Today, Morfik released version 2.1.1.3 as an update to all versions of AppsBuilder. This is the first of several updates to be released. The update file is only about 6.5MB in size and can be easily and quickly downloaded and installed.
This update addresses several issues identified after the release of the first build of version 2.1, last week, and focuses on correcting problems with Apache plug-in modules and general IDE stability.
You can download the update directly from here.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Working with Packages in Morfik - The Basics
I spent an afternoon going through the basics of working with packages with Morfik 2.1 and thought I'd share with you my first impressions. The first thing that came to mind when I first opened the sample packages available (as a separate download) from the Morfik website, was that the concept was really cool.
With that thought
I proceeded to take on the task of creating a package of my own that would hold the bits and pieces necessary to do something useful. As always, when you set out to test some new technique or product version all ideas seemed to vanish so I just decided that I would do a package that allowed me to insert a blog-like list of articles into any application. That seemed simple enough and as it turns out it really is.
When you first decide to create a package you will need to get a package-ticket with Morfik. This ticket will reserve a three to six letter prefix for your use in creating your personal or business packages. This is handled directly in the New Package Wizard and the ticket is issued immediately. No bureaucracy, no wait.
When you complete the Wizard, while Morfik is "opening" the newly created package, an error is generated. You can safely press cancel and proceed to work in the package. This error is harmless and the result of a simple inversion in the order in which these items are opened after being created. As it turns out the IDE is trying to first open a test form containing a blank widget, before the widget's creation has been completed. (Or something of the sort.:-) This issue should be corrected in a minor point release that Morfik will be making available soon.
Once you have created the package you will have a project which contains one form and one widget. The form is useful for you to test the objects you are creating within your package, without having to continuously add and remove it from other projects. The Package project can be run as it if it were a standard application. The actual redistributable file with the extention MFKPackage is actually quite small, if you haven't added large resources to the project.
Adding resources to a package is an interesting area to consider as all packages you create will share a common resource root folder which has your package prefix, followed by an underscore as its name. In the case of MorfikWatch, for example, the folder is called mfw_. This means that you cannot have two packages that use the same name for two different images, as long as you plan on using them on the same project.
I'm not sure putting all the images for all packages I'll ever create in the same folder is the best design decision, but I understand that it's objective is to avoid having the same image added more than once to any single project. In that regard, this is probably a good decision.
It is obvious that Morfik considers Packages a natural environment for Widgets as any new Package comes with a pre-created Widget. The new features do really seem like an ideal match, as Widgets allow you to your own controls and packages provide a convenient mechanism for distributing them within your team or your customers.
Packages can, also, be great facilitators for larger developer groups. A project can be logically divided into packages so that it's development can be easily handled by different developers.
What other uses can you think of for Morfik Packages?
With that thought
I proceeded to take on the task of creating a package of my own that would hold the bits and pieces necessary to do something useful. As always, when you set out to test some new technique or product version all ideas seemed to vanish so I just decided that I would do a package that allowed me to insert a blog-like list of articles into any application. That seemed simple enough and as it turns out it really is.When you first decide to create a package you will need to get a package-ticket with Morfik. This ticket will reserve a three to six letter prefix for your use in creating your personal or business packages. This is handled directly in the New Package Wizard and the ticket is issued immediately. No bureaucracy, no wait.
When you complete the Wizard, while Morfik is "opening" the newly created package, an error is generated. You can safely press cancel and proceed to work in the package. This error is harmless and the result of a simple inversion in the order in which these items are opened after being created. As it turns out the IDE is trying to first open a test form containing a blank widget, before the widget's creation has been completed. (Or something of the sort.:-) This issue should be corrected in a minor point release that Morfik will be making available soon.
Once you have created the package you will have a project which contains one form and one widget. The form is useful for you to test the objects you are creating within your package, without having to continuously add and remove it from other projects. The Package project can be run as it if it were a standard application. The actual redistributable file with the extention MFKPackage is actually quite small, if you haven't added large resources to the project.
