Along with the update to their website, Morfik has made available a new patch for AppsBuilder 2.0.
I have just downloaded the patches for Morfik FX and BX, and though I have not had the chance to install them, from what can be read on the website, this patch should take your build number to 2.0.5.27. This is the build number that appears in the description of the files to be downloaded for trial.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Morfik updates website and adds new samples and graphics libraries
The Morfik.com website has just been updated, with the addition of several new samples that can be downloaded. The dowloads page is a available from a small list of links right at the top of the page.
Among the new samples are such interesting items as a videos website such as the one Morfik uses for making available a series of training videos and their own forums system. Checking out these applications should provide a wealth of information and insights to developers interested in extending their skillset.
Additionally, a number os graphics libraries have also been made available in the downloads section of the Morfik website. Both of these sets of items are only available for Morfik users that have subscribed to the Morfik Developer Assist Plus service.
Among the new samples are such interesting items as a videos website such as the one Morfik uses for making available a series of training videos and their own forums system. Checking out these applications should provide a wealth of information and insights to developers interested in extending their skillset.
Additionally, a number os graphics libraries have also been made available in the downloads section of the Morfik website. Both of these sets of items are only available for Morfik users that have subscribed to the Morfik Developer Assist Plus service.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Where is the Ajax?
One of the most telling signs that Morfik is really achieving its goal of making the creation of web applications easy is how little you see the word "Ajax" employed anywhere were Morfik users are involved. I remember telling Fuad Ta'eed, then Business Development Director at Morfik, that "the best way to do Ajax is not to know what Ajax is...". This line has remained in my head since that day and it seems to have been well proven, in the mean time.
Morfik was conceived at a time when there was no such thing as Ajax. In fact, work in the very early stages of what would one day become Morfik AppsBuilder started even before all the technology pieces that would, eventually, be called Ajax where widely available. This way, work Morfik always gravitated around making a very easy to use, RAD, web development tool. This lead to all the aspects of what is called Ajax becoming the underlying plumbing which makes the Morfik Framework work, but with which the developer needs seldom to have contact with.
One of the more interesting aspects of this is that Morfik applications make, probably, the most intensive use of Ajax of any out there, and users don't even think about it. In fact the reason why it is so easy to design pages in Morfik is because it uses Javascript code to exactly position and configure each element within the browser, at runtime. This means that your design is not constrained by what you can represent in regular HTML, because the Morfik Framework will employ runtime manipulation of the page's DOM (Document Object Model) to exactly configure everything to match your design.
Keeping all this in mind, I guess the anwser to the question of where is the Ajax is simple: It's everywhere.
Morfik was conceived at a time when there was no such thing as Ajax. In fact, work in the very early stages of what would one day become Morfik AppsBuilder started even before all the technology pieces that would, eventually, be called Ajax where widely available. This way, work Morfik always gravitated around making a very easy to use, RAD, web development tool. This lead to all the aspects of what is called Ajax becoming the underlying plumbing which makes the Morfik Framework work, but with which the developer needs seldom to have contact with.
One of the more interesting aspects of this is that Morfik applications make, probably, the most intensive use of Ajax of any out there, and users don't even think about it. In fact the reason why it is so easy to design pages in Morfik is because it uses Javascript code to exactly position and configure each element within the browser, at runtime. This means that your design is not constrained by what you can represent in regular HTML, because the Morfik Framework will employ runtime manipulation of the page's DOM (Document Object Model) to exactly configure everything to match your design.
Keeping all this in mind, I guess the anwser to the question of where is the Ajax is simple: It's everywhere.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Opportunity: Database admin tool for Firebird goes on sale
It was called to my attention, by a MorfikWatch reader, that Database Workbench Pro, from Upscene productions, will go on a special sale next week. This was born as a Firebird/Interbase administration tool and evolved into a fine tool for developing and managing several different databases.
If you are considering doing some serious database development with Morfik, you might want to check out the product and see it matches your needs for those things you can't do from within the Morfik IDE, such as creating triggers and stored procedures.
