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Tips and Tricks for Uniface Logging  During the development or maintenance of your Uniface application, you may need additional insights into what is happening under the hood. Fortunately, Uniface provides several increasingly detailed logging options to help you optimize your ProcScript or investigate issues such as why a userver won't start.  The following tips apply to ide.asn, urouter.asn, userver.asn, and uniface.asn. The settings are also documented in the Uniface library.    $PUTMESS_LOG_FILE  This is the most commonly used log file setting. It writes the message frame to a file. $PUTMESS_LOG_FILE records what the Uniface process is doing in sequential order, with an emphasis on OS calls. This is very useful for determining what happened during the execution of your Uniface application.  To activate, use the following setting:  [SETTINGS]  $PUTMESS_LOG_FILE=c:unifacelogsmyapp_putmess%p.log  This will create a log file for the process you are running (uniface.e

Open Sourcing Rocket Uniface UX Code Resources: The Why, What, and How Created by Venkatesh Jemse Today marks an exciting milestone for us: we've officially open-sourced the code for Rocket Uniface UX on GitHub under the BSD3 license. You can now explore the inner workings of Uniface UX widgets, dive into our design choices, and pull the latest changes directly from our repository. This isn't just about making our files visible; it's a leap of faith into a more collaborative and transparent future built on inspiration and empowerment. By opening up our code, we aim to ignite your creativity, share knowledge, and provide the tools you need to build something truly unique. For a while now, we've been weighing the pros and cons, preparing the codebase, and fine-tuning everything to ensure it's ready for the world. And now, the day has finally arrived! Why Open Source? Our Vision Behind the Decision You might be wondering, "Why go public with the code?" For us, the decision was driven by s

  Welcome! Hello Uniface Community! Welcome to our first issue of Uniface Connect! Each month, we’ll bring product updates, practical tips, innovations from your peers, and ways to connect with the Uniface community. Your success and satisfaction drive everything we do. Read on to learn, connect, and get the most out of your Uniface experience! We'd also love your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. 👇Comment down below👇 — The Uniface Team Product Updates 10.4.03-021 ·         New Features: ·         Improved numeric-to-string conversions. ·         Enhanced PostScript printing with better color handling (color=NO). ·         New -seed option in Pathscrambler for encryption based on user-defined seed. ·         IDE Prop

User-centric approaches to digital design are producing interactions that foster long-term loyalty and open doors to new revenue opportunities. Let’s take a look at six ways that investing in modern UX can unlock new business potential. Check out our latest blog post: A Modern UX Playbook Part 1: Your secret weapon for business growth | Rocket Software  #tofp

Please find the blog post announcing the Uniface 10.4.03 release, originally posted on October 9, 2024 on Rocketsoftware.com: Enhancing Developer Efficiency with Uniface 10.4.03: A Modern UX for Your Applications Rocket Software’s Uniface 10.4.03 equips developers, solution providers, and architects with the crucial ability to deliver modern, accessible, and high-quality user experiences quickly. Uniface UX and UX Interface, part of Uniface 10.4.03, upgrades the user experience by allowing the creation of consistent, visually compelling, and WCAG-accessible web applications. And enjoying this expansion of features without the need to write code frees you to focus on what matters most, building modern applications end-to-end. It’s more than an update, it’s a leap toward building accessible, user-friendly, and visually engaging applications. Uniface UX: Out-of-the-box widgets for faster development The Uniface 10.4.03 release comes with the new Uniface UX design system. Its pre-built wid

Strengthening Data Security: Certifying Uniface Applications for Robust Tamper Detection Author: Anastasios Chatziioannou, Sr. Software Engineer, achatziioannou@rocketsoftware.com  _____________  You’ve completed development and are ready to deploy your Uniface application. But how can you ensure it remains secure and untampered with? With our new security feature, you can now protect your resources against unauthorized modifications, safeguarding both your data and the integrity of your application. Your Uniface client or server will confirm whether the loaded resources are authentic. This ensures that your resources cannot be tampered with!  New Uniface features  We’ve introduced several enhancements to make certifying your Uniface application easier than ever. Now, with the updated pathscrambler, you can use the new "-encrypt" option alongside the "ENCRYPTED_PATHS" ASN section. You’ll also find a handy new utility, cert.exe, included in your Uniface installation on Windows. Th