Adding resources to a package is an interesting area to consider as all packages you create will share a common resource root folder which has your package prefix, followed by an underscore as its name. In the case of MorfikWatch, for example, the folder is called mfw_. This means that you cannot have two packages that use the same name for two different images, as long as you plan on using them on the same project.
I'm not sure putting all the images for all packages I'll ever create in the same folder is the best design decision, but I understand that it's objective is to avoid having the same image added more than once to any single project. In that regard, this is probably a good decision.
It is obvious that Morfik considers Packages a natural environment for Widgets as any new Package comes with a pre-created Widget. The new features do really seem like an ideal match, as Widgets allow you to your own controls and packages provide a convenient mechanism for distributing them within your team or your customers.
Packages can, also, be great facilitators for larger developer groups. A project can be logically divided into packages so that it's development can be easily handled by different developers.
What other uses can you think of for Morfik Packages?
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Integrated Hosting + Powerful Visual Design = Morfik 2.1
I wish I could say that I took the time to experiment with Morfik's Integrated Hosting service, but that would be largely overstating what I, actually, did. Once you go have your project ready for deployment, the process is as simple as following a Wizard. The main decision I was required to make was the sub-domain name that I would use with my account.
Not surprisingly I chose MorfikWatch :-) as the sub-domain name for my Morfik hosted applications. After just a couple of clicks I had the application compiled and deployed as shown in the following picture.
Deploying an application couldn't really be much simpler than that.
When you combine this ease of getting a ready application deployed with the traditionally easy Morfik visual design, you get the one of the best possible solutions for deploying small sites and applications. In fact, the power of the visual designer in Morfik 2.1 has been further enhanced with the ability to customize more in more detail how effects are applied to controls in creating styles.
The combination of the ease and power of visual design with the ease and speed of the Integrated Hosting might come to attract a good number of freelance web designers to become Morfik users.
Not surprisingly I chose MorfikWatch :-) as the sub-domain name for my Morfik hosted applications. After just a couple of clicks I had the application compiled and deployed as shown in the following picture.
Deploying an application couldn't really be much simpler than that. When you combine this ease of getting a ready application deployed with the traditionally easy Morfik visual design, you get the one of the best possible solutions for deploying small sites and applications. In fact, the power of the visual designer in Morfik 2.1 has been further enhanced with the ability to customize more in more detail how effects are applied to controls in creating styles.
The combination of the ease and power of visual design with the ease and speed of the Integrated Hosting might come to attract a good number of freelance web designers to become Morfik users.
New Features in Morfik 2.1
Morfik 2.1 has a large number of new features. Some of these features are quite impressive while others are just small, though significant, improvements in existing features.
Lets look at the small improvements first. These encompass those small details that can seriously irritate you or make your day. In my particular case, the improvements to how styles are handled represent the greatest gain, in this group. Morfik 2.0's implementation of styles while very impressive seemed a bit incomplete in some areas. Version 2.1 fills in the blanks left in the previous version. Styles now have a dedicated management facility which should make creating and distributing styles a much simpler and faster proposition.
The ability to individually configure which sides of a control will display a border or which corner will be rounded or not are other small changes to the capabilities available to visually design your website or application.
Moving into the realm of what is totally new, two features are quite impressive: Widgets and Packages. Widgets are user definable controls which can be visually created through aggregation. This feature alone may prove to be one of the most interesting in version 2.1 as it makes it much easier to develop controls for the Morfik platform. Packages are very interesting for much the same reason: they make it easier to redistribute code that you have created to other users.
The combination of Widgets and Packages might pave the way for more third party developers to venture into Morfik control creation. Morfik Packages are specially interesting as they can include tables, queries and all other types of documents you can create in a Morfik Application.
In a demonstration of forward thinking, Morfik acted to prevent name clashes between packages developed by different third party vendors. Before you can create your first package the IDE will take you through a registration process where you choose a prefix for your identifiers. This prefix can have from 3 to 6 characters in length and will be appended to the start of all identifier in your package. This will not preclude the possibility of name clashes between the items you create within your package, but these have always been the developer's responsibility anyway.
