We were debating using of Flash for delivery then we debated some more...

The Wolf platform is built using 2 disintegrated platforms:

1] The web services Engine

This is the one that represents the real application and its business rules. It has no dependency on the host application interacting with it. Establish a session/ authenticate and use it in any fashion. This partially integrates with the database platform but we'll discuss that in another article.

2] The Client Interface

The client Interface or the User Interface is entirely HTML, Javascript and AJAX to interact with server. The Client interface has purely been derived in this fashion.

1] How is the application going to be delivered?
The application will be delivered over an Internet Browser.

2] Who are the target users of the application Runtime
The target users of the application runtime will mostly be teams who understand the implementation of the business applications and their roles in it. The application functionality would decide the target users. The browser once again is considered only as a method of delivery for a functional business application.

3] Why not any other browsers.
Browsers by nature have been supporting W3c Standards but then they also prefer to add a few fancies which tend to start making their own fans. For example (for a web developer) rounded corners are actually quite simple using "-moz-border-radius/ -webkit-border-radius" while working with Mozilla/Firefox and Safari 3. If the goal is to only deliver functionality why would one bother to have images to make up rounded corners for other browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer.

4] Which browsers should we support on mobile devices.
Well, we havn't answered this one yet but do know that some don't support javascript, some don't require styling and some don't have html browsers. For now, we have been delivering and testing specific mobile browsers on customer request for specific customer applications.

We are wondering, should we just put the effort to make a client host for web delivery?? Maybe, our own browser??

Ralph Vaz
Founder

WOLF Platform-as-a-Service opens their XML framework to read & restore Coghead customer applications...

WOLF Platform-as-a-Service opens their XML framework to read & restore stranded Coghead customer applications without any programming or initial financial commitment. Read more about the detailed news at http://www.wolfframeworks.com/pressrelease.asp

To take advantage of the offer, Coghead users are requested to take the following steps:

Step 1: Please visit the following URL http://www.wolfframeworks.com/ and register for the 2 user Free account and activate your WOLF account and create a dummy business application. NOTE: Even if you have more than 2 users in your Coghead based application, WOLF will not charge Coghead customers for the next 60 days.

Step 2: Please log into your Coghead account and export your business application design, download the attached application. Go to the ‘Ask Support’ section after logging into your WOLF account, describe your Coghead application in a few quick lines and upload your Coghead Business Design XML. WOLF will send you an email confirmation. Note: You are the owner of all Intellectual Property & Application Designs residing under your WOLF account. For more information, read the WOLF User License Agreement: http://www.wolfframeworks.com/licenseagreement.asp/

Step 3: The Coghead based business application will be transformed into a WOLF based application, enabled active and made up and running replacing the dummy application created under your WOLF account. You will receive a notification email in your email ID to verify the application design.

Step 4: Send us the data extract from your Coghead application. It can be part of the same XML sent earlier or you might have to export your application data from Coghead in CSV format. Our team will work together with you to activate your data and setup the security roles & activate the user management structure, URL redirection, etc. Your application along with data and users will be up and running with minimal efforts. If you need more detailed information, please drop a line to support@wolfframeworks.com

Coghead customers need no initial investment to get their applications transferred to their WOLF account, up & running for the next 60 days. Users can leverage the WOLF Platform technology benefits, request to subscribe for the WOLF source code ESCROW service & opt for the appropriate users Business Plan within the next 60 days. WOLF Platform is offered on a per user per month based user subscription fee. You can view the Business Plan Pricing @ http://www.wolfframeworks.com/pricing.asp/

Interested customers in the United States can reach WOLF Team directly & talk to
Mr. Uday Bendala: +1 (248) 327 3541 (Monday to Friday EST working hours) or otherwise reach WOLF team at +91 80 2572 1700 or +91 98451 66926 or +1 (732) 978 4977 (8am to 2pm EST). For more information about WOLF’s program for Coghead customers, write to coghead@wolfframeworks.com to know more about WOLF Partner program, please send an email to Jerry Ram – jerry.ram@wolfframeworks.com

