Wir werden unser Webapplikations-Framework Plex-XML bei dem Deutschen CA PLEX 2E User Group Meeting 2010 präsentieren. Das Meeting wird am 19. Mai 2010 in den Räumen von CA in Darmstadt durchgeführt. Wir werden das Prinzip unseres Frameworks u.a. anhand der einfachen Beispielapplikation www.coupons.de erläutern.

Veranstaltungsort:
CA Deutschland GmbH
Marienburgstraße 35
64297 Darmstadt
Tel.: 06151 / 949-0
Fax: 06151 / 949-600

As we do like the idea of open source software and do love to work with Plex (which is not OSS) we have replaced PHP with Plex and deployed the result on a hosted server for you. Our enhanced tutorial application is now up and running on a Linux box using an Apache web server and a MySQL database. You can find the tutorial application at http://tutorial.plex-xml.com

Beside such an open source Linux runtime environment we have successfully deployed Plex-XML applications on Windows and on IBM System i (AS/400). Frequently used database systems are DB2, MS SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL.

Finally we decided today to provide a big part of our Plex-XML framework to the community for free. While using this along with your existing CA Plex license you will be able to build Plex web applications without additional costs or run time license fees.

What is included?

You will get…

• all necessary Plex models you need to build a web application with Plex and Plex-XML
• our Securtiy-Model for inheritance with user, group, role, function and multi tenant management
• all JAR files, XSLTs and most of the JavaScripts that you need to build an application

What is not included?

You won’t get…

• add-ons to the framework that are protected by third party licenses. You will need to download, license and link them into Plex-XML by yourself
• source code of some of the JAR files
• some of our add-on Plex models like Document-Management, Activities and Web-Spreadsheets

Support?

Yes, for sure…

• you can get support by using our Plex-XML Wiki
• you can use our tutorial that will be a part of the bundle
• on demand you will be able to sign different kinds of support agreements with us to get more support options, urgent bug fixes, training or manpower

Why?

Because…

• we are using free software all day long and would like to give something back
• we have been asked from several sites if they can use Plex-XML
• we think Plex-XML is a great piece of software and we would like to see it being used in more projects than we can handle by ourselves

When?

• after you drop us a line and let us know that you would like to receive a copy of the free Plex-XML stuff

We think that we will not be able to develop a solution for all the different desktop software formats by ourselves. There are and will be too many different file formats out there. But in order to fulfill most of these demands we have decided to use OpenOffice to do this job for us.

In our Plex-XML framework we are generating XML data as a response to a client request. Then we are using XSLT to convert the XML into HTML. This HTML is shown as a web page in a browser to the user.

From now on we are able to convert the XML response from the server into an OpenOffice spreadsheet format (.ods) as well. The resulting ods file is still an XML format. This ods file is handed over to a server side installed OpenOffice. The ods file will then be converted by OpenOffice into the format the user has selected within the web-application.

The work flow for the user looks like this:

- Select the data you need in the web application. For example all customers living in Italy.
- Press the XLS or PDF button
- Get exactly the same data you have seen in the HTML screen converted into the desktop file format you asked for.
- While receiving the file the desktop application (e.g. Office or the Acrobat Reader) will open automatically and you are ready to work with that file.

Our wiki describes how we installed OpenOffice as a service on a server.

http://wiki.plexinfo.net/feeds/

Please take a look at our contact page if you need our new address.

Direct beneath our office there is a very nice coffee shop. And we can reach at least 10 more locations where you can have a good coffee within a walking distance of 300 meter. So if you are feeling in need of a good coffee just let us know and let’s take a walk.

Some of the new features are:

• Full text search (free customizable with Plex-XML-Formats)
• User defined shortcuts and start request
• ExtJS integration
• Border Layout
• Secured fields against web parameter tampering using a hash code
• Key field protection within “Formats”

While the tutorial should get you up and running as quick as possible with your first Plex-XML application it isn’t a high sophisticated application. It’s intention is to get you around the first hurdles of Plex, Eclipse, Tomcat and database configuration and interaction.
All things you can see in that application (plus the hidden security part) are part of the Plex-XML pattern. Beneath the definition of the two entities there hasn’t been any additional programming. So an experienced Plex programmer should be able to get exact that application up and running within 15 minutes!

Online version: http://tutorial.plex-xml.com
Documention in our WIKI: http://wiki.plex-xml.com/…

Die Highlights aus der Sicht des Software-Entwicklers waren für mich ganz klar die Strategie von Google im mobilen Markt, die von Amazon angebotenen Services im Bereich IT-Infrastruktur und die Designtipps für Webapplikationen von 37signals. Und, last but not least, die Anregungen zum Enterprise 2.0 als gelebte Organisationsform für Unternehmen.