To follow up on this and take advantage of a whoping 75% discount, go to their Secret Super Sale page. The one thing I didn't get was why is it called a 'Secret' sale.
If you are considering doing some serious database development with Morfik, you might want to check out the product and see it matches your needs for those things you can't do from within the Morfik IDE, such as creating triggers and stored procedures.
To follow up on this and take advantage of a whoping 75% discount, go to their Secret Super Sale page. The one thing I didn't get was why is it called a 'Secret' sale.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Extreme expectations - avoiding frustration
I had an interesting chat with a fellow developer who was frustrated because he had to do a lot of programming work, in order to create a business application with Morfik. At first I was a bit puzzled, but as we continued to discuss this issue, I started to understand why he was so frustrated.
Morfik AppsBuilder 2.0 has a very slick look. It allows you to do some amazing things, very quickly, with its built-in control effects, thus making it really easy for you to create an impressive looking website quite quickly. This has a side effect. People that start to work with Morfik AppsBuilder (be it FX or BX) start to believe that whatever they want to do, it will always be possible to do it visually and easily. Well, that is not really true.
The fact that AppsBuilder gives you a compiler and an IDE, and not just a framework makes it possible for you to implement pretty much anything with it, but not everything you might want or need is ready built for you. Many times, speacially in areas which are more directly related to your business, you will need to engage in some serious programing and not just screen/page design.
Sure, Morfik's visually oriented design environment and RAD qualities will help non-experienced programmers to create web applications. They will, also, allow experienced developers to create sloppy applications due to their ease of use. This is a temptation that should be resisted, at all costs. It is fine to try to do as much visually as possible, for prototyping, for example, where you are not sure if you are going to keep what you are designing and need to get the prototype out quickly,
It is essential, on starting a new and serious Morfik project, to consider good programming practices and design and plan for it from the start. As with all development tools, when building complex systems, good design and architecture is much more important then the tool itself.
Morfik is a RAD, high productivity tool, but that doesn't mean that you will not be putting in some quility programming time when building a new system. What it does mean, we all hope, is that the tool will be continuously evolving and offering new ways to help you design the best pages and create the best quality code, with the least effort.
If you are new to Morfik and just about to begin your first project, set your expectations to a realistic level. Remember, your application is only going to be as good as you make it.
Morfik AppsBuilder 2.0 has a very slick look. It allows you to do some amazing things, very quickly, with its built-in control effects, thus making it really easy for you to create an impressive looking website quite quickly. This has a side effect. People that start to work with Morfik AppsBuilder (be it FX or BX) start to believe that whatever they want to do, it will always be possible to do it visually and easily. Well, that is not really true.
The fact that AppsBuilder gives you a compiler and an IDE, and not just a framework makes it possible for you to implement pretty much anything with it, but not everything you might want or need is ready built for you. Many times, speacially in areas which are more directly related to your business, you will need to engage in some serious programing and not just screen/page design.
Sure, Morfik's visually oriented design environment and RAD qualities will help non-experienced programmers to create web applications. They will, also, allow experienced developers to create sloppy applications due to their ease of use. This is a temptation that should be resisted, at all costs. It is fine to try to do as much visually as possible, for prototyping, for example, where you are not sure if you are going to keep what you are designing and need to get the prototype out quickly,
It is essential, on starting a new and serious Morfik project, to consider good programming practices and design and plan for it from the start. As with all development tools, when building complex systems, good design and architecture is much more important then the tool itself.
Morfik is a RAD, high productivity tool, but that doesn't mean that you will not be putting in some quility programming time when building a new system. What it does mean, we all hope, is that the tool will be continuously evolving and offering new ways to help you design the best pages and create the best quality code, with the least effort.
