hello and welcome to the Alfa anywhere
demo and QA webcast I'm Dave McCormack
VP of products and services here at
alpha software and I'm pleased to
present Dion McCormick our lead
solutions engineer also no relation
today Deanna is gonna be going over
actually something that a someone had
written in for a question that someone
had written in but he's also here to
answer your questions as well as he
demonstrates alpha anywhere so if you do
have questions go ahead and type them in
to the questions box of the GoToWebinar
control panel also joining us today is
Sarah Mitchell I believe if I can find
her online if not I could find her in a
minute and she is here to answer your
questions as well and she will she's in
charge of our documentation department
but she's also here to announce the and
present a new link to the Alpha anywhere
X basic guide which just came out so
let's get started hello DN are you there
yes I am mm-hmm excuse me sure
thank you there we go frog in the throat
little wet and chilly out there it is
but actually it's a positive thing I
live in the Austin area and if anybody's
been in this area we have something
called cedar fever where all the cedar
trees start pollinating and so it's
literally like one of these dust clouds
you see in the Sahara Desert is
basically what this area becomes so when
a little rain comes along and just pulls
that out of the air so it's like good
news bad news like anything out there
but hey welcome everybody little tidbit
there for you and Dave thank you very
much for the introduction we always
appreciate your attendance and your
being with us and more importantly your
questions so today I have different
eyebrows okay I'm getting some echo as
well Sarah I believe that's you who just
who did just join us well yes quite the
entrance so today I've got two demos
that came in off of questions both on
previous but also through guides and I
really appreciate people taking the time
to do that allows me to prepare a few or
less uncontrolled crashes in the ground
when I have a little time but also we're
here for any other questions so make
sure you go
the gotowebinar can questions area of
your control piano and put any questions
that you have and remember we do post
these to our video feeds so when you
want you know we have replays of these
you can go back and watch them and
they're really really a rich set of
information for you to tap into so
before I want to go through that though
I want to introduce Sarah who released
this week something I think is
absolutely fantastic which is the X
basic guide this is a printed user kind
of guide and it's just really a super
powerful tool to have available and I've
talked to a number of people that
literally like the moment they got it
they print it out and it's sitting on
their desktop because it's a great quick
reference guide if you're trying to do
something in our X basic language and
you just pop it open it's really
well-structured so it's easy to find
what you're looking for there's great
examples in there and it's available
both in a PDF format you can print it
but you can also display that PDF on the
screen but we will be updating it or
rather I shouldn't use the wee word
Sarah will be updating that as well
Kourt yeah go ahead I sought to say the
Royal we will be updating it yes yes
exactly
and you know it's a living document and
actually has some great input and great
feedback from our users which we always
appreciate that's already been
incorporated in the PDF document so I'm
gonna bring Sarah on I'm gonna transfer
it over to her and she's gonna talk
about where you can go get the latest
and greatest version of the X basic user
guide all right Sarah are you there or
maybe is fighting the plague I don't
think it's the Chinese wine I think it's
the corona virus from it's something
like northeastern variant of it or
something like that
not funny man oh did she have expire oh
wow it's a brutal virus that's a really
fast fast acting too bad
I know I was
it wasn't the middle of a thought when
you asked me to that's trying to finish
it up real quick yeah thank you no more
thinking anyway oh yeah there's been
some revisions
I wouldn't put an extra special thank
you out there to Ron who has been a
phenomenal wonderful person who's given
me and because of his enthusiasm for
this new document it's it's got some
great new updates in it I'm gonna go the
link for that pray here only just find
it'll cook and if you want to put that
in the chat window that would be awesome
I will put that in the chat window and
it's it's the same link as last as last
week same link under document yeah it's
just been updated and I don't know if
you asked me to share my screen or not
no I think just the link should be
enough unless there's something in
particular you'd like to show well I
would like to show it all right let's do
it I'm gonna go ahead make you the
presenter then divorce me to talk member
the office and make them go on first all
right let me see if I can be okay yeah I
thought it is I unfortunately I've got
like the concept above your opening
there we go
okay and this is people can see your
screen click to stop sharing yep you see
my screen yep
I mean a big goof too but it's all been
updated and fixed I definitely download
this it's accurate now I apologize for
those mistakes are made but I make said
about this we've made some changes to
and it came as suggestions like adding
section numbering so people can exchange
information more easily concise is all
appeared available then I definitely
liked download this and it is going to
be where I am planning to also post them
out on our blog and integrate all this
into the elf anywhere documentation
system there's been a little bit of a
little bit larger text have to happen
there so I can get content in there but
that's the the PDF will always be
available and will always sure to make
sure it's up to date so go ahead and
grab that it's it's Debbie Debbie Debbie
Elvis AFRICOM slash hub FS / alpha
anywhere X basic guide in camel case not
PDF dot PDF in the chat window are
watching it recording yeah and this link
will also be available in the comments
on our YouTube video the link is also
available in the cop in the description
not the comment of the last week's
webinar as well so great well make sure
you guys have this resource make it
easily find a little thanks very much
outstanding and you can bookmark that
exactly and as we make updates it will
always be in that great location all
right so I'm gonna sure to back over to
you Dion
yes you got it in fact we're gonna use a
little X basic today we're gonna use
some X basic and if I recall you're
going over the use of the security
system is that right and they extended
use we're doing something else so I'm
gonna do two things and one they're kind
of different animals one is I want to
follow up on the control bar which is
one of the most powerful controls in our
Arsenal and specifically the ability to
use what are called drop-down menus in
the control bar which was just recently
added which really makes life for
something nice it's very cool it's
simplified the building of control Lars
but what I want to show you today is how
powerful it can be I'm
is going to talk a little bit about
access control ie security we had a
question last week of a person saying
hey well how do you use the built-in
template for adding a user to the
security environment and at the same
time adding that user to the secure I'm
sorry - security and also the extended
user information table and it's really
not too bad there's a few steps needing
to go through but once you have that
you'll be in great shape so what I'd
like to do is just run through the
control bar one first and then we'll go
there so let me get my system set up so
bear with me okay
and we're here okay so let me go and
show the demo first so I'm gonna go
ahead and show you the working preview
here and you'll see I have a very
straightforward control bar here it's
got a menu over here on the left a piece
of static text or right now but this
will be a button and then a menu on the
right and I drop down and you've got a
nice-looking little menu this is the you
know just using one of our built-in
styles but you can see you know it has
all the highlighting and it has the
ability to do multi-level menu items and
things like that
so very flexible and you know you can
put a lot of content in here and it is
style and then on the right hand side we
have another menu here now ignore that
little icon but you can see similar
thing you have basically a drop-down
with multi levels of menu that is
available that you want to do now they
basically to a certain degree look the
same they operate the same they have not
the same content but the reality is how
they're rendered is very very different
so I'm gonna run through that really
quickly here so I'm gonna start from
scratch just so we can see it you know
kind of make sure that people understand
the steps and how you go from there so
I'm just creating a new UX and for blue
our new this is basically your form
building capability within alpha as
always I like to start using panels and
so I'm going to include a panel card and
then I'm going to Cle click here and say
panel header now when I click panel
header which is a area that's always
going to be at the top of my panel cards
so no matter what
orientation my panel cards at it's going
to be at the top so I want to add that
panel header and you'll notice when I do
so it asks me well would you like to
include a control bar because that's the
natural place to have a control bar in
my case yeah go ahead and just create
that for me
so now I have a panel card I have a
panel header with a control bar there
I'm just gonna drop in some static text
in here
and let's look and see what it looks
like well right now it's not gonna look
like a whole lot of nothing because our
control bar is empty so you can see I'm
getting a message oh I haven't defined
that no big deal but you can see here's
my content here but you'll notice this
is where my control bar is gonna live up
here in the panel header and if I go
through and let's say I do a mobile
orientation the cool thing about as that
panel header will always be at the top
so you notice it's at the top of my
thing and if I scroll it and stuff like
that if I go ahead and say you know what
I'm gonna make this horizontal you'll
see that the control bar and more
importantly the panel header extends to
the width of the current screen whether
it's small or its large it automatically
does that so the control bar and the
panel header are what I would call
responsive in nature so they're very
very handy so let's go ahead and save