by Hong He With the release of Uniface 10.4.03, the bundled version of Apache Tomcat has been upgraded to Tomcat 10.1.26. This update brings important changes that may affect your web server configuration. Here’s what you need to know: Upgrade to Tomcat 10.1.26: Java 11 or Higher Required: Tomcat 10.1.26 requires Java 11 or later. If you're currently using an older version like Java 8 (used with Tomcat 9), you'll need to upgrade to at least Java 11. Uniface 10.4.03 includes OpenJDK 17, which is fully compatible. Servlet Specification Upgrade: Supported Servlet specification is now 6.0. We upgraded from Servlet 3.0 to Servlet 6.0 to leverage enhanced features and improved performance. Servlet 6.0 offers better support for HTTP/2, asynchronous processing, and security enhancements. This upgrade ensures applications are more scalable and secure. This upgrade also includes package name update from javax.servlet to jakarta.servlet. WRD & SRD Upgrades: The Uniface servlets Web Request

by Rishi Kanhaisingh With cyber threats becoming more advanced, making sure software is secure and trustworthy is more important than ever. Code signing helps by acting like a digital stamp of approval. For end-users, it means they can feel confident that the software they download is safe and hasn’t been tampered with. IT professionals also rely on it to protect their systems making sure updates and installations are secure and approved. Without code signing, the danger of installing harmful software increases, which can lead to data breaches, system problems and financial losses.  Starting from Rocket Uniface 10.4.03-000, distributions (edist and patch) for all supported platforms will be securely code signed by Rocket Software using GaraSign.  This blog will guide you through the process of verifying signed distributions.   What is code signing?  Code signing is a process used to digitally sign applications, drivers, executables, and software programs to verify its auth

Service Pack 10.4.03 - Changes to Platform Support As we continue to evolve and improve our services, we must ensure that our platform support aligns with the latest standards and vendor support statuses. In our upcoming service pack, the support status of several platforms, databases and browsers will change. Here’s a detailed look at the differences: Platforms We will be adding support for the following installation codes. Linux: •    SUSE 15.5+ (LU9) iSeries:  •    IBM i7.4/ i7.5 (AS6) Support for the following platforms will be discontinued: Windows:  Windows 8.1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Linux:  RedHat 7.*/CentOS 7.* (LIE) SUSE 12.* (LU7) SUSE 15.2 to 15.4 (LU8) Unix:  IBM AIX 7.1 (RSG) iSeries:  IBM i7.3 (AS5) Databases Support for the following database versions will be discontinued: PostgreSQL: Versions 10 (U1.2), 11 (U1.3) and 12 (U1.4) DB2: Version 10 (U4.0) Browsers Support for the following browsers will be discont

by Jonke Korzelius We have enhanced the latest versions of Uniface with the option to have Uniface format your ProcScript. With ProcScript code formatting, you can correct or improve your code indentation to increase readability and understanding. You can apply formatting on a selected portion of code using the Format Selection option or format the entire document using the Format Document option, both available from the Code Editor’s popup menu. You can change the shortcut keys for these menu options to your liking in the [USERKEYS] section of the usys.ini file. The default is Alt+F (Selection) and Alt+Shift+F (Document). Formatting rules Indent all code blocks, such as if, endif, while, endwhile, params, variables, etc. It does not indent block data, line continuation in strings, and JavaScript inside proc-script. The Undo (Ctrl+Z) action restores the code to the original state of the code before the formatting action. Code indentation is not currently applicable to the HTML

by Dongbo Zhang We recently introduced a new feature in Uniface that empowers developers with enhanced pattern matching and validation capabilities: Regex String. On top of legacy Syntax Strings, Uniface now provides you with a new option of using regular expressions to define and validate patterns within your applications. What are Regex Strings in Uniface Regex Strings are regular expressions enclosed in forward slashes (/). They provide a flexible and robust way to specify patterns for validating user input, searching and comparing strings, and performing complex text manipulations. How to Use Regex Strings in Uniface Defining Field Syntax: You can use Regex Strings to specify the expected format of data in fields for Form and DSP (Dynamic Server Page) components. For example, to enforce a Canadian postal code format (B2Y 5K2), use the Regex String /[A-Z]d[A-Z] d[A-Z]d/. Pattern Matching in ProcScript: In ProcScript, leverage the $regex function to convert a string to a Regex Strin

by Etienne Thijsse Assignment files are how you configure your Uniface applications. However, currently assignment files are not very flexible. Often you need several assignment files that are almost identical, except for one or two settings. For example, two users on the same system that use the same application each need their own assignment file, if in the [files] section, the user’s home directory needs to be set. Or, if there are multiple versions of the application and the version number is part of the path to the Uniface archive files (.uar), then you also need a separate assignment file for each of these versions, even if this is the only difference.  Dynamic Assignment Files  To solve this profusion of almost identical assignment files, we have introduced the ability to use environment variables in the files, enabling assignment files to be more dynamic. The actual values of some of the settings are not hardcoded anymore but are derived from environment variabl

