Jan/Feb 2006
Italian Omnis Developers Conference...

SPI ODM 2006

Software Products Italia (SoftPI), Italian distributor of Omnis products, is pleased to announce the OMNIS ITALIAN DEVELOPER'S MEETING 2006 (ODM06), which will take place on 16 March in Milan, Hotel Michelangelo. It's a meeting for developers, providing the opportunity to get in-depth Omnis Studio features and knowledge from some of the leading Omnis experts in the world; but it's also a meeting hosting many of Italy's leading software and IT solutions providers and managers who have chosen the Omnis platform to develop their business.

Gwyneth Gibbs, Raining Data's VP Europe will discuss the new features in the recently released Studio 4.1, which includes a number of enhancements, not least the new Unicode version of Omnis. She will also talk about the next release, Omnis Studio 4.1.5, which includes a version to run on the new Mac Intel computers from Apple as well as a new Web Services add-on product.

Michael Monschau from Brainy Data will show multi-platform components for Omnis Studio: word processing, spell checking, PDF, etc. In the afternoon there will be an open house session showing Italian applications built with Omnis Studio, and the most innovative Italian Omnis Application will be awarded by Raining Data and SoftPI. For more information about the event, please go to: www.omnis.it, or email SoftPI: mktg@softpi.it

Omnis at CeBIT 2006,,,
CeBIT 2006

Raining Data Germany are pleased to announce they will be attending CeBIT, in Hannover, 9 to 15 March, 2006. We will be on Stand C66 in Hall 3 which hosts many of the world's leading software and IT services providers. We will be showing the latest version of Omnis Studio, version 4.1, plus the beta version of Studio 4.1.5, as well as featuring some of our leading European VARs and solution providers.

The CeBIT trade fair in Hannover is spread over 7 days and is the largest IT trade fair in the world with over 7000 exhibitors and 700,000 visitors from more than 60 countries. We urge you to attend this important IT trade fair, and invite you to come along to our stand in hall 3 and let us show you how to build an Omnis web application in 20 minutes (Yes, you should see that to believe it).

For more information about the show, please go to: www.cebit.de, or email Birgit Jaeger: ge.sales@rainingdata.com

 
European Conferences are a Success!...

European Conference 2005 - Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

Back in November 2005 Raining Data Germany hosted two conferences for developers in mainland Europe. These conferences were provided in English and German language to cater for all developers across the region, and were always intended to complement the developer organised EurOmnis conferences held in Europe.

The conference for customers in Northern Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia was held in the Hotel Gilze-Rijen in The Netherlands on 29-30 November 2005. After the introductions, various members of the RD Germany team were on hand to unveil the new features in the recently released Studio 4.1; see the attached bulletin for a list of features in Studio 4.1. We also outlined one or two forthcoming products including the new Web Services add-on and support for Studio OS X on MacIntel, which Apple intends to release during 2006. Both these new Omnis products are due for release in 2006.

Other highlights of the Netherlands based conference included Raymond Tress of A&L GmbH introducing his new product 'Force 4 Omnis' which allows the rapid development of so-called Rich Internet Applications for Omnis clients (www.richinter.net), while Michael Monschau of Brainy Data showed OWrite Plus, a word-processing plug-in for Omnis fat and thin clients (www.brainydata.com). Marten Verhoeven of Van Beek BV (www.van-beek.nl) showed how they use the Planboard product (created by MasterObjects, www.masterobjects.com) in their manufacturing business. Bastiaan Olij of FIQAS showed their billing solution aimed at the telecoms industry (www.fiqas.nl), and Thorsten Hohage showed how his company uses Java and the JDBC DAM (www.that-office.de). On the second day, we discussed the business and technical arguments for using Omnis Studio for SAP Solutions (www.omnis4sap.com).

Meanwhile in Unterreichenbach in Germany on 23-24 November, we hosted the conference for our developers in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. WW Immo showed Omnis connecting to SQL Anywhere (www.wwimmo.ch), Advanced Concepts showed their word-processor ACWrite (www.advanced.ch), and Holger Kuechenmeister of Akcent showed his very successful web client application for IT equipment dealerships (www.akcent.de).

We were very pleased with the attendance for both events and would certainly like to repeat them in the future. If you attended either of the conferences, please send your feedback to Birgit Jaeger, birgit.jaeger@rainingdata.com.

Featured Sites
We have recently added two new Success stories (case studies) to the Omnis web site and we would like to highlight these two companies here, both using Omnis for Mac OS X. We are always happy to hear from Omnis developers who wish to be featured in the News or in our growing list of case studies; email here.

TheRecipeManager

TheDataManager, Inc. was founded by long-term Omnis developer, and one-time Omnis US Sales Director, Larry Barcot, who is very well-known in the Omnis community and a keen advocate for the product. His goal with this company was to produce great software at an affordable price, and predominantly for the flourishing Mac market. The first of his applications is TheRecipeManager (TRM) which, as the name suggests, is a management tool for storing recipes and creating meal plans. Version 2 of TRM is just out and looks set to build on the success of v1 which has sold over 6000 copies through Apple stores and online; the new version lets you download shopping lists to your iPod! Read our success story for more details, or check out their web site.

TMA Systems

Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, TMA Systems was founded in 1988 and has used Omnis from the beginning to produce its Facility Asset Management solutions for the Education, Healthcare, Government and Corporate markets. According to TMA, "Omnis Studio provides us the flexibility and speed of development required in our constantly changing business - we have yet to find another tool that provides this." For more details about TMA, see our success story, or their web site.

 
New Graph component

The new Graphs2 component in Omnis Studio 4.1 simplifies the creation of most commonly used graph types and adds a few new ones that were not available with the original Omnis Studio Graphs component. Hot on the heals of the Studio 4.1 release, David Swain has released the Graph2Lab module which offers a user interface for developers that they can also include in their finished libraries to give their users more flexibility in designing graphs. Not only can graph properties be tweaked, but finished configurations can be stored in a database and applied to future graphs as templates. The same can be done with graph color schemes, and 'finished' graph snapshots can be made and saved to a file outside the application.

Omnis Training - Graph2Lab

The entire library is open code so the developer can both modify the user interface and to restrict the options provided to end users. More information and demos are available through David's Product page here.

David also writes for the Omnis Technical Newsletter which is free to subscribe to.

 
Studio Tech Tip
Omnis Studio 4.1

Did you know: The main Browser in the new Studio 4.1 includes a tool that lets you compare classes in two different versions of the same Omnis library or different revisions of the same class in a VCS project. The Compare Classes tool lets you compare all the classes in one library or VCS project or individual classes. It compares the properties and methods of the classes being compared and highlights any differences. Specifically, the comparison tool will compare each line in a method of one class with the corresponding lines in a method of the other class and will highlight even the smallest change or difference between the two classes or revisions.

To use the Compare Classes tool, click on the Compare Classes option in the Studio Browser, or select it from the Tools>>Add Ons... menu option. It is also available in the Omnis VCS Revision History window to allow you to compare revisions of the same class. Alternatively, you can select a class in the Studio Browser and click the Compare Classes option to compare just that class with an older version of the class. Try Omnis Studio 4.1 today...