Meeting Users' Needs with Free Software for your IBM i

Transcription

1 Meeting Users' Needs with Free Software for your IBM i Jon Paris Partner400.com Free Software? By "Free" I mean as in: No need to obtain budget approval No direct cost Although you may choose to opt for a service contract Free to modify to meet your own requirements In most cases but not all Note: "Free" does not mean "Cheap and Nasty" Much of the free software I have used is as good or better than software from conventional sources For many ISVs this is just a different marketing strategy Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 1 of 16

2 Meeting Users Needs? I'm using a very broad definition here of the term "Meeting" What I'm really talking about is... Anything that will help you to say "YES" to user requests Part of our problem is that we say "No" far too often Our counterparts on Windows etc. don't say that as often... So guess who gets to do all the new interesting stuff And who is left defending their platform and maintaining old stuff - As well as dealing with interfacing their new stuff with our old stuff! So we'll talk about everything: From tools that can help document systems To tools that help you build apps faster To complete applications that fill holes in your portfolio What We ll Cover... Updating business practices with new free/low-cost tools Everything from: Customer Relationship Management Help Desk software User Documentation Web sites Extending your RPG application set Free Tools that can help you to: Build new applications faster or Extend existing applications into new areas Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 2 of 16

3 A Few Examples From the PHP World Customer Relationship Management Portal Content Management Content Management e-commerce Course Management System Simple Wiki Wiki Bulletin Board Help Desk SugarCRM - Customer Relationship Management Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 3 of 16

4 MANTIS Help Desk Software Uses native DB2 Data usable from RPG, Query, COBOL, SQL... Available under GNU GPL Open Source license I.e. It is FREE FOREVER Create/manage Internal and External Support Issues Any web browser, any client operating system notification as Issues are progressed Supported by Curbstone Corporation They have used it in-house to track problems for many years Mantis Main View Not as sophisticated as SugarCRM But highly customizable And the price is tough to beat! Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 4 of 16

5 osticket - Support Ticket Tracking An alternative to Mantis - osticket.com Definitely better looking Doesn't track as deeply into the development process More oriented to customer facing problem reporting Requires use of Zend DBi (MySQL) or you can convert to DB2 Yet Another Help Desk Option Hesk - The system currently used by System i Developer Simple Free Well supported What more could you ask! Part of a complete CRM suite Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 5 of 16

6 Communication - Internal and External Internal and External Web sites A web site that is easy to maintain is more likely to be maintained Consider using a Wiki, or Content Management System (CMS) I'll be discussing MediaWiki It is so easy to use that your end users can write their own pages! For a CMS how about Drupal? The latest UI changes significantly simplify implementation How about a Bulletin Board system? PHPBB is used by huge numbers of Bulletin Boards all over the world So customizable that you may not recognize them all as being the same software A great way to share hints, tips, or news of that great new subprocedure Can also be used as a low-level Help-Desk vehicle Or as part of a program to gather feedback and communicate with customers Wikis - MediaWiki (mediawiki.org) Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 6 of 16

7 Sample MediaWiki Coding... You can also do '''bold''' text and ''italic'' but '''''bold italic''''' is really messy! But tables are quite easy to do as you can see in the example below. { + Really Simple Table Item A1 Item A2 Item A3 - Item B1 Item B2 Item B3... Indented lists are also very simple and can include numbered lists. *First Level [[LinkPage with a built in link]] **This at the second level **So is this ***Indent a bit more ***And another at that level *Now back to the top level And here we are back in normal text followed by an example of a slightly more complex table with row and cell alignment: { class="wikitable" + More Complex Example WIth Headers and Alignment! < ---- Header >!! < ---- Header >!! < ---- Header > - Default cell 1 Default cell 2 Default cell 3 - style="text-align:right;" Row right align 1 Row right align 2 Row right align 3 - Left aligned style="text-align:center;" Centered style="text-align:right;" Right aligned } Build Web Sites - Drupal & Drupal Gardens Drupal (drupal.org) Complete Content Management System Features include support for blogs, forums, RSS feeds, etc. Simplified install process, Language support, Update status and more Version 7 had a heavy focus on usability Dealing with many earlier complaints about ease-of-use Comprehensive support for developers brings it really close to being usable as an Application Framework Version 8 promises to be even better Partner400 experimented with Drupal We are now working with GetSimple CMS as Drupal was overkill for our needs Drupal Gardens gives you a way to try Drupal easily You can build and run a complete site free-of-charge Check it out atdrupalgardens.com Then export it to run it locally on your own system Or upgrade at very low cost to run it on their web site Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 7 of 16

8 Drupal - Simple Site Editing options only appear for authorized users And Now... Extending your RPG application set Free Tools that can help you to: Test applications more easily Build new applications faster Extend existing applications into new areas Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 8 of 16

