Omnis Studio has a Web Services plug-in that simplifies creating an Omnis Studio web services host capable of receiving and processing SOAP calls, as well as allowing you to use Omnis Studio to call web services on publically accessible websites or servers. The Omnis Web Services (OWS) plug-in was added to Omnis Studio 4.2 and has been used by many Omnis developers to access web services.

One particular developer, Online Travel, a leading provider of online solutions for the travel industry in Europe, has used the Omnis Web Services plug-in extensively in their products. They have kindly provided us with a tech note to illustrate one of the ways they have used the plug-in: the tech note describes a solution to a problem, when using Omnis Studio as a SOAP host application, where the SOAP client sends an incorrect HTTP header, specifically the SOAPAction HTTP header, to the Omnis Studio SOAP host.

We have recently published several new tech notes, as well as the web services one. The new ones include:

• Intelligent SQL Search
• Using custom properties with $sendall
• Using the Apache Module with Omnis
• Testing Web Client Applications with Windows IIS
• Using Omnis Studio as a SOAP host

See the new tech notes here.

Based in Zurich, Switzerland, Online Travel has built up an impressive suite of applications for the travel market, supporting all aspects of the travel business including CRM for operators and agents, online booking for holiday packages, hotel and flight reservations, back-office support, and so on. They are in fact the market leader for travel agency software in Switzerland. To read more about the company, read our case study.

For over five years, Brainy Data has been producing components or plug-ins for Omnis Studio. These components are now used by over 150 Omnis developers to enhance their own applications, which means they are deployed to thousands of end users across the world. Their flagship product is OWrite, a fully functioned word-processor that can be integrated into desktop and web-based applications, but they have several other components including PDFDevice, OCal, OSpell and LDAP. Now they have released OGantt, a fully featured project management tool which, like all their other components, can be plugged into most types of Omnis application.

OGantt was originally developed by 888 Software Products in Italy. In 2008, Brainy Data took over the maintenance, translation and further development of OGantt, and are now able to provide it to the wider Omnis community. The new component provides all the usual features for Project Management together with many dynamic and powerful features such as customised tree columns, line graphs and totals views, custom data for phases, multiple layers, printing to bitmap and Omnis reports.

Michael Monschau is the driving force and main programmer behind Brainy Data. He will be appearing at EurOmnis (starting 12 October, see below), speaking on many areas of Omnis development, including a special session on advanced component development for Omnis Studio. Other session topics from Michael will include:

• Notation, from realization to optimization;
• Studio event handling, from $event to $control;
• Web-client, the class instance in cyberspace;
• OWrite Plus, an interface to your data;
• String Tables, "there has to be a better way".

So EurOmnis is the place to be to gain some knowledge from Michael and to see some of his wide range of components for Omnis Studio. Click here for further info about Brainy Data, and to download or buy all their components.

In October, Raining Data Germany will be exhibiting at the Systems show in Munich, which is the second largest IT trade fair in Germany (after CeBIT) focusing on business IT solutions and communications. Taking place 21 - 24 October in Munich in Southern Germany (the city is 850 years old this year), the Systems IT fair is visited by a high proportion of business and technical decision-makers in commercial enterprises and the public sector, so is an ideal place for us to meet potential new developers looking for application development tools.

The Systems fair has several special themes for this year including Green IT, Mobile Business, and Open Source which are certainly increasing in importance in business computing. We have a brand new booth design located at Area A2, Booth 429 and we would be delighted to see you there! For more information about the Systems fair, or to book an appointment with us, please contact Birgit Jaeger or Mike Boller. Go to www.systems.de for more info about the trade fair itself.

The Systems trade fair takes place in Munich, 21 - 24 October, in the week after the EurOmnis developer conference

In October (12-17) the European Omnis developer conference, EurOmnis, will take place at The Park Hotel Rooding in Valkenburg, The Netherlands. If you're there, apart from being able to attend all the great sessions, you can enjoy a world-exclusive "first look" at the new Omnis Mobile Client, available in the anticipated Omnis Studio 5 release, which will allow you to run your Omnis applications on any device running Microsoft Windows Mobile.

We invite you to visit the website, www.EurOmnis.org, take a look at the introduction page on the website to see why this is a not-to-miss event. The program page will give you a full overview of all the sessions given, the session format page will explain how the new conference format works, the testimonials page will show you what people think of this concept, the hotel page shows you your lodging and then there's a wealth of general information available.

Raining Data will be attending with sales and technical representatives, including Bob Mitchell, Omnis development director, who will provide a snapshot of the new features appearing in Studio 5, the next major release of Omnis Studio. And remember, EurOmnis 2008 will be your first opportunity to see the brand new Omnis Mobile Client in action, and we're providing an evaluation copy of the Omnis Web Services plug-in for all attendees (and maybe one or two other goodies), so you really shouldn't miss it!

Here's the EurOmnis conference program in brief: