Information Systems:Notes on Infonet Development

Overview

This page probably won't last.

Nonetheless, an area needs to be devoted to discussing development in Infonet (therefore, mostly talk related to WebSmart).

Redesign and new conventions

In terms of web code, Infonet (and Web Orders for that matter) are very outdated. There is heavy use of HTML tables for styling, javascript and jQuery functionality is cut-and-paste, and re-usable code is not centralized, but rather also cut-and-pasted into every page/programs where those functions are necessary.

The main feature of WebSmart v11 is Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a CSS/js UI framework (web design template) that has grown exponentially in popularity because it makes sites responsive to screen resolution(i.e. responsive design), and as such is very mobile-friendly. Exware designed medicinecentre.com with Bootstrap. Bootstrap is similar to jQuery in that they are both web frameworks, but they do not interfere with each other. In fact, Bootstrap requires jQuery as a dependency. Keep in mind that jQuery UI however does somewhat overlap with Bootstrap (buttons, modals/pop-ups, datepicker, typeahead), and so Bootstrap will be used in place of jQuery UI.

When it comes to developing new WebSmart programs or adding functionality to existing ones, I have been redesigning the entire page/program with Bootstrap (unless the change is very small). Rather than copy-and-pasting existing programs, I study the program logic instead (the PML), and migrate that over to new source code started from scratch, while scrapping the old HTML/CSS.

Note: Programs developed in this manner are prefixed with IN2.

Notes

SQL PML functions

There are two main PML query functions - sqlquery and sqlexec.

Polymorphism in sqlexec is done through the following syntax (memorize this!):

sqlexec("select column1, column2 into :some_variable from some_table where pml_variable_column_name='" + PML_variable + "'")

I've forgotten this a million and one times.