... where nothing went right with the B.I. tools you use to work with? Yes, and I'm so tired of it that I want to pack it in.

Am I pushing the boundaries or am I just an a$$ at this?

Can't get a graph to work properly in Document Composer. Cant't get SVG graphs to display.
Can't change the size of an Active Graph when it's plonked into an iframe inside HTML Composer.

I can probably learn to drive faster than learn how to use the GUI tools of said B.I. tools.

Bonne nuit.

Don't fret too much, we have all been in this situation from time to time.

Keep asking the questions, and we'll keep trying to answer them.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

I feel I know how to code HTML, JS, CSS, WebFOCUS... I've dabbled in PHP and Java. An old hand at COBOL.

I don't know how to build an igloo or a yurt, and I don't know how to use the Dev Studio GUI tools. I thought these are supposed to be intuitive - that even a beginner can dive in to. Not me. I had crashes, stubborn graphs that wouldn't resize or display and a host of other issues.

I can't figure out how to effectively use Mobile Faves.

I can't figure out whether HTML Composer or Document Composer is the better tool to develop for Mobile Faves - neither seems friendly to work with.

I wasted a day.

Francis,

You don't drive? I wish I didn't need a car.



Norb

Never learned how to drive! Most powerful vehicle I've ever driven is a moped!

I feel ya' Francis.

Impressive Francis. I'd say that you are a bit of an anomaly - but in a good way. Reminds me of my grandparents who never owned a car or a home and lived their entire lives within an 8 block radius on the North side of Chicago.

However, I realize that you are quite the traveler. Anyway - off topic but I was intrigued.

Have a great day,

Norb

Francis, maybe this can make you just a little bit happier. SVG works with PDF, if you use the Advanced Graph Assistant. I cannot get it to work with HTML, but I have just tried a few minutes on this.

Håkan

SVG in HTML is dependent on your browser being able to handle SVG fromat. By default IE doesn't and you have to add in a plugin.

Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari all support SVG 1.0 or 1.1 out of the box.

What browser are you using?

Thanks for responding. SVG is the least of my worries. I love this software, but I feel my knowledge of old-fashioned coding is getting in my way of effectively using the GUI tools.

My bigger problem is which tool to use to develop a dashboard-like screen that will look good on an iPad, HTML Composer or Document Composer - you can create a page containing multiple reports/graphs etc with either, so which is better?

Hi

It also depends on what type of dashboard you would like to create:
1. Online Dashboard with filters , multi drill from graphs and reports -> use the HTML composer

2. For offline reporting and offline parameters use the document composer AHTML dashboard features:
- cordinated report; will automatically populate list box of the the first BY command (if its common to all reports/graphs)
- New page will create a TAB in the dashboard
- in 7703 you can add offline parameters which control the output (and based on the fields in the output)
- in 7703 AHTML dashboards can be generated in dynamic format or forced to HTML5
(for iPhone, ipad)


Yours

Eran

quote:

forced to HTML5

I am very interested in this, but I haven't come across any documentation yet, I will keep digging.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Hi

You have it in 7703 new features documentation
in thw active technology enhancements,Switching the Chart Engine,
You can add the following syntax in the SECTION tag of a Compound document for Active Technologies to use the new chart engine for all reports in the dashboard.

SECTION=section1, LAYOUT=ON, ARGRAPHENGINE=JSFUSION,...

JSFUSION - this is the new option to enforce the new html5 animated graphs

Yours

Eran

quote:

Am I pushing the boundaries or am I just an a$$ at this?

Relax, it will come, just stop over thinking it!

About 2 months ago I was asked to help with some WF development. As you know, I haven't really used WF in almost 2 years. I thought, what the ****, it will be like riding a bike. Big wake up call .... it took me over 4 hours to build a HTML page that should have taken me less than 20 minutes. I thought to myself "this sucks". I could have built it by hand and had it look and behave exactly like I want it in less time. After that experience, I called a bud of mine and asked for a 10 min demo of the new interface. I am now back to building interfaces in a few minutes. I agree that some of it doesn't make sense, but I at least know how to work with it. For myself, I was over thinking it. If I focus on delivering what the customer needs, then no problem. This philosophy buys me time to add the extras ... if they are still required.

I need to speak to that bud of yours.

May I join the conference?

I spent all weekend trying to behave and build a template HTML screen that will replace 15 previously built screens. I pointed-and-clicked carefully. Somehow I introduced something that now generates a JavaScript error and the screen will not load. It points to some "null" **** on line 9103 in ibirls3.js - how the **** am I going to figure out what's wrong? I have to rebuild this template containing 45 controls, checking after every modification.

When your head is buried in this thing six and a half days a week for three months straight, it's very easy to really h*** it.

Looks like what is needed are a suite of tutorials on building and utilising different aspects in the composer.

Yup. I agree. There is sort of a tutorial that comes with the HTML Composer documentation but it does not cover the different aspects of the tool; just a few of them and that's obviously not sufficient. Particularly I have had trouble understanding what exactly needs to be configured and where in order to make chained lists work. I probably just need to dig deeper but this "bag of hurt" as someone called it just does not lend itself for a nice ride at learning how to use it.

quote:

When your head is buried in this thing six and a half days a week for three months straight, it's very easy to really h*** it.

I'm nowhere near that frequency of use and yet I think I already have the same feelings for it. It's nice when one has other choices but just as it happens with you, for now I will have to use this tool and try to become productive at it (if that's even possible) but certain unexplainable things just don't work help.

In my fex, I have an &variable to capture a report heading, and it's being used as:

-DEFAULT &RPT_HD = 'My Test Report';
TABLE FILE blah
...
HEADING
"&RPT_HD"
...
END

I created an HTML page to launch this report and sure enough all parameters were parsed and different controls were created for them, including the one for the heading and basic testing showed they worked.

For the last 2 days I've been doing what in HTML composer looks like major surgery ... styling the page!!!

Well, I don't know what I did but suddenly the parameter for RPT_HD is no longer being passed to my fex.

Clicking the Parameter tab effectively shows that my txHeading hexagon control is linked to the RPT_HS oval parameter, but whenever I submit the request ALL parameters are passed to the fex except that one ... well, that's not entirely true ... if I add this at the very top of my fex:

-? &

I get this:

&RPT_HD =

So apparently the parameter is indeed being passed from the form, but for some reason it is not picking up the value from the HTML control linked to it. How can something like that be fixed? The linkage is there, everything "GUI" is there as apparently it's supposed to be, so???

Long story short, I decided to hard code the heading and remove the control altogether. Enough waste of time