Re: UI design and build

Am 27.05.2025 um 22:14 schrieb Raul Alberto Jager Weiler <raul.jager@xxxxxxxxx>:

You can get that using CGIDEV2
It merges a file containing the html whith the data sent by rpg to produce
the complete web page.
And it is free.

Yes and no - with CGIDEV2 or any other CGI solution, you get a web programming model.

What I propose is using EXFMT so send the data mixed with template to the user, and receiving the data back from the user. Just like with a traditional DSPF.

This makes it much easier to reproduce classic transactional dialogs in a web centric world - even if that means, to hold the job/program, until the page is sent back.

Is this perfect? No. Does it need a lot of "overhead" to simulate these dialogs with a connectionless protocol like HTTP? Of course. Is it sometimes better to use a CGI approach? Sure. But not always.

AFAIK Profound.UI is doing it the same way - and the product is of course good - but also pricey.

Kind regards,
Daniel

El mar, 27 de may de 2025, 13:14, Daniel Gross <daniel@xxxxxxxx> escribió:

Am 27.05.2025 um 17:28 schrieb Jim Oberholtzer <

midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

There are excellent products out there that can remove much of the

complexity of building a GUI, allowing the developer to concentrate on
business logic. My issue is they are not price competitive for small shops
and folks like me that would not be building significantly large
applications.

Exactly - that's why I think of an open source solution - not as
sophisticated or "perfect" or complete like Profound.UI or others.

RPG application + DSPF + Web-Template
|
OA-RPG handler/driver
|
HTML-Renderer with e.g. Angular
|
Web-Server

A plain and simple system, that works for the "average Joe" - the most
complex part might be the DSPF OA-RPG driver. And maybe to create a
template "language" that is somehow usable for an DDS developer with a not
so steep learning curve.

No automatic 5250 web-facing - the DSPF is only the interface for the
data-fields. The web-template should be readable text - some kind of markup
language with the option to use HTML directly.

For one developer alone, this is too much - but IMHO a team of 5-10 people
with different backgrounds could do it in some month.

Regards,
Daniel

On May 27, 2025, at 10:17 AM, Daniel Gross <daniel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


Am 27.05.2025 um 16:56 schrieb Jim Oberholtzer <

midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Navigator is built with Angular. Most likely an excellent product,

but not for someone who is not already a GUI developer.

That's the idea - build some sort of "plug-in driver" something that

takes a special form of "markup" (like DDS was - but more modern) and
integrate that into RPG - maybe be using OA-RPG or something else.

Shield the application developer from the gritty stuff - give the the

opportunity to concentrate on the business value.

And Navigator could be the "shell" around it. Providing authentication

and session a.s.o.

Regards,
Daniel