Alle Vorträge wurden wieder auf Video mitgeschnitten. Zum Teil haben diese haben bereits ihren Weg ins Web gefunden. Zum Beispiel auf der Seite von Fischmarkt.de und auf der Seite der next conference. Hier kann man verpasste Vorträge oder besonders interessante Aussagen noch mal nachvollziehen.

Google Android und die Open Handset Alliance (Michael Jennings, Google.com)

Das Apple iPhone als Maß des mobilen Internet-Erlebnisses soll tatsächlich noch in diesem Jahr Konkurrenz bekommen. Michael Jennings, vom Google Android Development, eräuterte die technischen Ansätze. Basierend auf einem Linux-Stack hat Google ein Open Source Betriebssystem entwickelt für das es im 3. Quartal erste Geräte im Markt geben soll. Die Entwicklergemeinde ist aufgerufen, Ideen und Appliktionen beizugtragen, um das mobile Erlebnis zu vollenden. Die im Web verfügbaren Demos sehen ja super aus. Was jedoch nicht näher erläutert wird, ist die Art und Weise, wie die Werbung uns hier präsentiert wird. Na mal sehen, wie nervig das wird. Sonst wird eben doch wieder das iPhone rausgeholt.

Zuvor hatte Google schon einiges zu Android auf Youtube gezeigt:

“Acceleration the Speed of Innovation” (Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com)

Das Amazon nicht nur Bücher liefert wird jedem schnell klar, der sich mal in dem Shop umsieht. Aber dass Amazon einem Startup auch helfen kann, ohne eigene Investitionen in eine technische Infrastruktur loszulegen und auch, wenn es sein muß, innerhalb kürzester Zeit von einigen wenigen Servern auf über 5000 Server umzuschalten, wurde sehr eindrucksvoll am Beispiel von ANIMOTO erläutert. Diese plötzliche Steigerung der Serverkapazitäten war notwendig geworden, nachdem der Dienst von ANIMOTO bei Facebook eingebunden wurde und die Nutzerzahl plötzich um 25.000 pro Stunde stieg.

Application user interface design (Ryan Singer, 37signals.com)

Ryan Singer, Designer von 37signals, verriet einige seiner Design-Grundsätze, mit denen so benutzerfreundliche Webprogramme, wie basecamp oder backpack gelingen. Und alle Aussagen wurden auch gleich mit anschaulichen und abschreckenden Beispielen erläutert.

1. “Think about your flows!”

Denke über den Flow der Anwendung nach. Welches ist die wahrscheinlich nächste Aktion, die der User ausführen wird? Führe ihn dorthin, indem der Fokus dorthin gesetzt wird. Auch mit Farbgestaltungen und Schriftgrößen kann man die Aufmerksamkeit des Benutzers gezielt lenken.

2. “Create comfortable mouse targets”

Gerade bei kleinen Icons sollte auch noch ein Bereich drumherum den Mausklick akzeptieren. Und Farbveränderungen beim “mouse over” signalisieren dem Benutzer, dass er angekommen ist und nur noch klicken braucht.

3. “Go above and beyond because you love it”

Benutzerindividuell verschiebare Bereiche innerhalb der Webseite und auf andere Webseiten, sowie aufklappbare Editierbereiche zeugten von viel Liebe zum Detail.

Enterprise 2.0 (Sören Stamer, CEO, Coremedia.com)

Sören Stamer von Coremedia hat wieder mal in unvergleichlicher Weise Ideen und Erfahrungen bezüglich einer collaborativen Organisationsform in Unternehmen zusammengetragen und höchst überzeugend präsentiert. Schon Sörens Vortrag im letzen Jahr zum gleichen Thema hat uns viele Impulse gegeben, die uns im Laufe des Jahres immer wieder bei organisatorischen Entscheidungen begleitet haben.

Einiges erscheint dem konservativen hanseatischen Herzen auf den ersten Blick doch sehr fortschrittlich und mit den klassischen Organisationsformen von Unternehmen, wie wir sie an der Uni und der Praxis kennengelernt haben, nur schwer vereinbar. Aber im Zusammenhang mit praktischen Erfahrungen in seinem eigenen Unternehmen erklärt, läßt sich erkennen, dass hier eine großartige Organisationsform entwickelt wird. Auch wenn man sich (noch? ) nicht traut, alles für den praktischen Einsatz zu übernehmen, so führen doch auch kleine Teile des Gedankenguts, gerade auch im Umfeld eher konservativer Unternehmen, zu interessanten Aha-Erlebnissen und Erfolgen.