If you are new to Morfik and just about to begin your first project, set your expectations to a realistic level. Remember, your application is only going to be as good as you make it.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Follow MorfikWatch on Twitter
You can now follow MorfikWatch on Twitter @MorfikWatch. New posts to this blog will appear on Twitter with a delay of about one hour, thanks to TwitterFeed. I have been experimenting with this service for a couple of weeks and it seems to work quite well.
If you already use Twitter to follow other blogs and people, this should make it simpler for you to keep track of new posts as they are published. If you aren't using Twitter, perhaps you should consider it. :-)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Morfik advantages that are not so obvious
Recently I was showing a friend how an application could be developed using Morfik AppsBuilder, when he was called away to look at some deployment issues with a ASP.NET application he developed. Since we were together I started to follow what he had to do to solve those issues and was amazed at how many different problems he was having.
It has been now over a week and he is still having issues with deployment. What really impressed me in this is that it is not problem that is directly related to the application he built. It is a complexity problem inherent to the Microsoft ASP.NET environment. Most of the issues he had were related to environment configuration and component dependency and versioning. He had oriented the support staff to move the application from test to production environment and the it was the differences in configuration between these two environments that caused all the issues.
Of course, a Morfik AppsBuilder application is also dependent on environment configuration, but it has far fewer dependencies than what you get with an application that has been built with Microsoft tools or even with Java. This simplicity makes Morfik-built applications ideal for scenarios where there is a small or no support staff. It also makes them a very good options for deploying to end-user desktop and notebook computers.
It has been now over a week and he is still having issues with deployment. What really impressed me in this is that it is not problem that is directly related to the application he built. It is a complexity problem inherent to the Microsoft ASP.NET environment. Most of the issues he had were related to environment configuration and component dependency and versioning. He had oriented the support staff to move the application from test to production environment and the it was the differences in configuration between these two environments that caused all the issues.
Of course, a Morfik AppsBuilder application is also dependent on environment configuration, but it has far fewer dependencies than what you get with an application that has been built with Microsoft tools or even with Java. This simplicity makes Morfik-built applications ideal for scenarios where there is a small or no support staff. It also makes them a very good options for deploying to end-user desktop and notebook computers.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Morfik Applications and Search Engines
The same forum post that called my attention to guitaraholic.com also reminded me about how badly websites that are heavy on Ajax perform in regards to search engines. Morfik applications are probably as heavy as you can get on Ajax, considering that Morfik apps are composed of a lot of Javascript and a little HTML.
What this means is that Morfik built applications do not fare well when it comes to having their content crawled by search engines. In fact, this is the primary reason why this blog is implemented using a general blogging service, instead of running on a custom built Morfik application.
Another recent post on the Morfik forums, this one by Aram Mirkazemi, Morfik's founder and CEO, promises some improvements in the area of Search Engine Optimization for an upcoming release. Those of us interested in creating websites, instead of or in addition to web applications, can now cross our fingers and hope that this means the 2.1 release that was also mentioned. This would mean that we could be using Morfik in website building a lot sooner than I had expected.
What this means is that Morfik built applications do not fare well when it comes to having their content crawled by search engines. In fact, this is the primary reason why this blog is implemented using a general blogging service, instead of running on a custom built Morfik application.
Another recent post on the Morfik forums, this one by Aram Mirkazemi, Morfik's founder and CEO, promises some improvements in the area of Search Engine Optimization for an upcoming release. Those of us interested in creating websites, instead of or in addition to web applications, can now cross our fingers and hope that this means the 2.1 release that was also mentioned. This would mean that we could be using Morfik in website building a lot sooner than I had expected.
A Guitar marketplace built with Morfik
Recently I had my attention called to a new website that is built with Morfik. The creator of the website posted a link on the Morfik forums and, with my curiosity working up, there I went browsing away to www.guitaraholic.com.
As most people using Morfik AppsBuilder (FX or BX) to build applications, looking over a publicly available website built with it is an interesting experience. The first thing I noticed was that the general color scheme is quite similar to that of the Morfik website. I guess this is not surprising as that is the most wildely know website to be built with Morfik AppsBuilder.