this and I'll go ahead and put there and
this is all gonna be static so I'll if
you're interested in getting this after
we're done as always just send an email
the guides at alpha software.com
and we will send that out to you so
right now my control bar is empty so I
need to go into my control bar and
actually define some content there so I
double click on it or there is a control
bar properties actually there to open up
my control bar now kind of nice is there
some control bar templates I'm gonna
start from scratch but you don't have to
and more importantly once you get a nice
control bar that you really like you can
save it as a template and restore it at
any time and that's kind of a constant
capability with an alpha is that we want
to save you time once you've done
something once you're probably gonna
reuse it or reuse something very closely
to it so you can do that here but I'm
gonna go ahead and manually through it
so the key things I'm going to do our
items control bar layout for this that's
really all I'm going to
Kisan today there are a lot of other
features the control bar we've done
guides before actually if you go right
here you'll see that we have the control
bar user guide documentation that is put
together by our is truly Sarah here and
it's phenomenal you click on that it's
gonna open it up it's gonna have a lot
more data to it so but I want to go to
items because control bar is made up of
items and easy and see now I don't have
any items so I'm gonna add my first item
here and I'm just gonna put in HTML and
that is gonna be a piece of static HTML
now I say static but it can be
data-driven so let me go ahead and do
this hold on one second maybe I'm
getting the plague my voice is starting
a little croaky so it's got I'm just
gonna say I'm gonna go here it's called
HTML one but I'm gonna go here to the
text I'm gonna say webinar demo ok so
I've created our piece of HTML but I
also want to add that drop down menu so
I'm gonna go ahead and here and click
add control bar item so as you can see
I'm kind of creating the little elements
that are gonna go into my control bar so
in this case we have a new feature
called the button - drop-down menu now
what's cool is that we've always had the
disclosure button and a disclosure is
basically an area that will show up on
demand it's like a window concept but it
was kind of lot more work to put it
together and there are a couple
different ways to do it it got simpler
but in the end a lot of people were just
saying hey you know what I just want a
menu that's all I want I don't want to
mess with anything I want a menu and so
this feature was added by our
development team so I click here it
creates my drop-down menu I can go ahead
and put the text here for what it is now
this is a button so I can make it text
or I could make it by text followed by
an image or in this case I'm gonna go
image only and now that I've selected
this button to be an image that's the
button is how it's going to be activated
I can go into the icon here you go to
the SVG icons which is the ones I want
to use and I encourage you use those and
I've got a little you know classic
hamburger menu structure here now your
forced to use this you can use any ME me
icon you so choose so you get to choose
and decide what it is but that's what
I'm going to use for this demo here okay
so now I've created my HTML and my drop
down menu now I'm ready to actually
define what my menu looks like so you'll
see when I'm clicking on button drop
down menu on the right hand side we have
menu definition so I'm gonna go ahead
and open that and it actually builds up
a sub sort of panel or control panel so
I've got two types of minis cascading
and expanding and you can play with
those they just operate a little
differently and it's really up to you
cascading is kind of add you know kind
of a stair-step concept expanding kind
of stays within one column and you can
kind of choose what's best for your
particular situation I'm gonna go ahead
and use cascading for now now for the
method for defining the menu I have the
built in menu builder you can actually
use three ways to do this menu build a
static JSON string or X basic function
so I'm gonna keep menu builder here now
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead
and modify this menu here by clicking
here and you'll see it opens up my tree
data genie and I can start building my
menu here so I can go item one item
let's do this little more interesting
home settings other actually you know
what settings will go connection storage
yada yada and then we'll also add a last
one here which is logout something like
that so this is just my structure now
you notice how I'm doing this is I'm
actually just typing it in and I'm
putting a tab B to indent this so that
I'm basically building the structure of
my menu here and I click OK now once
I've done there it now shows me more of
a realistic of okay you've got like a
tree menu set up where you have a home
here and again you can go down as many
layers as you want you can add sub
Child's below that etc you can modify
them move them around
delete them you know from there now for
home I'm gonna go ahead and say you know
what let's go ahead and include an eye
so I'm gonna click here on the icon go
to my SVG icons and then just type in
home is where I want to be home on the
