4D Summit Notes: 2003

Keynote: Day One

There was a palpable sense of expectation in the air as the first day's keynote began. Brendan Coveney welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. Then, the first slide!

The company is profitable, stable, and innovative

Slide 1: The company is profitable, stable, and innovative

Brendan explained that the company is profitable, stable, and innovative. He went on to explain that in a time when the industry is experiencing difficulty, 4D has had a 5% increase in the number of new licenses — which is in contrast to Oracle and Sybase, which have each experienced negative growth in the same area.

Slide 2: Oracle, Sybase, and 4D new product licenses compared

4D 2003 Developer Licenses

Then Brendan explained that 65% of the 6.8 developer licenses were upgraded to 2003 in the first 45 days of its release. As well, 24% of 2003 developers licenses are new licenses.

Slide 3: 4D 2003 developer license breakdown

Stable

Brendan then emphasized that 4D the company is stable: there is a stable management team, stable development teams, and a stable third-party community.

Slide 4: Things are stable

4D Business Kit 2.1

Brendan announced that 4D Business Kit 2.1 has the new ability to edit its configuration and the data remotely (items, sales, web pages, etc.) using a special local edition of 4DBK. This fully-functional version of 4DBK cannot serve any pages except in demo mode, but it can be used to upload all the settings to a live instance of 4DBK somewhere on the Internet.

4DBK 2.1

4D 2003.2 coming soon

Brendan reminded us that 4D 2003.2 will be coming soon.

4D 2003.2, coming soon to a database near you.

4D 2003 certified on Windows 2003, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Brendan announced that 4D 2003 will soon be certified on both Windows 2003 and Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.

Windows 2003? Mac OS X 10.3 Panther? Certifiably 4D.

4D 2003 gets Jeff Kain's endorsement

Brendan showed us an endorsement from Orchard Software's Jeff Kain. In it, Jeff says that:

We now have over a dozen sites running 4D Server 2003.1. We've had no problems at all with any of these sites, which is really quite amazing. I don't remember a version of 4D Server that has performed so well in the real world.

Jeffrey Kain
Orchard Software
July 2003

4D 2003? Jeff Kain says that it's the best.

4D 2003 and web services give small company big gains

Brendan then gave a real-world example of how web services and 4D 2003 have helped a particular IT services company. Previously, the company would use fax transmissions to dispatch technicians, order parts, and handle their business. With 4D 2003 and web services, they were able to eliminate fax communications, and handle real-time orders and dispatches. They were able to process three time the business with the same personnel — all thanks to 4D 2003!

The old way, before 4D 2003 — too many steps!

The new way, after web services and 4D 2003 — 3 times the business with the same personnel!

The state of web services

Brendan reviewed the state of Web Services in 4D: there is an XML Parser, a Web Services Client, and a Web Services Server. [Ed.: If this seems a bit odd in sequence, know that there is more to come.]

The state of web services

Linking 4D 2003 and Pocket PC using Web Services

Brendan then showed an example of a new component that integrates Palm or Pocket PC with 4D 2003 using Web Services. The handheld device downloads a form from the host 4D instance, then allows remote data entry or editing, then uploads changes using Web Services. The example shown is with a PocketPC emulator running on Windows XP. [Ed.: Given that this is something that can be both cross-platform and without a special plug-in, it is a useful component indeed!]

The Palm/PocketPC connection architecture

Example PocketPC communicating with 4D 2003 using Web Services

Custom Report Editor Example

Brendan then demonstrated a custom report editor built with commands available in "The Next Version" of 4th Dimension. [Ed.: help me recall this correctly: is it the next version, or 2003?]

Report Engine features

This report editor (written by David Batton?) had a lovely presentation of the various options available. It was presented on Mac OS X, and had the ability to save a report to PDF using the built-in platform feature. Brendan jokingly used the font Zapfino in his examples, which he said was his favorite. There were many options available in the editor, and it was a great example.

Column selection

PDF preview of a custom report

Setting output options: colors on alternating lines

Another PDF preview of a custom report (with Brendan's favorite font Zapfino)

Setting the watermark

PDF preview with watermark

Review of features in 4D 2003

By way of review, Brendan next listed the features introduced in 4D 2003.

The current state of the art: features in 4D 2003

Road Map: the eventual convergence of 4D and Goldfinger

Brendan next revealed an important new direction for 4D the company: there will be two product lines. 4D, as we know and love it, will continue to be one product line. Goldfinger (which will not be its final name) will be a separate product line representing a new state of the art. Previously, backward compatibility was a key design concern — practically any old structure file could be converted to the new version on opening. However, with this dual-product strategy, compatibility will no longer be a primary concern between the 4D and Goldfinger product lines. Eventually, the two will converge, but for now they will be distinct and incompatible.

Convergence path for 4D and Goldfinger

New XML Features in The Next Version

Brendan then revealed that The Next Version of 4D would have extensive new XML features: a SAX parser, DOM tree modification and serialization, streaming generation, and XFind (the ability to locate something in an XML document).

