What Java library or dll can be used to develop a WEB GUI in Xbase++?

[Wolfgang Ciriack]

Hello Chris,
perhaps it is better to open a new topic on this forum under Announcements like "BOA presentation" so the users can better find it than on the 3. side of this topic ?

[skiman]

Hi,

Yes, maybe this would be better.

[Diego Euri Almanzar]

Hi, Skiman!

Although I am totally decided to use PowerWeb, I even bought it, I would like to know in what language did you make your Web version??

On the other hand, I inform you that the first thing I tried, like you, was the Xb2net library. But, it has no GUI and I abandoned that adventure. From my point of view, Xb2net is just a library that gives you the ability to put things in a browser, but doesn't offer a GUI (browse, buttons, list box, tabpage, etc.)

The same goes for Alaska's CXP Xbase++ It gives you the ability to write in the browser, but it doesn't have a GUI. I bought version 2.0 of Alaska, the latest one, hoping to find a GUI for the WEB. And CXP definitely doesn't. Even the only example I find in Alaska in relation to CXP, is an HTML that inside has
? "Hello World"

As if with the command "?", the Xbase++ programmers were going to solve the shortcomings of having been left behind.

From my point of view CXP and Xb2net is exactly the same.

Since my license hasn't expired yet, I should send an email to Alaska, asking when they will have a Web GUI. I really don't understand the CXP issue, nor the WAA issue. Aside from trying to run the "Hello World" example and since I was never able to learn how to configure Apache, to get this to run. It lasted for months, and could not configure Apache.

As for Roger's DCREAD HTML, yes, I like it. But, it also depends on Apache, and configuring Apache is very difficult. Also, Roger left the project, Roger did not continue with the project. And, since a long time has passed, many things have changed in the world.

So far, I understand, I confirm, that everything modern of a Web GUI, has PowerWeb, and by buying PowerCom, I replace Apache in 100%

PowerWeb has all the advantages, since it is a library that is included in a PRG, just like EXPRESS. All the instructions of a desktop program will not give you an error, because everything is compiled with Alaska Xbase++ The desktop functions will not appear in the browser, but you can replace them, step by step.

Best regards.

[skiman]

Hi Diego,

BOA is made with Angular.

Xb2net AND Xbase++ both have the possibility to build a HTTP server. So there is NO need to use Apache or IIS! Powerweb is using this functionality.

With cxp and Xb2net AND Powerweb you are building HTML pages. That is working without any problem if you have the knowledge to create the pages with HTML and CSS. The first pages I made with Xb2net in 2005 were these kind of pages.

oldhtml.jpg (47.01 KiB) Viewed 10750 times

I do hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid it will be a hell of a job to create modern pages with Powerweb. If the application is for internal use in a company it can be sufficient. If you have to sell this and compete with other suppliers, it will not.

You wrote:

PowerWeb has all the advantages, since it is a library that is included in a PRG, just like EXPRESS.

Do you mean you get the complete source code when buying Powerweb?

[Tom]

Hi, Diego.

It seems like you are dreaming of a kind of "transpiler", which is able to convert code in a way that turns it into a web application. Even in the earlier years of the web, that was not a good approach. Roger tried to do something like this with DCREAD HTML, but he had reasons to stop this. I guess, one of those reasons was, that it would never end in a working, usable application.

The web has no GUI. What you are missing in Xb2.Net or Xbase++ 2.0 simply doesn't exist. Web is about requests and responses and script and documents and contens. Web browsers are (more or less) intelligent document displaying applications. They are feeded with documents. DCREAD HTML did create such documents, and those documents are created by backends that react on requests. This is what you do if you try to create a web application: Build a backend that sends responses. And although lots of technology was added during the last 20 years, most of the responses are still HTML documents. But there are thousands of frameworks that can be used to improve those documents, to add functionality and design components.

What we do with Xbase++ is completely different. Besides, the way of designing apps is completely different. Web is responsive, knows tons and tons of different targets, different browsers and ways to communicate. A windows desktop application is an application using the API of windows and running just on windows and nowhere else. But there is no such thing as an API in the web. This is not how it works.

I'm very interested in how Chris solved this. After moving all databases to SQL, this is the most important issue these days.

[skiman]

Hi Tom,

As you wrote a backend is in most cases sending HTML responses. With BOA this isn't the case, the backend only sends JSON responses with the data BOA need. And according to the endpoints you have included in this data, BOA will send the requests to your back-end.
This data can be:

• Menu structure and items after login.
  Definition of columns for a grid.
  Definition of a form, single form or form with multipe tab pages.
  Endpoints to be used.
  ...

BOA will evaluate this data, and will create the HTML pages to show in the client/browser. You just need to 'say' to BOA what you want and where you want it. As a developer you only have to take care about the processing of the requests and sending the responses.