range and so you can add icons to each
of these items here
let's go Storch let's just forget goals
we'll do that and we'll go here and SVG
let's try disk now storage Wow let's
just grab something that was probably
not going to - - ah grab that okay just
for fun
now really important you can go ahead
and add in here on click events I'm not
gonna add them now but that's where you
would trigger say action JavaScript or
your own JavaScript or pieces there
along with that also you can define
security groups which say hey you know
what if you're an administrator you can
see this item in anything below it if
not you can't see it so you can actually
enable those security groups and use the
built-in ones and then last but not
least as you can use show/hide
expressions where you can actually
server-side say look at a session
variable and say oh if it's set here
don't show them these menu items so
there's some really nice ways to
customize the behaviors of this menu on
the fly using security groups and showed
high expressions now once I built this
menu check this out let me go ahead and
show you the JSON data so this is the
JSON data that defines the menu and it
you know may look a little confused and
begin with but you'll see that it's an
array of JSON objects you have your
first one here and then I have my second
one here but in and then my third one
here so those are my top level items but
you'll notice my second one I now have
children showing those three there and
then I could add another layer another
layer so the nice thing about is once
you've built herminia and copy this and
use it now the other is you can look and
see it this as an X basic array and this
is kind of a little bit more but this is
showing how you could basically build
this exact menu using X basic and so you
can see it's creating a you know it's a
it's basically a ray of items here with
the first etc and you can look at it
it's a little hard to understand up top
but you key there's some built-in
functions that are really nice on how to
use that so you don't necessarily have
to do it
but if you do you're welcome to do that
so now I've built my menu and then I
could modify the properties of it I
could add a pointer icon I could create
what my width of it is my height etc I
can also tell me whether it should be
animated or just pop-up it's really up
to you to do everything you need to do
so I'm gonna go ahead and click OK now
on my control bar here I've defined my
items but I have not necessarily told it
how to lay it out on the control bar up
top so now I need to go over here to
this tab called control bar layout and
now I'm in my control bar laya and you
can see I can have multiple layouts and
I actually don't have any yet so I'm
gonna go ahead and click here to add a
layout and it's just got me to call this
actually I like to call it default
layout and click OK but you can name it
anything you want you can also have when
you have multiple layouts you can
actually define which one's the default
layout which means when the control bar
is first rendered it will show that
particular layout and what's neat is you
can create multiple layouts and
on-the-fly just say hey control bar show
this layout show this layout so if I'm
on the home page show this layout when
I'm on editing record show this layout
if I'm on a list show this very flexible
so you'll see over on the right hand
then now I have my ability to do layout
definition so I can click here and add a
line there's no lines here and then I'm
gonna go ahead and add on the left I'm
gonna go ahead and put 4 now I'm gonna
put my static text over on the left hand
side in the middle and after I'm gonna
put my drop-down menu on the map tur now
this is very important with this
nomenclature notice it says before
middle and after it doesn't say left
middle and right because if you are
creating control bar that's vertical you
might have top middle and bottom so the
idea is you know it's more contextually
a the ability for use this in many
different scenarios that you may want to
choose in your application so again left
menu middle and I'm sorry before middle
after is like left middle and right ok
so now we have our control bar it would
render here I have noticed this
rendering you know it doesn't always be
very good but we can go ahead and click
OK and now I can save this so now
go into my working preview and you know
what I have to do one thing I have to
report this that you have to go in and
this is a little thing I found I have to
pre-render now this is just something I
think it's a a release issue is that
you'll notice here and if I go into
working preview by the way I'm gonna
just copy this and send it over to
development as a bug report with a
sample which is I highly recommend if
you sit in a buck report create a little
video describe what it is
give them an example be great but notice
I'm clicking on your nothing's happening
if I go in pre-render and save this it's
gonna pre-render the component I think
there's just two somewhere it needs to
pre render it before it actually gets
seen what's going on oh I'm an idiot
here's my menu so maybe you don't need a
prerunner I'll go test that later so
don't take that with a big grain of salt
like the size of a boulder so you can
see now I've got my menu over here and I
have settings home so this is the
