With the proliferation of huge amounts of (heterogeneous) data on the Web, the importance of information retrieval (IR) has grown considerably over the last few years. Big players in the computer industry, such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, are the primary contributors of technology for fast acce...
"Interaction Flow Modeling Language" describes how to apply model-driven techniques to the problem of designing the front end of software applications, i.e., the user interaction. The book introduces the reader to the novel OMG standard Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML). Authors Marco Brambi...
This specification defines the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML). The objective of IFML is to provide system architects, software engineers, and software developers with tools for the definition of Interaction Flow Models that describe the principal dimensions of an application front-end: th...
The goal of this portal is to explore and discuss when, where and how software modeling and model-driven engineering (and when NOT) can improve current software development practices.
"This book discusses how model-based approaches can improve the daily practice of software professionals. This is known as Model-Driven Software Engineering (MDSE) or, simply, Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). MDSE practices have proved to increase efficiency and effectiveness in software development,...
Validation is used to check that the data inserted by the user via the application’s user interface complies with the requirements of the application domain.
Validating the data, for example data that is inserted into a form (or in any other View Component or View Component Part with input capabili...
In many applications, such as corporate intranets or CRM, the user may need to access the archive of all registered people, and that archive may be very large. One way to support this requirement is by offering a search form, which however assumes that the user knows at least some information abou...
WebRatio introduced the chance to use Visibility Conditions in a Web Project. This feature allows you to disable or show elements in the generated Web application if the conditions specified for those elements are verified.
It is now possible to integrate the horizontal profiling of the Web appli...
"A rich text editor is an interface for editing rich text within web browsers, which presents the user a ‘what you see is what you get‘ editing area." (Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_rich-text_editor)
A rich text editor can be useful when you want the user to be able to write...
Most Web applications have protected sections that only registered user can access. Users must remember the credentials provided for each site to which they subscribe.
When users are no longer able to authenticate themselves because they have lost or forgotten their passwords, it is necessary to pr...
WebRatio Reports is an add-on of WebRatio aimed to design and produce professional-quality reports.
WebRatio Reports leverages on Jasper Reports, a popular open source reporting solution, and on its accompanying visual report designer (iReport), to enhance Web applications with professional quali...
A search engine uses a set of well known rules to decide the visibility of a website. One of these rules is to have simple URLs containing the keywords the page should be indexed with. WebRatio 6 introduces a new feature named URL Fragments. This feature allows to increase the search engine ranking ...
WebRatio Platform provides a built-in feature for the localization of Web applications.
The localization is based on the usage of keys instead of terms for all the static elements of the Web application (e.g., labels, components and page titles, field labels and so on). WebRatio Platform allows use...
In a Web application, feedback messages are used to notify the user about the result of a business logic execution.
Feedback messages vary depending on message types, which can be: success, information, warning, or error.
WebRatio Platform gives you the chance to add a Captcha control to the forms of your Web Project.
Read this article to know more about the Captcha control.
This kick start guides you through the modeling of a Web application using WebRatio Platform 9. The Web application you will model, will help you manage your daily tasks and your business contacts.
This article can help you on BPM basic features using WebRatio Platform, or refresh your memory on how to use it.
You will also find a quick reference for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), the standard adopted for business process modeling using a graphical notation based on a flowch...
Popups are a commonly used rich interaction. By using a popup you can open a new layer above the current main page. If the popup is set as “Modal”, it also prevents any interaction with the rest of the web application. When the popup window is closed, the underlying main page becomes active again, a...
In the Domain Model you can define BLOB attributes to store files.
A common issue related to BLOB attributes is to show a dialog for the download of the blob data as a file.
You can consider as a solution to change the layout template to use the Content Disposition feature, which forces the "Sa...
When designing Web Projects, often the use of static values are required, such as values of conditions, passing of static values in Links Coupling, values in configuration Properties of the Units, etc. The problem of the usage of static values is that they may vary according to the environment in wh...
Sometimes may happens that a user has to access to a content and depending on some parameters or actions that content has to change. By the alternative pages,it's possible to decide which content has to be shown depending on one or more conditions defined at run time.
Alternative element is usefu...
Rich forms are forms in which the user interaction triggers an event and the execution of a specific business logic. The aim is facilitate the form compilation and improve the user’s experience in the web Application. Many events can be managed to enrich the user’s interaction with a form, and some ...
Autocompletion allows you to specify an information source to be used as a suggestion for the fill-in of a text field. In this way, the user can type only the initial letters of the word or of the value to be inserted in the field. The Web application shows different options from which the user can ...
The Periodical Page Refresh is a feature that allows you to add a trigger to a navigation flow with the selective refresh enabled. In this way, it’s possible to automate clicking on a link to update some information in real time. This feature is very useful when you need to execute a business logic ...
Reloading an entire page can be expensive in terms of computational costs: it means recomputing all the components contained on a page and the queries included in them. This operation can take some time and have a significant impact on performance. For this reason, a partial refresh of the page can ...