Quick introduction to WOLF Platform-as-a-Service

Introduction to WOLF Platform As A Service

View more presentations from CloudComputing. (tags: wolf platform-as-a-service)

FORRESTER REPORT ON PLATFORM-AS-A-SERVICE

Jonathan Sapir from "Powerinthecloud" recently reviewed the Forrester Report on Platform-as-a-Service. His review is very interesting, read below:
>>>

Forrester Research has an interesting document out called "Platform-as-a-Service is here; Can it help you?" Their answer is that PaaS products "are providing value to application development and program management teams". Indeed.

Some of the products mentioned in the document I am very familiar with - including Allrounds, which we at SilverTree Systems helped develop, and of course Coghead, where we were responsible for building pieces of the platform. I was surprised to see Magic Software on the list - I personally started working with Magic Software back in 1989, and still have clients using Magic applications we built many years ago. Nice to see Magic entering the 21st century!

There were some new players I had never seen before, like Orangescape, which appears to be something along the same lines as Wolf and Longjump.

The document uses the term "4GL", which I haven't seen used in quite a long time. PaaS products are broken down by 3GL, 4GL and Business Analysts, then by content-oriented versus transaction business applications. Here are some other ways to break it down:




Complete credit for this post goes to Jonathan Sapir: http://www.powerinthecloud.com/blog/2009/2/19/forrester-report-on-platform-as-a-service.html

Exporting data to Excel from your Wolf Applications without programming

A lesser known fact about your Wolf SaaS application is that it is not a stand alone application :) In fact your Wolf based software applications can interact with other Wolf Applications and a host of external software & systems without programming at all ...

We have listed examples of Wolf Applications interacting with other software systems in two of our previous posts:
1. RSS News aggregation using Wolf - obtaining the data from a third party RSS , converting the XML to Wolf Document Record format and storing/displaying it using Wolf.
2. Invoking a Wolf SaaS application from a .NET program - Capturing data returned from a Wolf Business Rule and using this data in a .NET application.

Today we will see how this interaction with external softwares can be simplified to the mere click of a button. We are going to see how the data from a Wolf application can be exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet without programming and with the simple click of a button.

Consider you have a Wolf application that stores the basic details of a student. This includes the Name, the Date of Birth and Age of the student. Lets say we need to save the records of some students into an Excel sheet.

A snapshot of a Wolf Application Search Template containing these student records is shown below -


You can save this data into an Excel spreadsheet by clicking on the "Export to Excel" button found in the top half of the Search Template(marked in RED below).

Clicking this button throws a popup asking you whether you want to Save or Open the Excel Spreadsheet containing the student records.

The resultant Excel sheet with the student records is shown below -

Voila.... you have your entire data saved in a spreadsheet with a single click. Quick and Easy!!
Go ahead and try out the many export/import features of Wolf PaaS.

Any challenges in importing or exporting your data ? Want to know how you can connect an external application to Wolf ? Feel free to get in touch. We are happy to help.

How to make money using WOLF e-Widgets? Are they free ..?

Wondering on how to save and make money using WOLF e-Widgets? WOLF based application widgets are free ...?

Assume you are finance professional and have customers who consult you on asset planning and check on their current mortgage and housing loans on a regular basis. If you design a simple web based application using WOLF called ‘EMI Calculator’ and expose the application to every visitor of your own website, you reduce a lot of operative time and can work with them on more strategic activities. For your customers this means, entering their housing loan amount, tenure for the loan and see the current interest rate & EMI (Every Month Installment) with a click of a button.

How much are you paying WOLF Platform for your web application ‘EMI Calculator’?

WOLF charges you based upon the number of users registered inside your WOLF account. You sign up for the WOLF service based on the different business plans. Two users are free for your standard WOLF account business plan - One is the WOLF account holder itself and the second user is the one you create to test your application as a user. You can give access to different Entities (Data), menu/navigation item, Business Rules & Reports to the user via the RunTime Environment as a administrator/designer for the application.

