MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge® Application The OpenEdge User Interface Jiri De Jagere Product Consultant

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation2 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Agenda  What is a competitive UI?  OpenEdge UI Possibilities  The OpenEdge GUI  Something to think about...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation3 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App A competitive UI provides the user with a high level of … Performance Robustness Usability Ergonomy … and supports the user in his work Workflow What is a competitive UI?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation4 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App What is usability? Usability is the extent in which an interactive system enables the user to effectively, efficiently and comfortably complete his task in a given environment. The perception of usability is very subjective and difficult to measure

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation5 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App What is ergonomy? An ergonomic UI is a UI which is instinctive to use and understand and that has graphic unity. Minimal interfaces are popular with users, inexpensive to implement and contribute to productivity Multi-window UI’s often lead to confusion for the user

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation6 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Workflow is the automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another according to a set of procedural rules.” Types of workflow –Embedded –Independent –Horizontal –Vertical What is workflow?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation7 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App A competitive UI provides the user with a high level of … Performance Robustness Usability Ergonomy … and supports the user in his work Workflow What is a competitive UI?... But a flashy UI always helps!...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation8 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Agenda  What is a competitive UI?  OpenEdge UI Possibilities  The OpenEdge GUI  Something to think about...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation9 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App OpenEdge UI possibilities  The most common UI solutions: OpenEdge ChUI OpenEdge GUI Microsoft.NET™ GUI Java™ GUI (D)HTML

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation10 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App OpenEdge UI possibilities TechnologyPro’sCon’s OpenEdge ChUI  ABL  Simple UI delivers better performance and productivity  No sizzle OpenEdge GUI  ABL  WebClient™  Full MS Desktop support  Most common graphic features  Low sizzle Microsoft.NET GUI .NET GUI  OpenClient  Full MS Desktop support  Full sizzle  Requires Microsoft.NET technology .NET-specific knowledge required Java GUI  AWT, Swing, SWT  OpenClient  Full MS Desktop support  Medium sizzle  Requires Java technology  Java-specific knowledge required

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation11 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App D I S C L A I M E R Under Development  This talk includes information about potential future products and/or product enhancements.  What I am going to say reflects our current thinking, but the information contained herein is preliminary and subject to change. Any future products we ultimately deliver may be materially different from what is described here. D I S C L A I M E R

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation12 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App OpenEdge UI Strategy TopicTodayFutureValue Proposition UI – GUIWin 3.1/ MFC Built into Language (Retro - Look and Feel) ABL UI Components - Active-X capability Abstracted Definition (Progress Dynamics®) Tools – AppBuilder Latest UI’s run on top of other VMs Use Latest Visual Components UI Architecture (Target Impl) New IDE In-the-Box ISVs Develop in the ABL Looks Better make you competitive Fashion Resilient UI WebWeb Binding CGI etc Look at Better Tagging UI Integrated into Tools UI General Watch Industry Movement Stay Current

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation13 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App What it might look like …

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation14 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Agenda  What is a competitive UI?  OpenEdge UI Possibilities  The OpenEdge GUI  Something to think about...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation15 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...  Out-of-the-box support for Win95 look  What are the differences between the Win95 and WinXP looks?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation16 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today... Win XP system propertiesOpenEdge ABL replica

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation17 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today... Win XP system propertiesOpenEdge ABL replica

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation18 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...  Some of these differences can be solved by using a manifest file KBase solution P46584 “How to get the Windows XP look & feel”  OpenEdge 10.1A Support for rounded rectangles, dual image buttons and spin button smartobject is XP- compliant Manifest file active by default

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation19 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today... Win XP system propertiesOpenEdge ABL replicaOpenEdge ABL with manifest

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation20 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today... Win XP system propertiesOpenEdge ABL replicaOpenEdge ABL with manifest

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation21 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today... Win XP system propertiesOpenEdge ABL with manifest

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation22 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...  What are the differences between the OpenEdge GUI and the flat.NET GUI?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation23 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation24 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...  Many third-party tools are available to the.NET developer to extend the look-’n-feel of his application and integrate his application into the users environment WinXP Office2000 OfficeXP Office2003  Some of them provide ActiveX-components with the same type of functionality that can be used in a OpenEdge GUI

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation25 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App  What about DLL Hell? Deployment tools such as WebClient help out  What about performance? Several enhancements in subsequent OpenEdge 10 releases  What about stability? Several enhancements in subsequent OpenEdge 10 releases  What about Microsoft’s ActiveX policy? ActiveX to the rescue? Been there, done that …

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation26 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App  Make sure you clean everything up  Use the controls in a generic way  Consider the next version of the control  Do not use them when you can’t install the controls on the client PC’s ActiveX to the rescue? Some common pitfalls … But the results can be incredible!!

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation27 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App The OpenEdge GUI today...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation28 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App  MDI-style container  Drag & drop toolbars and menus  Drag & drop panels  XP Taskpanel style navigation  Outlook 2003 style navigation  Outlook 2003 style data grid  Outlook 2003 style calendar ... Demonstration Some fancy features …

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation29 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Some best practices...  Separate the UI logic from the UI The MVC-design pattern can help you prepare for future changes to your UI

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation30 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Some best practices...  Create reusable component wrappers Control commands in one central place Easier to cope with new versions Hides possible complexity Helps to avoid pitfalls mentioned earlier

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation31 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Agenda  What is a competitive UI?  OpenEdge UI Possibilities  The OpenEdge GUI  Something to think about...

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation32 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Something to think about … ADM2 / Progress Dynamics

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation33 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Demonstration ADM2 / Progress Dynamics

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation34 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App In Summary  You can achieve a competitive UI with OpenEdge …  At a relatively low cost...  As an interim step that can last a number of years  Without the need for a complete re-design of your App!

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation35 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App For More Information, go to…  PSDN Enhancing the OpenEdge GUI –Whitepapers –Code samples

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation36 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Relevant Exchange Sessions  MOVE-1 Progress Dynamics on Steroids Anthony Swindells  ARCH-4 The Presentation Layer in the OERA Frank Beusenberg  INNOV-14 A Sneak Peak at the new OpenEdge UI Shelley Chase, Bruce Gruenbaum  INNOV-17 Rich UI for the Web? AJAX to the rescue! Ken Wilner

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation37 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Questions?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation38 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App Thank you for your time

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation39 MOVE-5: Improving the look and feel of your OpenEdge App