9 Generating Test Data With Faker <?php require DIR.'/../src/autoload.php'; $faker = Faker\Factory::create(); print '<table border="1">'; for ($i=0; $i < 10; $i++) { print '<tr><td>'. $faker->firstname. ' '. $faker->lastname. '</td>'; print '<td>'. $faker->phonenumber. '</td>'; print '<td>'. $faker->streetaddress. '</td>'; print '<td>'. $faker->city. '</td>'; print '<td>'. $faker->postcode. '</td>'; print '<td>'. $faker->stateabbr. '</td></tr>'; } print '</table>'; Find it at github.com/fzaninotto/faker Names, Addresses, Phone numbers, Zip codes, s, Text, etc. Also try generatedata generatedata.com An on-line offering that produces downloadable test data Building New Applications Faster Courtesy of Application Frameworks Acknowledgement that applications have common requirements A Framework is a set of sophisticated building blocks Think of them as providing a more advanced version of program cloning Most employ Object Oriented design and programming methods But you don't have to code in an OO style to use them A great way to produce feature-rich applications quickly Three that I have used and like are: PHPGrid XataFace and idatagrid - an IBM i specific offering We will look briefly at each of them in a moment Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 9 of 16

10 PHPGrid - New tool that simplifies the building of CRUD applications Can be used by itself Not exactly free! Or embedded in more complex applications Completely OO but still easy to use without OO skills Only lines marked are required for a working grid require_once("../conf.php"); // Include main phpgrid configuration and routines // Identify table and required columns and default sort column $dg = new C_DataGrid("select customernumber, customername, city, state, country from customers", "customernumber", "customers"); $dg -> set_query_filter("state!= '' "); // Set WHERE clause $dg -> set_dimension(1000, 600); $dg -> set_pagesize(20); // Set height and width of grid // Increase page size to 40 $dg -> enable_search(true); $dg -> enable_export('pdf'); // Enable search // Enable pdf export $dg -> display(); // And now show the world! Results of Simple Script Search and PDF Generation Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 10 of 16

11 XataFace - Pronounced Zataface Originally developed for use at Simon Fraser Univerisity Faculty of Applied Science Designed for the development of Data Centric Applications Separates the logic from the presentation Inherits relationships, sorting, searching etc. from the database Any fields or relationships added to the database are immediately reflected in the application - often with no additional work Basic Process is: Design the database Optionally decorate the application Done by setting parameters Optionally design the web pages i.e. Modify the templates used The equivalent of the display file DDS Simple Xataface Application This is a simple four table application Customer Orders, Customers, Sales Reps, and Products It uses Xataface's default look-and-feel Sorting, searching, paging, import, export, etc. capabilities are all built in Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 11 of 16

12 Structure of a XataFace Application The top level folder JonstestApp contains the application conf.ini contains connection information for the database and identifies the tables to be used index.php is the main driver script - as you will see it is very simple Directory tables contains one directory for each table to be "decorated" More on these files in a moment Source Code conf.ini and index.php ; File: conf.ini ; Description: ; Configuration details including database connection ; and tables to be included in the application. [_database] host = "localhost" user = "dbuser" password = "dbuserpw" name = "sampledb" [_tables] orders = "Customer Orders" orderdetails = "Order Details" customers = "Customers" employees = "Sales Reps" /* File: index.php /* Description: /* First line incorporates the XataFace Library /* Second invokes the display method that sets everything in motion <?php require_once '/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/xataface/dataface-public-api.php'; df_init( FILE, ' Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 12 of 16

13 Source Code - fields.ini and valuelists.ini Directory tables contains one directory for each table to be "decorated" My directory customer contains these two files fields.ini provides information about the individual fields valuelists.ini contains the data needed to build pull-down lists etc. This is the only customization I have done - everything else is standard [customernumber] widget:label = "Customer Number" widget:description = "Enter the Customer Number:" [customername] widget:label = "Customer Name" widget:description = "Enter the Customer's Name:" [salesrepemployeenumber] widget:label = "Sales Representative" widget:description = "Enter the Sales Rep's Code:" widget:type=select vocabulary=salesrep [salesrep] sql = "select employeenumber, lastname from employees order by lastname" idatagrid - A New Boy in Town Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 13 of 16

14 idatagrid - The Application Wizard WOW - Community Edition Java rather than PHP based Tool is free but no source code supplied If you like it you can grow into the full commercial version - Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 14 of 16

15 While on the Subject of Java Based Tools There's a new kid in town! Open Legacy (openlegacy.com) This is a re-facing/ re-purposing tool set Comes complete with a graphical designer for 5250 modernization Also has tooling to assist in building web services etc. I have not yet used the tool It has promise but their web demo programs are a bit "odd" Keep an eye on it though - they are gaining traction Shopping For Free & Low-Cost Software Where to "Shop"? Other than any specific sites mentioned... Hotscripts.com Great place to hunt for utilities, applications, and more Pay attention to the Pepper Ratings and whether the package is regularly updated For PHP tools and articles look to PHP Publications Sitepoint's PHP Master zone (sitepoint.com/php/) - Sitepoint also have great books and classes on all things web Web and PHP Magazine Free download (webandphp.com) Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 15 of 16

16 Questions? Comments? Please feel free to contact me: partner400.com? Partner400, 2016 Lecture Notes: Page 16 of 16