How much will it cost if all my web visitors use the ‘EMI Calculator Form’ application? Does WOLF charge you based on every user who clicks on the EMI calculator?

In our last post we described that you need a WOLF application user and tie the user to a specific domain name and a key to embed the application as a web widget inside another public or private website. You can read the steps here: http://wolfpaas.blogspot.com/2009/01/building-e-widgets.html

So your web visitors need not be part of the WOLF registered user for your EMI Calculator application and thus you make such a feature available to your customers completely free J Business Application functionality extended to your customers FREE…

Hey, but when do you pay?

When you cross more than 2 users, WOLF Platform-as-a-Service charges you based upon your business plan. If you cross more than 2 and add a single user – you only pay $ 10/- a month. In the case of the EMI calculator, you have one domain URL – one key and one user. But if you were to add the same EMI calculator to another website, you would need another user name, another domain URL and one more key. So you would have to pay based upon the users added inside your WOLF account. So one WOLF account, one new user, one widget embedded inside one website (localhost or public) is FREE…

How To: Use Power of Properties, Part 4.2 - For Entity -> Search Template

Hi Friends,

Today, as promised, we will learn more about the properties of entities and its sub-elements. As you can see in figure 4.2.1, there are various sub-elements of entity which make it more powerful and core of an application. This is the place where you can customize the look and feel of your application as well as the functionalities of your application. Let us cash the power of Wolf Platform with efficient use of properties for these entities.

Figure 4.2.1: Entity Explorer and Elements present in it

As shown in figure 4.2.2, there are three basic elements of an entity, namely: Relations, Search and Edit Screen. Today we will be covering the properties for sub-elements of Search element in entity. In the Search Element, we can add the Search Template for the Edit Screen we have developed. The properties of the Search Template may be configured to represent the data in the form of Search Screens, Reports, Dashboard Widgets, etc. After designing your Search Template, remember to link your Search Template to a Navigation item to make it accessible in the Run environment of the application.

Figure 4.2.2: Search Template And its Properties

There are various simple and surprising properties of Search Template which we can set to make our search template look more promising.

Template Name: You should give the name of your Search Template here. It is a mandatory field.

Figure 4.2.3: Business Rule Property of Search Template

Business Rule: Get the results of the search from a business rule if specified, as shown in figure 4.2.3. Leave this property blank to perform a standard search on the Entity.

Figure 4.2.4: Hide Quick View Property of Search Template is disabled.
Figure 4.2.5: Hide Quick View Property of Search Template is enabled.

Hide Quick View: If enabled then you will not see a non editable preview of the Entity data when an item is selected, as shown in figure 4.2.4 and figure 4.2.5. It should be used only if the Entity contains information that cannot be accommodated into the columns of [Results] table.

Figure 4.2.6: Hide [New/Open/Delete] Properties of Search Template

Hide [New/Open/Delete]: If disabled/enabled, these Properties show/Hide the New/Open/Delete tool from the toolbar (refer figure 4.2.6).

Figure 4.2.7: Edit Template Property of Search Template

Edit Template: This setting allows you to control which of the defined Edit Screens should be linked to the New and Open Tools that appear on the toolbar.
This also controls the details that are displayed in the Quick View section of the current search template If this value is left unspecified or cleared then the default Edit Screen is used (refer figure 4.2.7).

Disallow Add: Disallow the user to add a record through the Results table itself. This will only work if the search does not point to a Business Rule in addition to his security privileges.

Disallow Edit: Disallow the user to add a record through the Results table itself. This will only work if the search does not point to a Business Rule in addition to his security privileges.

Figure 4.2.8: Output of Search Screen using Show Levels property of Search Template

Show levels: The results table is capable of showing grouped information, as shown in figure 4.2.8. This can be set to true if every record of the results data source has a element.