cascading so it's kind of popping out
here if I do it over here actually I'll
show you that it will it knows where the
side of the screen is so and if I had
set items like you know I could click on
these and then they would trigger those
trigger men if there so you can see it's
very simple to create nice looking very
fluid these are beautiful menus they
work out really nicely in fact let's go
ahead and go ahead and go to controls to
mobile let's do a working preview here
and show you what it looks like here in
a mobile it's all nicely saying oh it
just shows outside there must be a see
here up it shouldn't show there should
say inside there so I'll play with that
a little bit more so now I can go in if
I need to change this menu I can go into
the menu or into the control bar go to
my items and then go into my menu
definition and I can modify this to my
heart's desire it say oh you know what I
want this to be up one level I want
connection to have a different icon that
connection icon is something like this
let's see and boom now that I've done
that
save it I've got my working preview I
can then see my menu operating let me
take it out of mobile and we'll go from
here
and you'll see now I've got my new menu
item with the different items there and
as I mentioned earlier if I'm not sure
I'd like that style let's do a couple
things one is I'm going to change the
style this menu from a cascading to a
expanding menu changes some of the
parameters there the other thing I was
going to go to my control bar layout and
I'm going to edit this line right here
so I want to change it and I actually
want to go ahead and delete these items
here and in this case what I want to
have is my drop-down menu on the left
and my icon on our my text over here so
let's go ahead and look at what that
does and we'll do a working preview so
you'll see over here there's some a
static text on the right-hand side and
now my menu shows up here now notice my
menu style here since I've selected the
expanding instead of popping out on the
right it expands and this could be on a
mobile device may be more valuable
because then it will expand below the
item so you can pick and choose what you
want to you know how you want to
implement your menu so that's the intro
but let's take it for the next level
because it's always fun to take it to
the next level so what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna go back to my control bar and
I'm gonna add another menu in this and
I'm gonna go ahead and go back to my
items remember I can't add anything
until it's actually in the control bar
so I'm going to add another one here and
I'm selecting button drop-down menu and
it renames it automatically ok so I'm
gonna go into the menu definition I'll
go ahead and select it as expanding but
now instead of menu builder what I'm
gonna do is select X basic function okay
so now I'm going to instead of loading
this statically I'm gonna use the next
basic function so I'm gonna go ahead and
I'm gonna go load our menu content is
what I'm gonna call it so what I did
here is I clicked on this X baseline
because it's saying well we're going to
get this data so we're gonna use menu
content so what's nice is I can show a
sample
function and this has sample items and
so I can copy this and then I can go to
my definitions here and paste it here
that's it so now what's gonna happen is
I have a menu that is going to be on the
fly when it renders its going to run
this X basic function that I define
called menu content and that is what's
going to deliver the content to the menu
versus the other one where I defined it
statically so I'm gonna go ahead and
click OK now the reality is I mean to
now go over here to X basic functions
because I created the prototype but
let's check and make sure it looks good
so it gives you a lot of instructions
first it shows you let's say you want to
have an a menu that looks like this well
one way is to create an X basic array
which is very handy because then it's
kind of programmatic the other method is
you can actually just use a text
representation and a special built-in
function so I'm gonna go ahead and use
that one for now so I'm just uncoming
basically we create a piece of text we
load it with a textual representation of
our menu you'll notice we have alpha and
sub alpha beta etc and in there you can
click all this pieces here and as you
can see that's kind of nice if I'm just
putting in some standard there but you
know it up to you and then you'll notice
that my JSON definition is basically a
built in function that converts this
text into what I need and then I deliver
that back to the function that goes to
the control bar and the control bar
renders it so click Save but I have to
do one more thing and I remember I
forgot that I'm gonna go back into my
control bar well I've created my three
items but guess what
it's missing from the control bar layout
you can see I've got that so let's go
ahead and add a well first I'm gonna go
back here on this and it's just uh I'll
just make it a button and I'll call it
click me there you go and I'll go back
to my control bar layout I'm gonna edit
this line right here and let's go ahead
and add my new menu here into the center
of it so my left will be my hard-coded
menu then one will be there so let's go
ahead and click there and click go there
and save and wallah if everything is