New XML features in The Next Version

Brendan explained that SAX parsing is much more efficient in terms of speed and memory utilization, and will give a whole new set of functionality to the developer.

DOM tree processing in 4D

SAX stream processing in 4D

[Ed.: for those who would like to know more, these two concepts are covered in the following list of articles from XML.com: http://www.xml.com/pub/rg/SAX_vs_DOM.]

Brendan also revealed that The Next Version of 4D will be able to handle SOAP requests with DOC payloads as well as the currently-supported RPC payloads. This opens up the rest of the SOAP world to 4D.

Microsoft Infopath integration example

Brendan then showed an example integration between Microsoft InfoPath and The Next Version of 4D — it was implemented with DOC-based web services.

[Ed.: Microsoft InfoPath is a web-services based technology targeted to compete with Adobe's PDF technology for active document publishing. For for more information about InfoPath, see the official Microsoft InfoPath home page. For reference information about Adobe PDF technology, see the official Adobe Acrobat home page.]

In the example, Brendan showed how The Next Version of 4D can be a source for both retrieving and accepting data from InfoPath documents using Microsoft Word. [Ed.: This — almost singularly — raises 4D to a new level of exposure in the world of Information Technology. Hitching your wagon to the Microsoft wagon train is always a great idea.]

InfoPath-enabled Microsoft Word queries 4D TNV-based DOC-style web service

Word issues query against 4D data source using InfoPath

Dialog sheets in Mac OS X

Brendan next demonstrated that in The Next Version of 4D, on Mac OS X, movable dialog boxes will be implemented as dialog sheets, obeying the Human Interface Guidelines more closely.

A dialog sheet in the Next Version of 4D: viva Mac OS X! Viva Aqua!

4D The Next Version: bye bye Open Transport, hello Mach-O

Brendan then made the exciting announcement that The Next Version of 4th Dimension on Mac OS X will no longer have any calls to Open Transport, but will instead use BSD sockets — this ought to make it much faster and more compatible on that operating system. He also revealed that it will be distributed as a Mach-O binary (rather than as a Code Fragment Manager binary, as it is now), which will allow it to be started as a service on Mac OS X.

4D TNV: better explorer

Brendan then began to talk about the new developer features in 4D TNV. The first set of these includes a new toolbar, a new toolbox, and a new explorer.

4D TNV: new toolbar, explorer in design mode

Then Brendan showed what the method list will look like in 4D TNV. He showed how more than one method could be highlighted from the list and opened.

4D TNV: list of methods

Then Brendan revealed that the new Explorer will support grouping of objects. He explained that last year's developer survey had method grouping as an important item and that 4D was not going to implement it. Instead, they were going to go much father — instead of just methods, now practically anything can be grouped. He showed an example of how components can be grouped.

4D TNV: Explorer with Component containing grouped objects

Groups can contain most types of objects, including forms (as in this example).

4D TNV: Explorer group with form contained

This new feature brought much applause!

4D TNV: XSLT support

Next, Brendan revealed that 4D TNV will support XSLT. To explain XSLT and what it is, Brendan told a story. His five-year-old son, Oisin, is a Giants fan. Recently, Brendan was watching the pennant race on television and Oisin asked where the Giants were. Since the Giants are not in the playoffs, Brendan came up with this analogy on the spot: same game, different teams. This made sense to Oisin, and it does with XSLT, too: same data, different presentation. XSLT allows data to be stored in a generic format, and then finally rendered to a particular presentation — same data, different presentation. [Ed.: see http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/08/holman/ for more information on XSLT.]

4D TNV: XSLT Support

XSLT is much more than a buzzword. It allows 4D TNV to have Microsoft Office products as output options! With the help of Julien Feasson, Brendan showed how both MS Word and Excel documents can be output targets for 4D reports. Brendan explained that Julien was able to do this with very few (less than 50) lines of code — and that developers can, too, with style sheets downloaded from the Internet.

A (slightly fuzzy) selection of records in 4D TNV...

The same (slightly fuzzy) selection of records as output to a MS Word document.

Brendan then had Julien show how simple the code actually was, using the DOC-based SOAP commands to be available in 4D TNV.

The code behind the XML document...

...and the very simple code behind the Word document.

Wrap up: new features reviewed

Brendan then finished the keynote address by reviewing all the new features to be introduced in 4D TNV:

• XML SAX Parser
• XML Modification/Generation
• Streaming Generation
• Find in XML
• Web Services Doc Style
• New Look and Feel
• Explorer Features
• XSLT

Something for everyone in 4D TNV.

In closing, Brendan said that last year XML was becoming the standard — but this year, XML is the standard. Lastly, Brendan recognized Doug Blew and said that it was very nice to see him at the Summit this year. Posted by bryan at October 16, 2003 08:53 AM