Figure 4.2.9: Output of Search Screen with sequence number using Show Numbering property of Search Template

Show Numbering: The results table shows a numbering in the first column by default, as represented in figure 4.2.9. Uncheck here if you do not want it to be displayed.

Now let us go into the next level of Search template. We will find two sub-levels of Criteria and Results. Within the Results level, we can add the fields which we want in the search screen, such as the Present Address, Permanent Address, etc. in our example of Contact Details.

Figure 4.2.10: Fields and their properties in results level of Search template

Let us here take example of the checkbox field, the properties of most of the fields are common and easy to use.

Display Name: It is a mandatory property to give name of the field.

Display Width (px) : You can also provide the width in which the particular field should be displayed.

Sorting Order: Select the sorting order of the fields, either Ascending or Descending.

Example:

Assume the following case
Field1 has sorting order="0" and sort direction = "ascending"
Field2 has sorting order="1" and sort direction = "descending"
This will be treated as
Field1 asc, Field2 desc

Sorting Direction: The default sort direction for the results table. Make sure that you have defined the sorting order otherwise this setting will be ignored.

ReadOnly: This will determine, on checking/unchecking, if the column for this field should be readonly or not.

Hidden: This will determine, on checking/unchecking, if the coulmn for this field should be hidden or not.

Thus we have finally covered Search Template properties with easy, haven't we? This session on properties will definitely help you extract more out of the available resources of WOLF and use them in your application smoothly.

See ya friends,

Bye, till the next session on 'Edit Screen Properties'....hope you will not miss that as this would be the most interesting and base of all the sessions.

Regards

ArtDeveloper

Creating and embedding WOLF based applications as eWidgets in your own website

Hello Friends,

Here's the promised post on Creating eWidgets using WOLF Platform-as-a-Service ...

e-Widgets are web based functionality developed using Wolf Platform and made available as part of a different website anywhere in the world. It is a small piece of codes that take the data of specific application from a specific Business Rule. These are XML based data. Using XSLT the data are extracted & the output is produced in HTML format according to the user needs.

Through ewidgets we can restructure the data in any format. To get the data from WOLF Runtime Environment JavaScript or ASP is used. To embed this widget you need to generate a key. For the key, you need a user name and a Domain/localhost URL.

Quick steps to create a eWidget using WOLF Platform-as-a-Service:

1. Create HTML file.
2. Create XSLT file
Write your code according to how you want the data.
3. In the HTML body section
Put the following code

<div id="plForm"><script type="'text/javascript'" src="'http://run.wolfframeworks.com/webservices/wf.handlers/javascript.ashx?" appid="ur_appid&key=" service="processbusinessrule&rulename=" callback="writePandLSheet&mode="></script></div>

Let me explain you the details of the above code and what it is trying to achieve:

Javascript.ashx is a handler file.
Appid: write your WOLF based Business Application ID (AppID).You can see your Appid when you access your runtime or design time of wolf platform. You can see your appid in the address bar. Look at this sample URL (http://run.wolfframeworks.com/?appid=119DDDD_a205)
The AppID is: 119DDDD_a205

Key : Write your own public widget key

Steps to create a public key for your eWidget. (Please remember that your widget key is always mapped to a specific user name and tied to a domain URL. You need to add a user to generate a key)

1.Go to run time mode of your application.
2.Enter your administrator or design mode user id & password.
3.Go to manage users & click on find now
4.Please open a user name (the user who would have access to the widget) & go to Entity Data Access section & give access to the user domain. This is a system generated Entity. You need to choose the Solution Root folder and give him 'edit' and 'delete' rights.
5. Do the same thing for menu access.
6.Now log inside the Runtime Mode as the user who has access to the Domain Entity.
7.Click on the 'All Navigation Item' bar & go to the Application Domain
8. Then Click on User Domain and add a new entry.