The Reconnect is an Operation Component used to modify the association between instances of two entities (the Source Entity and the Target Entity), connected by a predefined Relationship Role.
The Reconnect can manage single instances or sets of instances in order to connect or disconnect one in...
In order to publish content or to introduce interface elements for data entry in your Web application, we must use View Components. IFML defines a View Component as an element of the interface that displays content or accepts input. Let's see how a generic View Component works in WebRatio and which ...
Developing the front-end of a user application is a costly and inefficient process for a number of reasons.
WebRatio Platform has solved the User Interface modeling challenge by developing an interaction Flow Modeling Language, or IFML, which covers the existing gap in front-end application develop...
Granting access to protected resources is a key aspect of many Web applications.
From an interface point of view, you need to define a place for users to insert and validate their credentials.
This lesson shows you how to model the user login and logout. You will learn how you can personalize the ...
The ability to show a list of elements and the details of each listed element is one of the most common patterns in Web applications, the so-called "Master and Details" pattern. This lesson shows you how to build several variants of this pattern in WebRatio Platform, and illustrates related basic "I...
In a Web application, you often need to manage information that is shown to the user. Managing the information means to create, update, or delete information. With WebRatio Platform you can easily model an administration section so that the Web application user can manage the application data.
In t...
The ability to show a list of elements and the details of each listed element is one of the most common patterns in Applications.
This lesson shows you how to model the List & Details in WebRatio Mobile Platform.
This is the case study used during the WebRatio Platform Modeler Classroom Training Course. You need to download this file in order to have the set of requirements used during the training course as reference. You can also try do model this case study by yourself in order to test your knowledge in W...
An important aspect of a Web application is its Visual Identity.
The Visual Identity represents all the graphic widgets that you may want to use in order to make the Web application look good while providing a great user experience.
WebRatio lets you create Web applications with a great Visual I...
The search function is the main way the user looks for content on an application.
There are different ways to model a search, each one addressing a specific user need.
One way to model a search is to filter the result using a "keyword" field. In a CRM application, an example is a company search by...
In a Web application, you often need to manage the information shown to the user. Managing information means to create, update, or delete information. With WebRatio Platform you can easily model an Administration section in which the Web application user can manage the application data.
In this le...
In a mobile application, you often need to manage information that is shown to the user. Managing the information means to create, update, or delete information. With WebRatio Platform you can easily model a section so that user can manage the application data.
In this lesson you learn how to model...
The "Login" is the operation that allows the users to access to protected resources in a mobile app.
We need to define a place for users to insert and validate their credentials and the business logic for the Login.
In this lesson you learn how to model the basic "Login" feature, both for standalo...
The search function is the main way the user looks for content on an application.
There are different way to model a search, each one addressing a specific user need.
One way to model a search is to filter the result using many fields. The structure of the form depends on the searched information....
A mobile application may have a feature that allows a user to create his own account in order to be able to use the application.
This lesson shows you how to model a basic "Registration" feature using WebRatio Mobile Platform.
Usually Web applications are not standalone; they need to integrate with external systems and other applications in the company intranet. The best way to make different applications communicate with one another is to use a Web Service infrastructure. That’s why it is important to know how you can ea...
WebRatio Mobile Platform lets you add to your mobile application a feature that allows one to see a location on a map and to get directions to reach it.
Let's see how to model this integration in your mobile application.
In a mobile application, you often need to manage information that is shown to the user. Managing the information means to create, update, or delete information. With WebRatio Mobile Platform you can easily model a section so that user can manage the application to delete the data.
In this lesson y...
In almost every Web application, users come across a form where they are supposed to fill in some information.
In WebRatio, forms are handled by a dedicated View Component named "Form".
In this lesson you learn how to use the "Form" component to model and configure a Form with Fields.
The interaction between a Mobile Application and a device is sometimes useful for certain functions.
In our example, the user selecting a course from a list can save it as a reminder in the device calendar app.
This lesson shows you how to integrate your Mobile Application with the device calendar...
The interaction between a mobile application and an external data source is useful for certain functions.
In our example, your mobile application receives Push Notifications by using the back-end to send Push Notifications.
This lesson shows you how to enable your back-end to send Push Notificatio...
Usually Web applications are not standalone; they need to integrate with external systems and other applications in the company intranet. The best way to make different applications communicate with one another is to use a Web service infrastructure. That’s why it is important to know how you can ea...
The web model is where you use the IFML Web Extensions to build the user interface of your Web application, and where you specify the business logic for each IFML action using a set of predefined operations.
In this lesson we introduce the View Containers you can use to organize your Web applicatio...
One of the most common features of a mobile application is the receive of Notifications.
Notifications are sent from an external server on the Internet to the device on which the mobile application is installed.
This lesson shows you how to enable your mobile application to receive Notifications u...
WebRatio Mobile Platform gives the chance to model bars for a mobile application using two reserved sections of the screen: Top Bar and Bottom Bar.
This lesson shows you how to model an application menu to browse between different sections using the Toolbar element.