Published on 2008-04-16 19:59:14
Pages and page designer - M2 introduces the concept of a page as a major design and layout feature. Pages allow for the easy management and layout of Forms which are smaller portions of content which, when composed, make up a Web page. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Page designer
Automatic Layouts - the M2 page designer allows users to visually select from a large number of commonly used layouts for distributing Forms that compose a page. The designer allows you to view instantly how the page looks in the new layout. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Form designer
Themes and themeable controls - along with Pages and automatic layouts the addition of themes and the changes made to all Morfik controls to directly support themes gives the user unprecedented ease in customizing the looks of a Morfik built application or website without interfering with application logic. Best of all is that you can choose a set of colors as a theme that you can then apply to your web controls. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Web Actions - M2 provides a series of predefined actions and the ability to create your own custom actions which can be visually tied to events which are triggered by controls. This translates into great ease of use for the user who is not an experienced developer while empowering the experienced developer to create his/her own actions, which are automatically picked up by the Morfik IDE. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Support for OpenSocial and Facebook APIs - M2 adds direct support for the OpenSocial and Facebook APIs to allow the user to create applications that interact with these platforms. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Synchronized browser code - The new compiler in M2 automatically generates specialized code to simulate synchronous behavior for browser side code that makes asynchronous function calls, without ever blocking the browser. This makes it much simpler to program certain aspects of application logic. Using this feature it is easy, for example, to create simple animations. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
New way of calling web services - M2 allows users to see Web Services as objects with properties to be set before execution and other properties to read after the service execution in order to verify call results. Combined with the synchronized browser code, this feature makes calling web services a breeze. (Applies to WebOS version, only.)
Enhanced Web Methods - Web Methods (a Morfik implemented Web Service) in M2 can be declared in any module, without the need to create Web Method documents for each method. This makes it easier and faster to create more extensive Web Service APIs. M2, also, performs an automatic browser side import of Web Methods which is declared on the server side of a Form module. (For creating Web Methods, applies to WebOS version, only. When referring to Web Method calls then it applies to both versions.)
Browser (server-less) only applications - With M2, Morfik introduces a new type of application which is entirely composed of code which will run inside the browser. These applications, by default, are totally server agnostic and can be deployed to any web server in the world. Browser only applications, however, can make web service calls. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Web Service Data Sources - Morfik has always used a web services based architecture to allow its browser side code to access database information. In M2 this architecture has been extended to allow Morfik applications to access any web service, which conforms to a certain set of rules, as a data source. This allows browser only applications to access data published by other Morfik Applications or by services implemented with other tools such as PHP, .net or Java. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
XML data sources - M2 allows applications to see XML files as if they were a database table. This allows a user to create a website that can take advantage of several of Morfik’s database oriented features even though the end application might be browser-only and deployed to any web server. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Auto-deployment to Cloud computing environment - Along with M2 Morfik is introducing a hosted cloud computing service where M2 applications can be automatically deployed from within the IDE. This feature, which runs through a few steps in a Wizard can be called up with a single click and allows Morfik users to enjoy the easiest and fastest turnaround time to take a project from concept to actual existence and availability on the Internet. (Applies to WebOS version, only.)
Automatic Data Forms - M2 introduces as a new concept the automatic Data Form. This feature allows the developer to treat a data source as if it were a Form and just instruct the Morfik framework to open the data source in a specific section of a page (inside a SubForm control). A tabular view of the data source’s data will be presented to the user with an alternating line background that matches the current application theme. This automatically generated Form will also offer the user the possibility of switching to a single record view for data editing. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions. Express version will not allow data editing.)
RSS Feed designer - Creating RSS feeds has been made exceedingly easy with M2 through the addition of an RSS feed editor that allows the user to choose from among his data sources the one which will provide the information for the feed and to visually map the data source’s fields with the RSS information slot. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Helper methods - M2 allows any data type in the supported language types to be extended through the addition of user-defined helper methods. This feature has been used extensively by Morfik to add formatting, conversion and utility methods to all basic data types. This compiler feature added to the new methods implemented as part of the M2 framework make the M2 code completion much more powerful and useful as utility 'functions' become semantically tied to the data type they are meant to be used with. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Source Code View of a Page
Enhanced compiler - The Morfik compilers have been enhanced in many ways including, but not limited to, improved optimization, parallel compiling, full background compiling (without ever blocking the IDE) and the inclusion of new language features such as helper methods. (Applies to WebOS and Express versions.)
Conclusion
Overall, the new M2 features are more than amazing and it could be useful for all developers using any kind of programming language or web platform. The difference between the Express and WebOS edition is just the server-side features that comes with the WebOS. This gives all developers the power of Morfik to create high level Ajax Frontends using the Express edition, and a total control of the web application from concept until deployment thanks to the WebOS edition.
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