Enter the domain Name : it could your localhost or your websitename.com URL . Please
remember, this is the URL from where the WOLF based application will be embedded
as a eWidget.
Enter the key : Put a numerical key - any combination is fine. Just remember it :)
Enter the user : Put the name of the user

Now how to use & embed the widget in your code using the Key

The Key is used to authenticate the user. Instead of giving your user id & password you can put a key and so no user name login is required. The Key which we generated is mapped to a specific user. The mapped user only has the access to use & embed the widget in his declared URL. The Key is also mapped to the domain name. If the domain name is localhost then the application can only be accessed through localhost only. If it is mapped to Your Website name then it is accessible through only your website.

service=processbusinessrule : This statement will process the BusinessRule.
Rulename= Your Business Rule Name (Please make sure you use the right Business Rule Name)
callback=writePandLSheet: This statement is the name of the method and is used to transform XML through XSLT

<head>
<script>
function writeDC(wsfXMLDocument)
{
var s = wsfXMLDocument;
xmlDoc=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
xmlDoc.async="false";
xmlDoc.loadXML(s);

xmlDoc1=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
xmlDoc1.async="false";
xmlDoc1.load("XslFile.xsl");

var xsl=xmlDoc1;
var ex=xmlDoc.transformNode(xmlDoc1);
document.getElementById("plForm").innerHTML=ex;
}
</head>
</script>

wsfXMLDocument is data taken from BusinessRule. It is in XML format.
The XML is loaded using loadXML.
Now load your XSL file.
The XML is transformed using transformNode.
Now put the formatted data in div using getElementById.

mode is xml
WOLF Format

eWidgets Format (this is how it looks)

Using WOLF based eWidgets you can get data in Your own Format and embed in any website by generating a key. Please try the process for any of your WOLF based application and let us know.

Regards,

Sharp Developer

How To: Use Power of Properties (PoP), Part 4.1 - For Entity

Dear Friends,

Entity plays a major role while designing and developing applications on Wolf Platform because all the applications are entity oriented. You start building your application using an Entity. An Entity is similar to a real world "object" and has its own state, properties, data, screens and rules. Thus all the other elements revolve around ENTITY which is heart of any application.

For example, if you intend to build an application that collects information about Contact Details of people, an Entity called Contact Details may be defined to store the information for each person.

Today let us start with the properties of entity. We will be covering these in 3 parts, as it requires a thorough understanding of properties, so that there will be no more queries jumping in your head while developing your application and it will be developed in one go.

Figure 4.1: Properties for Entity

Entity Name: One needs a name to communicate with others. So it is a mandatory field here in Wolf too. You will use the name given here in property every time you refer to this Entity. For example, while using Business Rules.

Description: The Description provided will be used in the auto generated documentation. Describe about your entity here. What does it stand for, it will help you when you will have n number of entities in an application, you can just refer the description of the entities and find about which entity is being used for which functionality.

Figure 4.2: Category Property for Entity

Category: The categorization helps you organize your Entities. It also groups the main menu in your [Runtime] mode. So select the category from the dropdown to group the entities in a particular type of entities. For Example, an entity can be of general, report, specific, or any user defined category, as shown in figure 4.2. You can also define your own category for entities.

Attachment Enabled: If checked then the Runtime User Interface will have the ability to add attachments. For example, if you want to attach a photo and some documents to Contact Details.

Friends, I think, today we have got the basic understanding of Entity and its properties. In the next session, we will be covering the properties for other elements within Entity. So use the knowledge gained in this session in your application.

Till we meet again...

Its goodbye from ArtDeveloper...

How To: Use Power Of Properties (PoP), Part 3 - For Navigation Items

Hallo Freunde !

Hope you are finding these sessions, on Power of Properties, very useful to develop your own business applications. Let us move ahead a mile and learn some new impressive and powerful properties which are not just useful but add a boost to your application.

Today we will discuss about Properties of Navigation item. Navigation items are used for your Entities or Reports which provides access points to view different screens of your solution.

Navigation Items can be configured to link different elements of your application such as Search Templates, Dashboard Widgets, Edit Screens and Reports accessible in the Run environment of the application.