by Jonke Korzelius When you are writing Uniface ProcScript, every keystroke matters. Efficiency and accuracy are important and will boost your productivity. Auto-complete, also known as code completion, is a functionality integrated into modern code editors that predicts and suggests completions for the code you are typing based on the characters you have entered. It is like having an assistant that offers suggestions to streamline your coding process. How Auto-Complete Works When you start typing in a ProcScript editor with auto-complete enabled, it at once starts analyzing the character entered and presents a list of suggestions that match what you are typing. These suggestions can range from statements, functions, and pre-compiler directives, saving you from tediously typing out long names and thus preventing syntax errors. Entering a character, a-z, will suggest the list of statements that start with that letter, the $ plus character gives you the list of functions starting with th

by Gerton Leijdekker Improve your end users' web experience: Introducing Uniface UX and UX Interface   The Uniface R&D team is pleased to share two new experimental features - the Uniface UX and the UX Interface - to greatly impact your web application development. We've designed these features to help you quickly and easily redefine the end-user experience of your web applications. Using the Uniface UX and the UX Interface, developers have out-of-the-box tools to meet the high expectations of today's end users and create graphically rich, modern, and highly customized web applications easily.    Uniface UX: Redefining the Out-of-the-Box Experience    Uniface UX is Uniface's answer to the demand for a simplified and user-centric approach to web application development while meeting end-user expectations for a modern web experience. With a focus on giving developers a seamless out-of-the-box experience, the Uniface UX is a comprehensive toolkit that streamli

Author: Weiye Li In the fast-paced world of software development, efficiency and convenience are paramount. As a low code application development platform, Uniface has been a trusted tool for many developers; however, sometimes there can be inconvenience: the absence of a built-in random function. But today, we are happy to introduce you to the solution to this inconvenience: the new $random function.  The Past: Uniface's Random Conundrum  For a while, Uniface developers faced a common challenge: the lack of a built-in random function to generate random values. This limitation meant that developers often had to resort to external software or employ unconventional methods to generate random data. It required extra effort and workaround solutions.  The Present: Embracing the $random function  By introducing the $random function, we have removed the need for external dependencies and intricate workarounds. Developers can now generate random data with ease and

by Dongbo Zhang We are excited to announce a significant update to the Uniface ProcScript language that brings powerful new features to enhance both the security and efficiency of your applications. Our commitment to providing you with top-notch solutions has driven us to integrate Base64URL encoding and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECIES, ECDSA, and Ed25519) into $encode and $decode functions. Base64URL Encoding: Simplifying Data Handling Base64URL encoding is a URL-safe variant of the traditional Base64 encoding. It allows you to represent binary data safely in text format, making it ideal for use in URLs, JSON, and other contexts where you need to avoid certain characters. With Base64URL encoding supported by $encode and $decode, you can seamlessly exchange data in a more efficient and secure manner. Elliptic Curve Cryptography: A Leap Forward in Security Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is an approach for asymmetric key cryptography, offering versatile applications in both encrypt

The Rocket Uniface Roadshow 2023, recently held in multiple cities across Europe, including Paris, France; Bregenz, Austria; Utrecht, The Netherlands; and Birmingham, United Kingdom, was a huge success. Customers experienced the latest advancements in Uniface technology through informative sessions, interactive demos, and networking opportunities with fellow industry experts. In case you couldn’t join us at the Uniface Roadshow or simply wish to revisit the presentations with your colleagues, we’ve made it easy. You can now download the presentation decks from our Uniface User Library on the Rocket Forum. Here are some of the topics we covered: The latest Uniface Roadmap New security features What's new in 10.4, including functions and exception handling Web modernization options As we look forward to celebrating 40 years in 2024 and are planning more in person events. Join us as we continue our journey through the ever-evolving world of Uniface. We can't wait to see you there!

by Jonke Korzelius We are excited to share with you an enhancement in the IDE. In our continuous effort to improve your development experience we have introduced a set of convenient keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts will empower you to navigate and execute actions swiftly, making your development workflow even more efficient.  Keyboard combinations explained  With the new keyboard shortcuts, you can: Navigate to the U-Bar: Quickly jump to the Main U-Bar with a simple keyboard combination, Alt+D.  Close the current or all Editor tabs: Easily close the current, Ctrl+F4 or all, Ctrl+Shift+F4, Editor tabs without having to reach for the mouse. This will save you time and helps keep your workspace clean and organized.  Navigate between Editor tabs: Seamlessly switch between different Editor tabs using intuitive keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+Tab, for next, and Ctrl+Shift+Tab, for previous.  Compile the current object: Speed up your development process by compiling the current ob

