Application Designer

This program lets partners and customers create new applications for the SYSPRO platform.

These applications can in turn be used by end-users to further customize and personalize the application (e.g. add custom form fields, customized panes, etc.).

Exploring

The Application Designer is designed to reduce the complexity of coding by providing a simple interface to the SYSPRO core functionality. It inherits and harnesses all SYSPRO's underlying security, enrichment and flexibility, and leverages the comprehensive library of SYSPRO business logic, UI controls and event handlers.

It lets developers extend the enterprise by creating newly-imagined solutions in both the SYSPRO Desktop and SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti) versions, saving cost and time in building out new SYSPRO platform solutions, as well as improving productivity and story-boarding.

This program is accessed from the SYSPRO Ribbon bar:

  • SYSPRO Ribbon bar > Administration > Customization

Topics

Application Designer

SYSPRO Embedded Analytics

SYSPRO Embedded Analytics Deployment

SYSPRO Embedded Analytics: DR Guidelines

SYSPRO Installer

SYSPRO Web UI Scalability Solution

Microsoft Edge WebView2 Browser Control

SYSPRO Business Activity Queries

Setup option categories

Connectivity System Setup

Starting

You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to groups and applying access control against the group (configured using the Operator Groups program).

You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to roles and applying access control against the role (configured using the Role Management program).

Solving

This message is displayed when you open the Application Designer program while being logged into a role.

We recommend logging out of your role before using the Application Designer to ensure you have access to all of the program's capabilities.

There are various ways to access more information regarding how to use the Application Designer:

  • Technical guide (providing detailed information about the Application Designer's functionality and use):

    Overview Guide

  • Help panel (built into the Application Designer):

    The help panel (visible at the bottom of each applicable pane) provides specific field-related help text, by populating dynamically whenever you select a property or form field.

  • Forums (for the SYSPRO community):

    https://forums.syspro.com

As you can't run the Embedded Analytics Designer within the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti), proceed as follows to create an Avanti web view:

  1. Create the application using the Embedded Analytics Designer from within the SYSPRO Desktop UI.

  2. Create Web Views for the primary layout and all modal windows of the application, from within the Designer.

  3. Optionally, select the option to embed the web views(s) in the application.

The following controls are not currently supported within web views for the SYSPRO Web UI (Avanti):

  • Flowgraph

  • Image Viewer

  • Document Viewer

  • Tile Control

  • Web Browser control

  • XAML control

  • Drop Files control

Using

There are a series of sample, fully working applications that ship with the product. These are intended to showcase different features of the designer and its controls.

The code is well documented and should be a good source of examples and techniques.

You can view and access the sample applications by selecting the Open toolbar function:

  • Sample applications are read-only and cannot be amended.

  • You can copy a sample application by using the copy function at the top of the Open Application pane and then rename it; thereafter you can change the application as required.

The following are useful code snippets to assist you in developing your own applications:

App Comment Section
Copy 
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'App Name:
'Date:
'Authored by:
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'This application ……
Catching Eventtype
Copy 
'check for toolbar events
if EventType = ToolbarEvent then
  select case EventID
    case Tbar_Close
        call CallSYSPROFunction(CloseApp, " ", " ")

    case Tbar_aaaaa
        'do something here

    end select

end if
Displaying Onuserevent Parameters
Copy 
'comment out any line you do not want to display
dim msg
msg = ""
msg = msg & "EventType: " & EventType & vbcrlf
msg = msg & "EventName: " & EventName & vbcrlf
msg = msg & "EventID: " & EventID & vbcrlf
msg = msg & "Param1: " & param1 & vbcrlf
msg = msg & "Param2: " & param2 & vbcrlf
msg = msg & "Param3: " & param3 & vbcrlf

msgbox msg
Get Local Windows Temp Directory Name
Copy 
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'Get local windows temp directory
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
dim fso, tempdir
set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
tempdir = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2)  'gets local temp directory
Toolbar Constants
Copy 
'toolbar event ids to help make code more readable
const Tbar_File = "01001"
const Tbar_Close = "01002"
const Tbar_aaaaa = "01003"
Writing Text To A File – Simple Function
Copy 
function WriteTextToFile(strtext, strfilename)
dim fso
dim f
set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set f = fso.CreateTextFile(strfilename,true)
f.WriteLine(strtext)
f.Close

end function

Referencing

This pane displays your recent applications and lets you open and edit them easily.

You can choose to show this page automatically when you launch the Application Designer and keep it open after opening an application.

This saves your design changes and closes the current application.

This saves the details you entered or changed.

This launches a blank canvas for you to create a new application.

This lets you browse for and select an existing application for maintenance.

This closes the current application.

This enables the Properties pane from where you can maintain the application's properties (e.g. Details, Design, Scripting, etc.).

This opens the VBScript Editor from where you can maintain the current script for programming the application.

The script editor consists of a main text control (i.e. to enter the script) and a variety of other panels that help create the script content.

Your application’s behavior and logic can be controlled by script and the script contents are embedded within the application when the application is saved.

This allows you to perform one of the following:

  • Add a Data Source

    This lets you add a new data source to the application.

  • Edit a Data Source

    This lets you maintain an existing data source within the application.

  • View Data Bindings

    This launches the Data Source Bindings window from where you can view all of the form fields that are bound to the data sources.

The purpose of data sources is to allow you to create applications that obtain data from a variety of sources, and to optionally bind data to Forms, Listviews or Charts.

Data sources generally work as follows:

  1. You create a data source that points to a SYSPRO table, SYSPRO business object or Custom data source.

  2. You add fields to a form (or columns to a listview, or data points for a chart) thus defining which data source is to be applied.

  3. You decide at which point in the application one or more data sources should be executed.

Most data sources (if not all) require some sort of key (e.g. customer number) to be applied.

This lets you run the application by launching it within another instance of SYSPRO.

This lets you create and manage projects for custom applications.

Projects make it easier to work with multiple applications and can also be exported (with other resources) to a ZIP file.

This lets you select the panel or pane you want to view.

This closes all other panes so that only your Application Windows are displayed.

This panel provides a list of controls that can you can add to an application.

A single application can contain up to 30 controls.

Controls are arranged in your application within a docking pane layout. This means that each control is contained within a docking pane, which in turn is contained within a layout.

You can arrange these docking panes to suit your requirements within the My Application area simply by clicking on the docking pane header and dragging it to a new position, or by grouping them together in a TAB sequence.

However you arrange your panes is exactly how it will look when you run the application.

Considerations:

  • If you run an application in which the In Development option is disabled, then any saved docking layout is applied as the application loads. Generally this all works as expected, but if the application contains either new or deleted panes, then it’s possible that the application won't work correctly as the saved docking layout won't include these changed panes.

  • The program's runtime will detect if the number of panes in the saved layout do not match that in the application itself and will then automatically reset the docking layout.

    This automatic Reset Layout will not occur if there are any customized panes detected in the saved docking pane layout.

This panel displays all controls and toolbar buttons that have been added to an application, letting you easily navigate to any control or toolbar button with a single click.

This panel displays all of the projects and their resources and lets you:

  • select a project to edit it.

  • select an application to open for maintenance.

This panel displays where a data source will be executed within the application.

  • The hyperlink within the Data source execution point column navigates you to the relevant form field, toolbar button or listview.

  • The hyperlink within the Data source name column lets you edit the data source.

This pane provides the canvas for the application being designed.

This pane lets you view and maintain either of the following:

  • The properties of the current control being edited

  • The main application details

Ensure that your Application name (i.e. the name of your application when you run it from a SYSPRO menu) is 6 characters long and doesn't contain any special characters.

For example:

ABCXYZ