Let’s see how Power of Properties can help convert normal navigation to intelligent navigation.

Figure 3.1: Properties for Navigation Item

1. Misc Properties:

Name: Here you can give the name to your navigation item, and it is a mandatory field.

Category: As we know that menus help us organize our entities. Similarly the category selection from the dropdown of this property of navigation item helps us organize these menus. This is also a mandatory field to get a proper category for your navigation item.

Open in popup: Please select this by marking the check if the menu should open up in a new window or as a tab in the runtime mode.


Navigation item more commonly are used to link with the existing entities and report. And to link to these elements, Wolf provides the easy way to do this, by just setting a property called ‘Linked Screen’. The properties related to linking with entities are group in a set called ‘Entity Link’. One just needs to set the first property ‘Linked Screen’, the other properties such as ‘Screen Name’ and ‘Screen Type’ will be automatically populated based on the screen selected. Don’t you think, it is the easiest way of configuring navigation of screens?

Figure 3.2: Linked Screen Property for Navigation Item

2. Entity Link:

Linked Screen: To link the menu item to a Screen in your application. The Screen Name and Screen Type are automatically populated based on this value.

Screen name: It helps us get the name of the search template. This will be automatically populated when you link the menu to an Object's screen.

Screen Type: As discussed, it is a read only property that helps you identify the type of screens such as Search, Dashboard, etc.

3. Other Links:

Externally Controlled Widgets: This is a widget that can be controlled by you. The Widgets can be built using the Javascript Commands. You can have the script file residing on your servers or point to one of our existing widgets. For a complete list of available widgets please visit our website.

The following is a ready to use widgets for different functionalities:
Load Image from external URL
http://demo.wolfframeworks.com/ewidgets/drawImage.js?imageurl=IMAGEURL

Draw Frame from external URL
http://demo.wolfframeworks.com/ewidgets/drawFrame.js?framesrc=IFRAMESOURCE

Include Splash Page Style Sheet from URL
http://demo.wolfframeworks.com/ewidgets/drawCSS.js?cssurl=CSSURL

Link: Link to files in the system other than the object related screens.

Figure 3.3: Image Setting Property of Dash Board for Navigation Item

4. Dash Board Settings:

Image in Dash Board Setting: Show the selected image in the dashboard section of the splash screen. The setting will be ignored if the screen type is not a dashboard. We can select the image by following the steps as shown in figure 3.3.

Style in Dash Board Setting: A Specific HTML styling that you wish to give to the dash board.

Figure 3.4: Image setting of Splash Screen for Navigation Item.

5. Splash Screen:

Image in Splash Screen: Show the selected image on the splash screen. We can select the image by following the steps as shown in figure 3.4.

Text: Leave this blank if you want to use the menu item Name.

So friends, try using these properties in your application and enjoy the freedom of developing faster-better-cheaper-steadier applications.

In the Next Session, we will go through the most important properties which are basic and more commonly used in all the applications. So get ready for more in next session.

Till that time,

ArtDeveloper...signing Off...!!

How To : Use Power of Properties (PoP), Part 2 - For Reports

Hi Friends,

Welcome to session 2 of Power of Properties. Today we will learn about the properties which we can set and use for reports in our application.

Reports are very useful in representing the data in simple formats. The purpose of a report is to show information, collected after performing operations on the data, to the user about certain topics. Report building is so easy to implement in any application built on Wolf Platform. One can easily set properties to get customized and easy to understand reports for his/her application.

To begin with, we can give a name to our report, which is mandatory for any report. The asterisk symbol over the property Report Name describes that this is a mandatory field as shown in figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1: Properties for Report

We access data from a data source and generate report for that data. We can select the Data Source for report by selecting business rule, which we have already built, that act as the data source in Wolf Platform. So the property which we can set for 'Data Source' element is the 'Business Rule'.

Figure 2.2: DataSource Properties for Report

We normally group our report by a particular column or field to get not just a report but an organised report. Wolf provides this feature too for reports. Just one need to go to the 'Group' element and set the property of 'Group Field'.