by Anastasios Chatziioannou Accessibility is a topic that is often overlooked, as it affects a small percentage of an average product's users. There are, however, numerous benefits to improving an application's accessibility. Easily accessible applications can reach a wider range of users, enhancing the application's inclusivity and reach. Visual ability, something that can change as we age, drives us to accommodate all users. Aside from the ethical side of accessibility, there are also compliance issues on the legal side, as both European and US digital accessibility standards become stricter. The Uniface lab has been working extensively on improving accessibility for all Uniface desktop applications. The lab has two primary areas of focus: assisting users with compliance with the WCAG 2.0 web standards (as in DSPs) and exposing the desktop applications to screen readers. In this blog, we will focus on the latter. Uniface exposes the UI (User Interface) of generated Windows desktop

By Jasper de Keijzer Introduction Welcome to the first in a series of blogs about code editor enhancements we are implementing within the Uniface IDE. In this series, we will share with you some of the features and improvements that we are working on to make your coding experience more productive and enjoyable. The first thing we are implementing is block commenting. Block commenting allows you to quickly comment out or uncomment a selected block of code with a single keystroke or menu command. This can be especially useful when you want to temporarily disable or enable a section of code for testing or debugging purposes. Block commenting works for ProcScript, JavaScript, HTML and CSS code, and it respects the indentation and syntax of your code. In this blog, we will show you how to use block commenting and how it can save you time and effort.  Supported languages. The Uniface editor is used for ProcScript, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. All these languages come with their own way of

Unlock the Power of Rocket Uniface Development with Our New Rocket Shorts  by: Jason Huggins, Director of Enablement & Education at Rocket Software    In today’s world of solution development, staying current is crucial. Learning has evolved beyond traditional classroom settings, becoming more dynamic, accessible, and engaging than ever before. An innovative approach that is gaining popularity is the use of "Video Shorts". These short, focused videos are transforming the way we acquire knowledge, enabling us to learn efficiently and effectively in bite-sized portions.  The Rise of Rocket Uniface Shorts Uniface Learning Video Shorts are concise, targeted videos designed to deliver specific information or skills in a concentrated format. These videos typically range from one to two minutes in length, making them easily digestible and convenient for learners with busy schedules. The concept aligns perfectly with the modern preference to consume informatio

by Jonke Korzelius With patch 10.4.02.028, we have reintroduced and enhanced the ability to Insert multiple Fields, in one go, onto Forms and Reports to give you a quick start to designing your layout. For those who remember, the Uniface 9 development tool had a feature known as ‘Load Fields’ where you could Load Fields into an empty Entity; with version 10, you can add Fields to an Entity with items already painted (other Fields or child Entities). If there is not enough room for the Fields you are trying to Insert, the Uniface 10 IDE will not change your existing layout and cancels the action, so you need to make sure there is enough free space available for your Insert. You can do that by adding fewer fields, moving existing ones elsewhere, choosing a different layout, or enlarging the target entity. We implemented this feature following the IDE’s design principle, where you select what you want to Insert in your Resource Browser and then pick an action. The Resource Browser in Form

By Etienne Thijsse  We have recently made some modifications to the way license-related messages are delivered to your Uniface application.  If your support eligibility is approaching the end or has ended, we’ve modified how this message is delivered to your application. Because this end date is normally not a concern for the end users of your application, by default, Uniface will no longer send any message about this end date; however, you can use the LM_MAINTENANCE_NOTIFICATION option in the $license_options setting of the assignment file to override this behavior. For example:  [settings] ; Notify me 14 days before the end of maintenance date. ; Then we can renew our maintenance contract in time: $license_settings = LM_MAINTENANCE_NOTIFICATION=14  Also, using the $ioprint 64 assignment file setting or the /pri=64 command-line flag, you can write the actual end date to the log file. This ensures users who are interested in this information will still get notified. 

Created by Anastasios Chatziioannou As part of Rocket Software's promise to deliver Modernization without Disruption, our developers actively keep up with the latest technology trends. To that end, we attended the AWS Summit in Amsterdam, one of the largest tech conferences in Amsterdam. AWS, a cloud computing platform owned and maintained by Amazon, boasts a vast number of tools and technologies implemented under one platform. At the AWS Summit, we saw how people can use the tools to create powerful applications. We also learned how those tools have evolved, including the latest trends. It comes as no surprise that Amazon's current main focus is Artificial Intelligence. More specifically, they've been focusing on machine learning and Generative A.I., claiming that innovation based on Generative A.I. is transforming industries. And that's not hard to believe, considering we've all had our daily lives impacted by A.I., whether we realize it or not. With their comprehensive toolset, we