Chillisoft Blog
 

This seems to be the most inevitable question after the release of a project. With Habanero V2 being in beta, the most obvious answer should be that we stabilize Habanero and release it “RTM”. However we still asked the question, among the team.

The result was a list of over 30 mini-projects as we refer to them, even though there are some major ones like the re-write of FireStarter which could take up to 3 months. Once the list was put together, we all sat down and started to debate which of the mini-projects was the highest priority and would hence be done over the next 3 months.

And the winners are…

1. Generate Simple Forms i.e. Basic Grids and CRUD forms can be generated using FireStarter.
2. Refactor Panel Factory.
3. Serialisable Business Objects and Collections.
4. Email Error Messages.

We figured that would keep us going for the next 3 months or so including the FireStarter re-write and production projects, as well as sorting out bugs that may crop up in Habanero and getting it ready for it “RTM” release. However we would like feedback on the projects we chose from the community, as well as suggestions of things that should be on the list, things that you would like to see put into Habanero, improvements that should be made, things that annoy you and you would like fixed. Anything really, we really want Habanero to have as much influence from users as possible, whether it be in the form of suggestions made to us or code snippets that you have added to your copy of Habanero that you would like to share with others or have added the Framework itself.

We look forward to any and all responses…

Having established itself as a reputable ORM framework, Habanero’s version 2 beta release by Chillisoft Solutions sees it launch as a full Enterprise Application Framework that provides free open source tools to produce an agile application from the data layer through to the front-end, supporting ORM, code generation and runtime UI generation.

Version two’s key new feature is the integration of a ControlFactory structure in its runtime UI generation layer, allowing the development of an application whose user interface knows little about its release environment.  With little more than the switch of a configuration, the application can be released either on the desktop or the web.  This has been made possible by the integration of Visual WebGUI by Gizmox, which successfully simulates the rich controls of Windows Forms and hugely enhances bandwidth use for data-rich web applications.
Continue Reading »

It could be regarded as a nightmare scenario: fixed short-term deadline with a daily late-production penalty, new technologies, incomplete requirements.  However, if you’re a hardcore developer, it’s the kind of oppportunity you couldn’t turn down, and we certainly didn’t.

Chillisoft took advantage of this unique web-based project by introducing the new Visual WebGUI technology from Gizmox and incorporating it into the well-established Habanero framework.  The new addition took Habanero to new levels by allowing a developer to produce one application to run on either desktop or web, with little more than the change of a configuration.
Continue Reading »

Yesterday saw the release of the long awaited Habanero Enterprise Application Framework v2.0 (beta)!  We’re busy in the process of updating all the reference material on the site to match the new APIs and methods.

This is a big update - in fact the code base, and number of automated tests, of the Habanero project has more than doubled since the release of 1.4, and is four times the size of the original Habanero 1.0.

But what does that mean for someone using it?  Well, there’s a wealth of new features available:

• Unified user interface form and grid generation for Web and Windows - the same UI definitions work for Windows Forms and for the Web, using Gizmox’s AJAX based Visual WebGui library.
• The ability to use an “In Memory” datastore - this dramatically increases the performance of automated tests, and behaves in exactly the same way as a relational database would for loading and saving.  It also means development can begin without a database in place, highly useful for agile development practices.  It is now also possible to snap in a custom loading mechanism.
• The object query structure was overhauled into a much simpler method based on a single Criteria class.
• A comprehensive security model for protecting your Business Objects from being loaded, edited, deleted or saved based on whether the user has permissions to do so.

Despite the fact that we’re labelling it a beta, we believe it to be stable for use as we have some recent, large projects building against it with all their automated tests passing, and having gone through our user testing successfully.

In the next few weeks we plan to post some videos and improved guides on use of the new version, so stay tuned!

You can download Habanero 2.0 (beta) here.

The congregation nods in approval, steeped in humble gratification that the almighty would bless them with its presence.  One of the brethren stands up and testifies to the miracles endowed upon their lives, and the faithful hum their approval.  A choir stands up in the vestry and eulogises with gratitude from page 3.0, while the brethren sway in appreciation.

At this sombre but sweet moment, we pay our respects to the apostles of development, the saviours of the fallen coders, the proclaimers of nirvana in a land bereft of “ease of use”.  All hail Resharper, bow thy knee.
Continue Reading »

You could hardly describe the excitement we felt, walking into a client’s state-of-the-art building, ready to present what we knew to be state-of-the-art software.  We had a winner!  We had designed a web interface using the close equivalent of Windows Forms, which means you get much of the Forms functionality and you develop in half the time.

This was all possible of course with our dev version of Habanero 2 (soon to be launched), where you can create a user front end that can switch between Windows or web with a change of your control factory.  It truly is revolutionary, and if you’re a web developer you’ll know.
Continue Reading »

An interesting suggestion was raised recently at our offices about how to lay out blog posts.  Word Press provides a feature for you to show only a portion of the blog post on the front page, so that you have to click something like “Click here to read more” if you want to read the rest of the post.

When you think through the readability implications, along with the blog context, it seems like there are pros and cons either way.  Let’s have a look at them.
Continue Reading »

If you’re a software developer or capture data regularly, you’ll know that shortcuts can make a huge difference to the efficiency with which you work.  Here’s a very useful Excel shortcut that remains a little hidden if you’re not aware of it…

If you have a set of columns with different kinds of values, such that each requires a different column width, often you find that some of the columns don’t show all of their data.  Simply highlight all the columns that might be affected and then double-click on the column separator line (in the column header row).  Excel will re-adjust the column width of all the selected columns to match the data each column holds.