Figure 2.3: Group Properties for Report

Group Field: The output is expected to be ordered by this field. For example, in figure 2.3, the output for generated report will be ordered by the 'First name' field.

Reports have columns which take data from the fields in the search screen in Wolf Application. So it is required to find which fields should be used in report according to the requirements. The fields identified and used need to have some properties set for better presentation in the report.

Figure 2.4: Type Property for the different fields used in Report

Display Name: It is a mandatory property for the fields present in Detail Section of Design element of the report. The name given here will be displayed as the column header for this particular field.

Type: There is different pre-display formatting that happens for different types. The formats already provided are Date, decimal/currency, Number, text and Yes/No, as shown in figure 2.4. We can use these types for any field acting as column in the report. Leave this blank if you are expecting the business rule to return this as an alphanumeric value.

Width (px): This property specify horizontal width in pixels for the column in your report. You can change the width of any column to make them look more presentable in your report.

In this session, we learnt how to use properties to make our reports look more presentable. So I hope this will help you extract more functionalities from the available Platform. Meet you again on another exciting session of PoP.

Auf Wiedersehen...!
ArtDeveloper Signing Off...!!!

How To : Use Power of Properties (PoP), Part 1 - Introduction

Hi Friends,

Working on Wolf Platform and building applications is not just easy but we can also add surprising functionalities to different elements of the application by setting properties of these elements.

Let us begin the journey of making our application more powerful by learning the properties. I will be sharing the knowledge about Properties for different elements during the course of coming sessions on our blog.

Today, we will go through the Properties of one of the basic elements of any application i.e. the properties of Application itself.

First let us look at the Properties Panel (Figure 1.1). Properties Panel is placed at the Right-Bottom corner of the design console. It reflects the properties which can be set for particular element in the Solution Explorer. The properties panel shows the list of available properties and their existing values (if any in the case of saved elements). Changing the properties of a selected element will change behavior during Runtime. The changes will reflect in available previews only after Save/Publish and subsequent Refreshing of the preview pane. The effects of the changes are explained in the help tab on the left side of the screen. Example, in figure 1.1, Properties for Entity: Contact Details in Solution Explorer is shown in the Properties Window.

Figure 1.1: Properties Window in Design Console

1. Application Properties :

Each WSF Application solution built on Wolf Platform has few attributes to be set for creating a more informative application. These attributes can be set in the Properties Panel. None of the Properties for application element are mandatory, so one can use the default settings too and build application.

Figure 1.2: Properties for Application

Properties for application itself are divided into 3 sub-sections depending upon the behavior of the properties:

i. Miscellaneous

a. Solution name: Name your business application and use the "Save" option in the Designer toolbar.

b. Solution Image: Select an image that represents your solution best as a logo for your application.

c. Footer: Set foot note for your application, such as the copyright symbol and name of the organization.

d. Terms of Use: Upload your terms of use document and link to it. This link will appear in the footer during Runtime Mode.

ii. Mail Settings

a. SMTP Server: Specify the SMTP server through which you would like to send emails. If left unspecified, all your outgoing emails will go from the WOLF servers by default.

b. SMTP user: Specify the SMTP authenticated user. This is required only if your SMTP server requires authentication.

c. SMTP Password: Specify the SMTP password for above user. This is required only if your SMTP server requires authentication.

d. SMTP Port: Specify the SMTP Server Port

e. Use SSL: Specify whether the Server uses SSL or not using check box. Check it if server uses SSL otherwise uncheck.

iii. Environment Defaults

a. Date Format: All dates will be accept data in this date format unless overridden. One can select the format from a dropdown. Format can be dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy.


So Friends, after this, now you are ready to start with your solution and tranform it to build a fully functional business application. In the next session, we will go through the properties of other elements of our application.

Till then,
This is ArtDeveloper, Signing Off…

Tschüss !!
“Enjoy the freedom to develop your own applications…”