Lieber Sören, bitte bleib dran an dem Thema! Du hast die Ideen und die Infrastruktur, um nicht nur die Theorie weiter zu entwickeln, sondern auch die Praxistauglichkeit zu beweisen. Dein Buch zu dem Thema werde ich mir gleich mal besorgen. Vielen Dank für diesen Innovationsschub aus Hamburg!

Beside others we had the chance to see some 349m of swimming steel today. This monster vessel starts its journey to carry some thousands of TEU and FEU (twenty / forty foot equivalent unit) container to Antwerp, Singapore and Hongkong. To our knowledge this is the largest container vessel today. Very impressive.

What will you see if your real world statement sounds like “window open()”?

We think every Enterprise IT decision-maker should accomplish a sufficient check of the pros and cons of implementing Web 2.0 applications for the use within his enterprise. Along the way he should keep in mind that implementing Enterprise 2.0 is not only a technical but also an organizational approach. But at this point we will cover some technical aspects only.

Following our experiences from developing “traditional” enterprise applications as well as mashing up enterprise IT with Web 2.0 applications we would like to highlight some technical keywords you should keep in mind before choosing and implementing a social software for your enterprise.

Depending on the aimed level of integration of the collaborative software into other enterprise applications and depending on the level of secrecy your content might have you should consider some of the following aspects.

1. Enterprise Security Considerations

1.1. Possible on site installation
First of all and in order to enhance the ability to protect some or all of your content against unwanted access, fraud and destruction an Enterprise 2.0 application should be available for an on site installation behind your firewall. Don’t expect that it will be a wise shot to put all your companies valuables and secrets to an online application provider.

1.2. Secure HTTP connections using https
Protect you login data and may be even your content against anonymous access while it is on its way from your browser to the server through the Internet.

1.3. Mixed user authentication
In an Enterprise 2.0 application you will probably have a mixture of company internal and external user. Internal user might want to login to the Enterprise 2.0 application with their common user name and password that might be stored in an LDAP directory. For external user you might want to store and validate login data in a separate solution. This can be an integrated solution of the Web 2.0 application or an external solution like OpenID.

1.4. Checked updates
In case of concurrent user updates you might not want that the last save per file wins. This might bear the risk of losing data that one user has entered and another concurrent user has overwritten without notice at the same time. To prevent such a scenario the ‘checked updates’ approach can be helpful. Before a user updates any data it will be checked whether the content in the database has changed since that user read it. In this case the update should be prevented and an error message should be delivered.

1.5 Transaction save processing
If an update effects more than one data object you might want to be sure that the update is successful and fully completed on all data objects and the software commits this update as one transaction. And if the update of one data object fails the application should rollback all involved updates of that transaction and provides an error message.

1.6. Functional and data-oriented access control
If you will get a mixture of user with different access rights you might want the software to prevent the access to some functions and/or to some data. A data-oriented access control can handle settings e.g. for the user ability to access only for specified companies, departments or to data objects with other categorizations.

1.7. Auditing and revision control
In some solutions it might be difficult to determine who has changed what and when. But you might want to know what is going on within your application. This can be necessary to avoid problems with regulatory compliance or just because you want to rule every aspect of the application. To achieve this you will need proper logging and reporting functionalities within the application.

2. The Level of Integration
Another question is how the Web 2.0 solution can be mashed up with our enterprise web application. A common Web 2.0 application might be integrated into a web-based enterprise application as a link, widget or by using an API. A collaborative solution designed for the enterprise might also be integrated on a functional or on a database level.

2.1. Links
The least sophisticated solution is that the Web 2.0 solution is providing a link that can be shown in your web application. Your user can click on that link to reach the other software.

2.2. Widgets
In the context of 2.0 applications a widget often is a component with which a user interacts like a HTML snippet. This HTML can give you a small banner like site content. For instance if you only need a tiny application for just one task like a poll integrated in your enterprise application you might want to use a widget for this.

2.3. API of the Web 2.0 application
The next level of integration might use an API from the Web 2.0 application. Your Enterprise application will deliver the parameters for API call. This will influence the behavior and result of the integrated application.

2.4. API of the enterprise application
A Web 2.0 solution that integrates on function level might be able to call functions of you enterprise application. As an example your collaborative spreadsheet application might be able to call an existing function that returns the actual stock balance or the open positions from the bookkeeping.

2.5. Enterprise data integration
If you host the enterprise and the web 2.0 application on the same site and have managed to solve all security aspects a data level integration might lead to a fully integrated Enterprise 2.0 application. For instance if you are thinking about an integration of an online collaborative word processing or spreadsheet application a full integration will allow those applications to access your enterprise data and use them within the application.