Monday, October 27, 2014

New WorkXpress Platform Version released: 14.06.964

Today I am pleased to announce that a new version of the WorkXpress Platform has been made public, version 14.06.964.  At the end of this post are the full release notes, but I wanted to take a few minutes to highlight some of the new features that I find particularly exciting.

Multi-Language Support

This is a feature that I'm surprised we managed to hit 14 years in business without needing to add.  We've been planning for it all along, but only needed to pull the trigger recently.

In WorkXpress Multi Language support breaks down into three categories, along clear lines in our platforms architecture: 

1. User Values
2. Application Values
3. Platform Values

User values are the values that your end users enter into the system.  When someone writes into a long text field the phrase "Hello, my name is Drew." it will appear as "Hello, my name is Drew" to everyone who view's that value, regardless of their language settings.  In an application that also supports Spanish and German, for them, this should read "Hola, mi nombre es Drew-." or "Hallo, mein Name ist Drew." respectively.  Handling translations for every User value in an application would be un-managable for your translator.  You'd be sending new files to be translated hourly, or daily, and it would be quite expensive.

Because browsers have come a long way in offering automatic translations for your end users, we decided not to implement User value translations.  Read more about how Chrome handles this.

Application values are the values that you, as a Software Developer, enter into the system when you create Tables, Fields and Forms.  When you create a field to store a Contact's First Name, you've just entered 2 values that could be translated: "Contact", and "First Name".  If you were writing an application in Spanish, you might call that table Contacto, and that field might be called "Primer Nombre".

Fortunately, these values are, comparatively, fixed in quantity.  When you begin building your application you will generate a high quantity of these as you're building out your Tables, Fields and Forms, but once you roll out your application for the first time, you're typically at a point where 80% of your application is complete, and won't be changing.  At this point, if you're planning to provide multi-language support, it's time to export your language values, get them translated, and then import the translated results.

Platform values are the values that the WorkXpress Engineers create to build your tools.  Fields like "Field Label", on Field, "Form Label" on Form, "Number of Columns" on Field Grid, are examples of Platform Values.  Translating the Platform Values would provide the tools to you in different languages so that you can see them in your native tongue.

We plan to add translations of the platform tools in the future (like, late 2015 future).

Skype Integration!

The Skype Integration comes in the form of two constructs in WorkXpress: A Skype Field Type (for your users to enter their Skype name into), and an "Initiate Skype Call" ESB Profile.  This ESB Profile can be triggered anywhere Actions are triggered, of course, and allows you to specify the Skype Name Fields of all Skpe Users to be involved in the call, and what kind of call it should be.  It can be a Chat, Video Chat, or Phone Call.

You can Call up to.. I think 10 Skype users at a time over video, and unlimited otherwise.

We've built some slick interfaces where the User sees a list of all of the Users who should be attending a meeting; and clicks "Start Skype Call" and a few seconds later, they are on a Video call with their meeting attendees!


And much more...

Below is the full patch notes, there is more in this release then I can detail.  Enjoy!

Platform Version: 14.06.964:

Action Type - Set Tenant

- Fixed an issue with defining a Tenant ID to change a record to as a non-numeric, or blank value.

Action Type - Web Service

- Added HTTP Authentication Support for REST Web Services.
Read more about this on the wiki.

Actions

- Fixed an issue with interface actions not working when the page was reloaded using a Reload Form action instead of a Reload Page action.

- Fixed an issue with interface actions when a Reload Page action was used as part of a List Form's inline add actions.


Application Settings

- Enabled international support for the support and sales contact phone number. These phone numbers appear on the login page.

- Added Multi-Language Support! You can now extract the translatable bits of your application into a CSV, provide that to a Translator to get their counterparts, and upload that updated CSV to your application. Once uploaded, when a User changes to that language, many labels and other pieces of your application will change to show the translations.

Read more about this on the Wiki.

Enterprise Service Bus

- New Services for pushing and pulling Google Calendars! This Service allows information about the Google Calendars themselves to be pulled/pushed into WorkXpress, for settings like Time Zones.
Read more about this on the Wiki.

- New Service for initiating Skype communication! Create an ESB Action with this service and you can enable Mass-Action Skype interactivity to start Video Calls, Phone Calls, or Text Chats with all of the People a User checks off on a list (for instance).

Read more about this on the Wiki.

- New Service that is triggered anytime Geocoding is performed. Actions under an ESB Profile for this service have access to three variables: Free Geocodes User, Premium Geocodes Used, and Geocoding Source Message. These three values can be used to increment simple counts for tracking Geocode usage, or to make a log of when, how many, and from what source, Geocodes were used.

Read more about this on the Wiki.

- New Service for generating Fedex Shipping Labels.

Read more about this on the Wiki.

- New Service for generating UPS Shipping Labels.

Read more about this on the Wiki.

- Added filtering to the "Past Queue" tab of the ESB Profile List.


- Fixed an issue with editing existing ESB Profile's through the Actions interface.


Expression Builder

- New Function - DISTANCE_BETWEEN_DRIVING. This Function calculates the distance between two points on Earth via driving directions.
Read more about this on the Wiki.

- New Function - TIME_BETWEEN_DRIVING. This Function calculates the approximate time to drive between two points on Earth.

Read more about this on the Wiki.

Field Type - Address

- Added placehoder text for the inputs to label them more clearly

Field Type - Recurrence

- Fixed an issue with saving recurrence fields that use a date to end on.

Field Type - Selection

- Fixed an issue with selection fields that were set to ignore tenancy not ignoring tenancy when displayed in the filter interface.

Field Type - Skype (New!)

- Added a new Field Type: Skype! This Field stores Skype usernames and allows Video Calls, Phone Calls, and Chats with one or many Skype Users to be initiated by a simple click (provided you have the Skype client loaded.)
Read more about this on the Wiki.

Form Type - List

- Added Multi-Column sorting. Enable User-driven Multi Column sorting in the list definition area.
Read more about this on the Wiki.

- Minor Sorting interface change: Click a column to sort by it (ASC), click it again to sort by it the other way (DESC), and a third time to reset the sort back to the default sort for the form.


- Fixed an issue with saving filters when using the popup interface

- Fixed an issue with loading a favorite with filters on a list.

Form Type - Matrix

- Fixed an issue with context when using Item Is and Tenant Is filters as part of the body query in the Matrix configuration.

Reporting

- New Gauge Graphs are configurable when creating a Report.
Read more about this on the Wiki.

Platform

- Improved speed and stability in Internet Explorer by using non-mini-fied Javascript.
- Improved reliability when Internet Explorer aborts an AJAX call < 1ms after it begins.

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