Moving Away from V9ADM2 to ?????

avtarjain

New Member
Hi,
For last two decade I am using V9 ADM2 for application development. Now due to immense pressure from competitive market, this is unconditional choice to move away from dull and boring Desktop GUI application and Redesign application in modern, clutter free and responsive interface.
Undoubtedly choice is Web front end which means our objective is defined. We need to move away from V9ADM2 (and few V8ChUI) to some kind of Webbased solution.

Initial investigations lead us to have latest OE11.x installed with WebSpeed + PSE or to be more modern KendoUI+PAS

But I am concerned for both options and would like to have expert answers from one who had faced similar situation as below -
"Our current software is functionally rich enterprise solution with several widgets, user event handlers, screen labels lingulisation, help buttons and many more. A single UI is too compilcated to be transformed in a webpage. I had a look at web pages created using Webspeed or KendoUI, both seems too clean and simple to accommodate all Business cases at once. To me it looks like a single ADM2 screen may explode into 10s of HTML pages unnecessarily. Same will be the case for efforts and time i.e. 10x more than what we used to invest on single ADM2 screen. More than this another concern is feasibility. Does the webbased solution fit for business solution OR it is only meant for Merchandising"

Assuming there is no choice of staying with V9ADM2!!, Please share your view on best tools, products and architecture to move our application from DESKTOP to BROWSER considering - Time, Efforts and Cost (initial and ongoing for development)

PS: I still love ADM2 because creation of simple functional CUSTOMER UI with toolbars, fill-ins, browser takes less than an hour. BUT sadly this is not modern.
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
> Does the web based solution fit for business solution OR it is only meant for Merchandising?

That was an interesting question back in 1998 when v9 was new. But it is now 2018. Yes, web based solutions are quite suitable for business solutions. And, yes, the world has become much more complex - slapping together a quick and dirty CRUD screen isn't likely to get you a lot of praise. Luckily there are many tools that will do much more than that.
 

avtarjain

New Member
Tanks Tom,
Yes its a late realization but as all says when you wake up, call it a morning. :rolleyes:
I tried hands on with progress webservices with .Net , Bit of Kendo UI, Webspeed with PSE
There is no comparison to Desktop based application. All solutions are complex, time consuming and costly.
Because I need to revamp a business application which is full of features, it should a careful move to decide next platform. Any ideas are welcome.

Question here is:: Am I missing something from Webspeed o_O. Is there a way to make it beautiful, Responsive, Full of user controls like tiny update toolbar, enable/disable of desired fillins as per user privileges, Maintain transaction scoping and locking mechanism etc.
 

ForEachInvoiceDelete

Active Member
Is your existing application split into client/server?

Are you wanting to re-use any existing code/logic or start from scratch?

Just make something HTML5/JS on the front end. Plenty of good frameworks to choose from.

I would go with something like Progress DB - PAS - NodeJS/Express - SocketIO - HTML5/React/Bootstrap because we have many years worth of business/application logic already in ABL and i am not paying the license fee. (Someone in my business is however... im not pirating progress! )
 

avtarjain

New Member
Thanks
Is your existing application split into client/server?

Are you wanting to re-use any existing code/logic or start from scratch?

Just make something HTML5/JS on the front end. Plenty of good frameworks to choose from.

I would go with something like Progress DB - PAS - NodeJS/Express - SocketIO - HTML5/React/Bootstrap because we have many years worth of business/application logic already in ABL and i am not paying the license fee. (Someone in my business is however... im not pirating progress! )

Thanks,
I will explore further on your suggestions and it will be a good start.

Unfortunately existing business logic is not purely split in CLIENT/SERVER. Mostly it is thick client which will cause a real pain I know. I have to take approach of scratch start and reuse as much possible. I am desperate to identify a design tool which will be as comfortable as Progress App builder. Someone suggested Notepad++ but it is just a text editor. Should I stop dreaming of having a nice WebBuilder providing all complex widgets. Is KendoUI an answer.
 

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
That's where something like the SmartComponent Library can really help. I completely understand that budget is difficult, but on the other hand we've done these sorts of things many times before, and in fact migrating ADM etc isn't that hard. In theory ;)
We've got tools to parse the ADM2 code and convert the GUI to Infragistics controls. A lot of it's automatable, even with business logic in the .w.

/sales pitch :D

A modernisation project is going to be expensive - I don't think anyone doubts that. One thing you should certainly consider though is a step by step migration. In other words, modernise a section of the application, but leave the rest of it running as legacy. Then gradually bring more and more of it into the modernised framework. It might make the process longer, and possibly more expensive, but you have the benefit of not having to do it all in one shot which could mean having resources committed to it for a long time, and no immediate benefit from it.
 
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ForEachInvoiceDelete

Active Member
Yeah that will be a right pain if you have one big fat client.

I think KendoUI does provide some level of that interface with JSDO but i haven't ever really looked into it. We rolled our own interface and just manually populate any of the kendo objects we want.

Your best bet would be to keep the existing application running as long as you can as Cringer suggested above, Splitting it out into functional modules and rewriting it into client/server.
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
A new way of doing things always seems more painful than the comfortable old way of doing things.

Sometimes it really is more painful. Other times not so much. Sometimes the extra pain is worth it. Sometimes not so much. In the case of new fangled web tools -- yes, you're going to have to learn some new stuff but, IMHO at least, it is probably well worth it if you are planning to deliver a reasonably modern business application.
 

avtarjain

New Member
That's where something like the SmartComponent Library can really help. I completely understand that budget is difficult, but on the other hand we've done these sorts of things many times before, and in fact migrating ADM etc isn't that hard. In theory ;)We've got tools to parse the ADM2 code and convert the GUI to Infragistics controls. A lot of it's automatable, even with business logic in the .w. /sales pitch :D
A modernisation project is going to be expensive - I don't think anyone doubts that. One thing you should certainly consider though is a step by step migration. In other words, modernise a section of the application, but leave the rest of it running as legacy. Then gradually bring more and more of it into the modernised framework. It might make the process longer, and possibly more expensive, but you have the benefit of not having to do it all in one shot which could mean having resources committed to it for a long time, and no immediate benefit from it.
Thanks Cringer,
You seems to have answer to what exactly required.
Regarding stepwise migration is a big call for strategic business decision. If I am right, this may not be an option. Probably we need to be ready with entire suite due to nature of business. We sell product in a box. It will be difficult for sale person to explain rationals behind the approach spceially in front of a person who has dozen of options in hand and doing a budgeting. Sale of desktop application is quite tough now a days when competition is high. My idea is to move over as much possible to WEB and leaving Backoffice in ADM2 for administration purpose.

A new way of doing things always seems more painful than the comfortable old way of doing things.
Sometimes it really is more painful. Other times not so much. Sometimes the extra pain is worth it. Sometimes not so much. In the case of new fangled web tools -- yes, you're going to have to learn some new stuff but, IMHO at least, it is probably well worth it if you are planning to deliver a reasonably modern business application.
Thanks Tom,
More than new learning, I am afraid of feasibility and direction. For last two decades in all previous organizations, I have to advocate always to stay with progress. Executives always pressurize to move away and adopt anything cost effective and long lasting e.g. SQL-SERVER, ASP.NET or JAVA anything. Always luckily (or unluckily) I managed to stay with progress. Now it need a decision and find the best tools in market which will fit well with PROGRESS.
 
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