openCRX - new features in openCRX v1.11

DB schemas of openCRX v1.10.0 are very close to being JDO/JPOX compatible. To clear the path to using JPOX as an alternative to the openMDX database plugin we will migrate to JDO/JPOX compatible DB schemas with openCRX v1.11.0. You can read about JDO at http://java.sun.com/products/jdo/. Information about JPOX is available from http://www.jpox.org/.

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Multi-Level Grid Drill Down

Grid Drill Down is completely model-driven and all the embedded objects (Inspectors, Grids) are fully functioning, i.e. it is possible to drill down through multiple levels. The following figure shows the Drill Down Menu of an Address Grid that is embedded in an Account Grid:

Advantages of this new feature:

Enhanced User Experience because additional information about an object can be retrieved in an intuitive manner and viewed in-place without loosing context.
Improved Work Flow thanks to dramatic reduction of context switches.
Drastically reduced load on servers as heavy requests for complete object views (consisting of Inspector and all visible Grids) can be replaced with light-weight AJAX requests; the reduction is best illustrated with an example: in order to generate a complete view of a Contact with all its visible grids it is necessary to retrieve several hundred objects (the exact number depends on the customizing); retrieving a Contact's address grid only typically requires a few requests only. The overall result is that the number of concurrent users can easily be doubled if not tripled.

Give this feature a try on our demo server!

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Enhanced Facility Management with Inventory Items

Inventory Items vastly increase the power and the functionality of openCRX's facility management modul:

While simple facilities - for example locks - are tied to building complexes, buildings, or building units, Inventory Items are much more flexible:

you can assign accounts to inventory items for arbitrary periods (example: keys or items you rent to people)
you can link inventory items to other inventory items or to facilities (example: link programmable keys to locks)
track/view all bookings involving a particular inventory items
and much more...

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DataBindings

Data bindings for PropertySets will allow you to add user-defined fields to any CrxObject (and hence to virtually any openCRX object) as follows:

add the field as feature definition to the ui customizing
customize the new feature in ui customizing
Example:
```
<featureDefinition>
  <org.openmdx.ui1.FeatureDefinition qualifiedName="org:opencrx:kernel:account1:Contact:Custom!custom1">
    <_object>
      <type>org:w3c:string</type>
      <multiplicity>0..1</multiplicity>
      <changeable>true</changeable>
    </_object>
    <_content/>
  </org.openmdx.ui1.FeatureDefinition>
</featureDefinition>
<elementDefinition>
  <org.openmdx.ui1.ElementDefinition name="org:opencrx:kernel:account1:Contact:Custom!custom1">
    <_object>
      <active>true</active>
      <toolTip>
        <_item>Custom field 1</_item>
      </toolTip>
      <label>
        <_item>Custom 1</_item>
      </label>
      <dataBindingName>org.opencrx.kernel.gui.generic.servlet.StringPropertyDataBinding</dataBindingName>
    </_object>
    <_content/>
  </org.openmdx.ui1.ElementDefinition>
</elementDefinition>
```
Advantages of this new feature:
- There is no limitation regarding the number of user-defined attributes whereas user-definable attributes (userXXX) modeled into the class CrxObject are limited to 4 single-valued attributes and 1 multi-valued attribute of each type.
- Attributes can be added to (removed from) classes without the need to change the model and hence it is sufficient to be familiar with the customization of openCRX in order to “extend” a class (i.e. it is not necessary to be familiar with UML modeling, MOF restrictions, etc.).
- Attributes can be added to (removed from) classes without the need to change the DB schema; all the required tables already exist in the standard distribution of openCRX.
- Attributes can be added to (removed from) classes without the need to recompile/rebuild openCRX; it is sufficient to deploy the new/changed ui customization files.
- Attributes can be customized exactly like regular openCRX attributes (including placement at will in respective Inspectors).
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New Locales: es_CO and ja_JP

openCRX is already available in many languages and more of them are in the pipeline: bg_BG, zh_TW.

Thanks to Jorge Escallón from Avatar Harden Ltda we will definitely be able to include the new Spanish locale es_CO (Colombia) in openCRX v1.11. We would also like to thank Yoshiyuki Nakamura from Cyber Blue for providing the locale ja_JP (Japanese) which will also be included in openCRX v1.11.

At this time we do not know yet which additional languages will be ready for inclusion in this openCRX release, but any news will be posted without delay. If you want to contribute and are ready to translate a bunch of strings into a new language, .

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http://www.crixp.com/ http://www.openmdx.org/

<< New features in openCRX v1.11 >>

Migrate to JRE 5.0

Migrate to JDO/JPOX compatible DB schemas

Multi-Level Grid Drill Down

Enhanced Facility Management with Inventory Items

DataBindings

New Locales: es_CO and ja_JP