[Diego Euri Almanzar]

Hello, Chris

I don't know what angular is. But, I have read about BOA since 2019. I found that information in this same forum. I started to investigate, and since I noticed that it wasn't a library, and that it wasn't going to compile with Xbase++, I discarded that option. To give you an idea, ever since Clipper Summer 89, I've been sitting in my comfort zone with say and get. And, although I bought Xbase++ in the late 90's, I never used it, I found its GUI very complicated, even being for desktop. But, when I met Roger's Express, everything was solved for me. In a general sense, I'm a commercial, accounting programmer, I don't like to go too deep.

That is why, perhaps, I still do not understand why Alaska Software believes or understands that its CXP is a big deal, if it does not have a friendly GUI. Furthermore, CXP does not have any gui. Regardless, what's inside PowerWeb, it's what I was looking for, because I needed something as easy as Roger's Express library. For example, Express has DCGET, and the PowerWEb library has Hinput(). Express has DCBROWSE, and PowerWeb has HBRWGEN. Express has DCPUSHBUTTON , and PowerWeb has HBtn etc. And that kind of GUI was exactly what I was looking for, and unfortunately Alaska Xbase++ doesn't have it.

Even CXP from Alaska is poorly documented. Perhaps because they understand that it is the programmer who has to develop their own GUI.

You: "Do you mean you get the complete source code when buying Powerweb?"
No, they didn't give me sources. Roger does give the sources, PowerWeb does not. What I meant is that I can compile any instruction, and not Alaska, when I include PowerWeb to my sources, and I don't get an error.

You: "The first pages I made with Xb2net in 2005 were these kind of pages." It seems to me that your pages from 2005 are all I would like to have, they are excellent, very aesthetic. For a commercial programmer like me, it's more than enough.

1. Xb2net does not have a GUI. What GUI did you use to create these pages, that is, how did you make those gets?

All your observations are very interesting, and I have understood all of them, and you have helped me a lot with many previous questions, and I appreciate it very much. I'm just curious, because you explain the following:

2. "I do hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid it will be a hell of a job to create modern pages with Powerweb", because Power doesn't seem modern to you?

[Diego Euri Almanzar]

Hello, Tom.

You are one of the people who has helped me the most, just like Chris and Roger, which I really appreciate. I'm sorry I confused you. Roger and Chris have understood me. That's why Roger recommended me to look for another alternative for a Web GUI, since he didn't follow DCREAD HTML anymore.
In the absence of that, I found PowerWeb, which was exactly what I had been looking for for a long time. Since I am not an expert in PHP, or in Java, etc. I only know how to program in Xbase++

I understand that in each format, or form that I make, from now on, I must eliminate the dialogs, or replace them with

html = HAPAGEBGN({"files/powerweb.css"},{"files/powerweb.js"},,,"Table Demo") +;
"<H1>Table Demo</H1>" + chrCRLF +;
HTABLE({10,,"R"},aData,aCols,,"Suppliers",,,,,,.T.) +;
HAPAGEEND()

I have never looked for what I did for the desktop to work on the web, I know that is impossible.

What I have always looked for is a friendly GUI. And I know that GUI must be inside HAPAGEBGN.

CXP or WAA, they don't offer any of that. Actually, I've never known what Alaska Software with CXP, or WAA, is looking for.

I enclose a list of GUI functions, which I can use within the HAPAGEBG

[skiman]

Hi Diego,

You: "The first pages I made with Xb2net in 2005 were these kind of pages." It seems to me that your pages from 2005 are all I would like to have, they are excellent, very aesthetic. For a commercial programmer like me, it's more than enough.

They were fine in 2005, but I'm afraid this isn't what customers are looking for these days.

1. Xb2net does not have a GUI. What GUI did you use to create these pages, that is, how did you make those gets?

At that time I created HTML pages with a html editor, and implemented it in my application.

All your observations are very interesting, and I have understood all of them, and you have helped me a lot with many previous questions, and I appreciate it very much. I'm just curious, because you explain the following:

2. "I do hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid it will be a hell of a job to create modern pages with Powerweb", because Power doesn't seem modern to you?

No sorry, in Belgium this would not be accepted by our customers in 2022.

Below a screenshot of the online version of our Xbase++ application with BOA.

boascreenshot.jpg (106.55 KiB) Viewed 10738 times

Back to Powerweb:

Code: Select all

html = HAPAGEBGN({"files/powerweb.css"},{"files/powerweb.js"},,,"Table Demo") +;
"<H1>Table Demo</H1>" + chrCRLF +;
HTABLE({10,,"R"},aData,aCols,,"Suppliers",,,,,,.T.) +;
HAPAGEEND()

With this code the HTML page is created. In this part you can add another css file, and you can use STYLES to modify the look of the screens. I don't know if you can define a style for a HTABLE, if yes you can also change the look of a table. But this will be hard work, and you will need knowledge of html and css, otherwise you won't be able to change it.

With BOA you also have not very much options to change the look of the front-end. If you don't like the look as it is, BOA can't be used. We have choosen a template and build the system with this template inside. But I do hope that the current look is quite acceptable.

About your remark for Tom. He DID understand your problem, and he isn't confused that easy.

[Tom]

About your remark for Tom. He DID understand your problem, and he isn't confused that easy