The concept is quite interesting. It seems to be a marketplace where you can enter information about guitars you own and read about the guitars that other people own. As you would expect, you can offer to buy or sell guitars, depending on the level of your membership account.
Guitaraholic offers three levels of membership, a free level in which you can only browse other's people's guitars and publish your own, and two paid levels which allow you to buy, and sell respectively. Not being a musician or guitar afficionado I have no idea of what the market for this is, but it certainly is interesting to visit, if you are considering the development of websites with Morfik.
As most people using Morfik AppsBuilder (FX or BX) to build applications, looking over a publicly available website built with it is an interesting experience. The first thing I noticed was that the general color scheme is quite similar to that of the Morfik website. I guess this is not surprising as that is the most wildely know website to be built with Morfik AppsBuilder.
The concept is quite interesting. It seems to be a marketplace where you can enter information about guitars you own and read about the guitars that other people own. As you would expect, you can offer to buy or sell guitars, depending on the level of your membership account.
Guitaraholic offers three levels of membership, a free level in which you can only browse other's people's guitars and publish your own, and two paid levels which allow you to buy, and sell respectively. Not being a musician or guitar afficionado I have no idea of what the market for this is, but it certainly is interesting to visit, if you are considering the development of websites with Morfik.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Building a modular XApp with Web Services
I've recently began work on a new application using Morfik AppsBuilder 2.0. In sitting down to think about how it should work, I quickly came to the conclusion that I should actually break it down into more than one "Web Application" project.
The reason for this was that I wanted this application to publish a standard web services interface so that other systems could send it data updates directly and I wanted my own application to use the same web service entry points to do its data updates. This approach avoids redundant work in creating more than one way to update the data and helps make sure that all updates go through any validation you put in place.
This presented me with the issue of how to access the data for user display, as it seemed obvious that the actual database would reside with the "web services interface" module of the application as it was tasked with updating the data. The solution I came up with was to create an external Firebird data connector in the "user interface" module, that maps the tables from the "web services interface" module's database. This allows me to create forms and queries based on the other module's database and thus normally design the browsing interface for this Application.
The ideal solution for this scenario would have been to use the Web Services data connector and instead of an External Database connector. This would have let me concentrate all data access in the "web services interface" module and actually allowed me to have the "user interface" module build without any physical database knowledge or access. Unfortunately, though the publishing side of things for Web Service Data Sources seems to be working fine, the "client" side code seems to be broken in the Morfik FX 2.0.5.18.
The scenario which I am currently using, though not ideal as one module needs to have access to the other's database, seems to be working out quite well. I've always considered Morfik AppsBuilder a very convinient tool for quickly putting together a set of web services and my recent experiences seem to be only confirming this.
The reason for this was that I wanted this application to publish a standard web services interface so that other systems could send it data updates directly and I wanted my own application to use the same web service entry points to do its data updates. This approach avoids redundant work in creating more than one way to update the data and helps make sure that all updates go through any validation you put in place.
This presented me with the issue of how to access the data for user display, as it seemed obvious that the actual database would reside with the "web services interface" module of the application as it was tasked with updating the data. The solution I came up with was to create an external Firebird data connector in the "user interface" module, that maps the tables from the "web services interface" module's database. This allows me to create forms and queries based on the other module's database and thus normally design the browsing interface for this Application.
The ideal solution for this scenario would have been to use the Web Services data connector and instead of an External Database connector. This would have let me concentrate all data access in the "web services interface" module and actually allowed me to have the "user interface" module build without any physical database knowledge or access. Unfortunately, though the publishing side of things for Web Service Data Sources seems to be working fine, the "client" side code seems to be broken in the Morfik FX 2.0.5.18.
The scenario which I am currently using, though not ideal as one module needs to have access to the other's database, seems to be working out quite well. I've always considered Morfik AppsBuilder a very convinient tool for quickly putting together a set of web services and my recent experiences seem to be only confirming this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