works
we have our traditional menu here that
we did before got my static and here is
my click menu and you'll see it has all
the functionality you need etc these
icons are not showing up so I'd have to
make sure they in my environment they're
resolving correctly but you conclude
icons and other pieces here but you'll
notice that before this menu was
generated it ran this X basic function
now why is that important well I can
then in any way shape or form tailor my
menu construction based upon session
information who's logged in it really
just opens up enormous amount of
opportunities for you to customize your
menu plus if you ever have to modify
your menu it could literally pick a list
of menu items out of a database table
and build it on the fly so you can start
going to self-maintained kind of systems
or like a user can say hey I'm gonna put
on there my my personal favorites or hey
that's a great idea let's say someone is
editing about records and I love
salesforce does this i don't know if
you've seen the Salesforce CRM but it
remembers the last few things you've
worked with like and so what happens is
if you once you click on and look at a
record it kind of remembers oh yeah you
looked at because often you're gonna go
back and revisit that within a short
period of time so you could create the
same thing where as you go through you
could throw into a session variable the
most recent things you hit and then boom
you could render that when you render
the menu with that information now I'm
gonna come back at our next session and
what I want to show you which is really
cool is that there is a new capability
and I didn't have time to put this
together but I'm gonna say refresh and I
just wanted to do some checking and I
have something else to do in terms of
today for dupes let's go ahead and put
the text in there properly spelling is
our friend okay well there's a cool new
action that was just added recently
which allows you to refresh the control
bar menu data so let's say that scenario
where I go and open up a record and I
want to kind of put that onto the stack
as the most recently refreshed
well now I have the ability to trigger
this and after I've updated say my
session variable with that opening
record then I can go ahead and just tell
the menu to refresh itself it's going to
rerun that X basic call and then refresh
the data so it's really cool because
this allows you to just as you're moving
through it
keep that menu refreshed with whatever
content you would like from there so
that's a quick introduction I'm gonna go
ahead and come back and show you that
example next time but I just want to
kind of open that up for now so that is
the control bar menu I think we open it
up for a few questions but then I need
to jump in and do the security one
because that was asked by another
individual that sounds good um let's see
if we can find something here okay
here's a good one when you have a
cascading menu if you have it afterwards
can you have the arrow soar that greater
than symbol point to the left instead of
to the right so for example if you're on
the right side of the screen it might
make sense for Tchaikovsky ah that's a
good point
um I don't know about that but you can
go here and send a enhancement request
and that would be a great enhancement
because I agree with you in if you're on
the right-hand side of the screen if you
have like an arrow going the wrong
direction it doesn't make a lot of sense
so be interesting how you would approach
that I will look at that there may be a
way to do it on the fly you would have
to do it on the fly because you have to
look at the where or well when you build
them in you you kind of know which side
of the screen you're gonna be on so I
guess you couldn't replace but I wonder
how you replace that let me look at
something real quick I'm gonna go in
here alright yep and we'll go to items
we'll go to this one right here let's go
ahead and go into the menu definition I
don't see where you can define the
direction oh wait what's cascading yep
you know see menu point her position the
most edges automatically selected okay
yeah this pointer icon is sort of like
we would try
down from the the item you click on
right so we can check around on that but
that makes a lot of sense because you
know from a user it's like well it's
pointing in the right direction might
bother him get him bugged actually if
they do complain about that you can say
you have way too much time on your hands
and there are a lot more important
things you really should be focusing on
wishful thinking on my part Russian
system it works this way and that's how
it's going to exactly be customer is
always wrong yeah you've put together in
this particular example you put a panel
header and a panel cards and all that
and the question is just generally
speaking can you use a UX without panels
can you just use containers for example
absolutely ok no requirement at all
alright great that was the question
leave so that's it and the next question
is the is actually the one that from
last week so we can jump right into the
okay cool yeah and I want to make sure
it'll take a little bit here so the
question from our loyal reader in Fort
Lee New Jersey was a regarding security
remember that yeah they did a similar
Litella
so I'm gonna jump down here to my