I have done some basic experimenting with this feature, having registered the "mfw" prefix for MorfikWatch packages. The following picture shows my first attempt at creating a widget, already inserted into a form, at design time.
Along with the new version, Morfik made available a set of three demo packages and a 53 page document describing the most significant new features. In this document the creation of Widgets is described in detail as is another significant feature: Integrated Hosting.
Integrated Hosting is how Morfik is calling its hosting service offering which is available directly from within the IDE. The ease and speed of deployment this service offers will certainly interest a large number of developers, specially for development and demo purposes. It should provide much greater impact to just click through a wizard to deploy your application so that your users can see a live version of it, than to personally carry it on a notebook to show to other people. This of course is entirely dependent of type of application you are creating and the types of customers you have.
Apart from all I have just mentioned, Morfik 2.1 includes several features which can be used together to create sites which can be indexed by search engines: Clean URLs, HyperLinks and SEO-specific options for URLs.
All in all, Morfik 2.1 is a very impressive product. I will be adding new posts that go into more detail about specific features in the coming days.
Lets look at the small improvements first. These encompass those small details that can seriously irritate you or make your day. In my particular case, the improvements to how styles are handled represent the greatest gain, in this group. Morfik 2.0's implementation of styles while very impressive seemed a bit incomplete in some areas. Version 2.1 fills in the blanks left in the previous version. Styles now have a dedicated management facility which should make creating and distributing styles a much simpler and faster proposition.
The ability to individually configure which sides of a control will display a border or which corner will be rounded or not are other small changes to the capabilities available to visually design your website or application.
Moving into the realm of what is totally new, two features are quite impressive: Widgets and Packages. Widgets are user definable controls which can be visually created through aggregation. This feature alone may prove to be one of the most interesting in version 2.1 as it makes it much easier to develop controls for the Morfik platform. Packages are very interesting for much the same reason: they make it easier to redistribute code that you have created to other users.
The combination of Widgets and Packages might pave the way for more third party developers to venture into Morfik control creation. Morfik Packages are specially interesting as they can include tables, queries and all other types of documents you can create in a Morfik Application.
In a demonstration of forward thinking, Morfik acted to prevent name clashes between packages developed by different third party vendors. Before you can create your first package the IDE will take you through a registration process where you choose a prefix for your identifiers. This prefix can have from 3 to 6 characters in length and will be appended to the start of all identifier in your package. This will not preclude the possibility of name clashes between the items you create within your package, but these have always been the developer's responsibility anyway.
I have done some basic experimenting with this feature, having registered the "mfw" prefix for MorfikWatch packages. The following picture shows my first attempt at creating a widget, already inserted into a form, at design time.
Along with the new version, Morfik made available a set of three demo packages and a 53 page document describing the most significant new features. In this document the creation of Widgets is described in detail as is another significant feature: Integrated Hosting.
Integrated Hosting is how Morfik is calling its hosting service offering which is available directly from within the IDE. The ease and speed of deployment this service offers will certainly interest a large number of developers, specially for development and demo purposes. It should provide much greater impact to just click through a wizard to deploy your application so that your users can see a live version of it, than to personally carry it on a notebook to show to other people. This of course is entirely dependent of type of application you are creating and the types of customers you have.
Apart from all I have just mentioned, Morfik 2.1 includes several features which can be used together to create sites which can be indexed by search engines: Clean URLs, HyperLinks and SEO-specific options for URLs.
All in all, Morfik 2.1 is a very impressive product. I will be adding new posts that go into more detail about specific features in the coming days.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Morfik 2.1 has been released
Morfik has just made version 2.1 available for download. Along with several new features which were added to the existing FX and BX versions of AppsBuilder, a whole new version has been released. Morfik CX uses the C# language for all programming, both for the browser and server portions of the application, just as FX uses Pascal and BX uses Basic.
I'm currently in the process of downloading the new release and more posts about the new features in version 2.1 should be published later today.
I'm currently in the process of downloading the new release and more posts about the new features in version 2.1 should be published later today.
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