security areas ok so the question was
this alpha has a number of pre-built
security user interfaces specifically
around creating users within the
security now in the last year we've
introduced what's called the extended
user information table because often the
security system is trapping username and
password and then groups sort of like
what their permissions are but we found
that everybody was sort of expanding
that to include a whole bunch of other
profile data phone number email first
name last name
you know the whole wealth of things and
so what happened was the development
team said you know everybody's kind of
do it let's give them some structure to
do it and so now within your project you
can define what's called the where is it
extended user secure
info and basically all this is is a
table within your database that holds
information that you want to associate
and it has what's called the user ID
field which is the user ID that's going
to match the security system so now you
have essentially two stores of data you
have the security environment and then
you have the extended user information
environment which is just a database
table but the nice thing is that when
you've defined the linkage then alpha
knows when the person logs in they know
what that login user ID is it knows how
to go to that table and look up that
information and what's really valuable
is built into our grid and other things
you can actually fill arguments that are
used for filtering stuff directly from
that table so it takes away a lot of
steps often what you did when you logged
in is load up a bunch of session
variables and then refer them later you
can get rid of all that management to
make life easier but the flipside is
when you create a user you now need to
be able to create a user both in the
security environment and also in the
extended user information table it's
kind of extended user information is for
you know I guess the regular table which
you can't access directly if I'm to
understand has the username and password
and email but the extended one would
have you know maybe account numbers or
preferences preferred language or
currency or things like that absolutely
and you can you can modify that table
all you want you can look at it you know
in this case here's the default ones
that are in my table I have to define
which ones the user ID but the sky's the
limit
you can use anything you want for your
particular business requirement cool so
let me go ahead and say this let me go
ahead and publish all this and I'm going
to show you an operation then we'll come
back and show you so I built a little
example application something very
simple that basically had a login page
and then it logged in there so and if I
can remember my users I shall come in
and cheat okay
very simple and I've just got a log in
here so first I'm gonna go back in here
and show you what user groups we have so
you'll see we have three we have two
user groups administrators and users and
now right now I have three administrator
John Doe and user so now what I'm going
to do is first I'm gonna log in as the
administrator alpha and then I'm gonna
go here and click password okay and
login and that's really high security so
so this what I'm now logging in as the
administrator so as the administrator I
have this ability to create a new user
so I've got a UX device our UX form here
which I'll show you how to build in a
few minutes very simple I'm gonna put in
the future a few pieces of data so I'm
gonna put Jane Doe and they're at eight
hundred five five five one two one two
now this is extended user information
this means this is not going to be
stored in the security information or
security tables it's actually going to
be stored in my user extended info table
here now I have to put in let's go ahead
and put in Jane Doe at Alpha soft or
I'll just go Gmail make it shorter yeah
I'm gonna put in a password and a
password and once I've done I click the
submit button and what it's going to do
is take this information and this
information and insert it into the
separate systems and so now I have a
user that's available within the system
now behind the scenes I'm also setting
Jane's
sort of their people and now this didn't
give me a message but I probably put a
little message I put this together very
quickly just do it so let's go ahead and
we're gonna go ahead and log out and I'm
just gonna go ahead and put in Jane Doe
at gmail.com password and oh not gonna
say dotto or did I wonder do Jane Doe
let me look at here or is it just plain
let's just change I put Jane Doe I'm
Peter
Jane Doe at gmail.com
there we go and I'm logging in and
you'll notice when I log in it actually
knows it you know I'm back to here now I
would probably hide this from the user
so I'd go into my tabbed UI here for
instance here and I would go to controls
I go here and I'd go into the security
groups and I would say only
administrators can create this new user
and extended so once I've done that now
when I log in as a user I wouldn't see
it here but as an administrator I so
what I want to do is show you now and
since I've already got it here to show
you how I built this and integrate it
into it so first step was when I built
this project I did two things first I
enabled the web security system and I
created some groups you know and
administrators and users and again those
can be anything you want from there also
along with that I created a sample user
administrator because I needed that just
for testing and other pieces there now
the second thing I did is I went to the
project properties I scroll down until I
found the extended user information
table and then I defined this
information I told it which connections
string to use what table to use and then
what is the field that's going to be the
field that links the security system to
that and you can rename it anything you
want but that is the sort of the ID of
what the person logs in now one thing
that's you right there sure please do
and ask you a little question about that
table so now that's a table that you're
gonna need to set up yourself like on
RDS or MySQL or sequel or something like
that right well it's in a database so
it's going to be in your database but
what is your gain yeah
it's once you've defined the connection
string and typed in the name you can
actually click this little blue box
leg here and it will auto-generate that
table for you a little build it for you
once it does yeah very so you'll see
here at let me show you how I did is
that I said okay great I typed in the
name of the table so you know you don't
have to use that I could call this users
it doesn't really matter but now I go
here now you'll notice here that it's
got a special syntax to define how these
items are so you go default feel list or
stuff you can modify that this is not
meant to be a database editor what's
nice too is once you've built this table
you can go in and use your regular
database tools to modify it add files
etc because the system smart enough to
look at all the fields that are in that
table whether they were there to begin
when the person logs in and you asked
for that information alpha goes and
inspects that table and says oh there's
20 fields so I'm gonna go ahead and have
those available to the user and once
I've done that I click OK it will
generate a table in my database with
that name with that information then I
define which is the link field and again
you can change annotate text you want
and then now you have connected the
Alpha project to that table and
therefore all the functions around alpha
automatically looking up that data are
now enabled so a great question cool
excellent thanks okay so now I want to
go ahead and create my tool for creating
a new person well the cool thing again
is I go here to new web component UX and
you'll notice that there's a whole bunch
of security framework pre-built you X's
and voila there's one called security
framework - create new user account
underscore and underscore or under bar
and under bar add user information to
related table so this will do that
Toofer versus the other I mean if you
just wanted to create a new user account
this would be a UX that would just put
them in the security system and again
you can write your own code to do the
rest but this just simplifies life okay
I'm gonna go ahead and this is saying
should I refresh it and say yes because
this is data bound and we're gonna have
to make some modifications this was
originally built with certain a while
back so you have to go in and make a few
changes on these things here so first
thing we're gonna do is the style it's
the old iOS 7 so I'm gonna go ahead and
select my project style so it uses my
project style so that's the first step
here so let's look at this UX first it's
got my controls and you can see there's
some there's some text here which has
instructions and how to do these pieces
here but you'll see we have those two
frames
the top part which is the information
for the personal data ie for the
extended user information table and then
the bottom part which is where you're
putting in the username password etc and
then you'll see there's some hidden
fields called user roles user UID space
or etc so that we need to do a few
things first is when this was originally
built it is a date about control so if I
go to first name and I scroll down here
you'll see that it's connected to a
table called registered users and field
name first name well mine looks
differently so this will break so the
first thing I need to do is reconnect
this UX to my data and to do that very
quickly I can just go over here to data
binding this allows me to control all
the data binding to this so I can go
ahead and I can say let's go ahead and
bind the control so I'm clicking this
second item is called bind the controls
on your UX two fields I'm gonna specify
the table and you can see oh I'm put in
at the wrong table
so I'm gonna go ahead and delete this
table and I'm gonna add this table by
the way feature requests would oh
actually I have to do one other thing
before I do that you'll notice also my
sequel let me let me go through that a
little slower
by the way I'll put in a feature request
might as well use extended underscore
user or underscore table so maybe it's
already done and pre connected to the
default field so I can go in to specify
table so you'll see that down here I'm
using a connection string called contact
manager well I don't have one of those
things so first I need to change the
connection string and I'm gonna use my
CEO and in let's see which one yes
that's the one I want to use then what I
want to do is then click the table to
add and you'll see I have my extended
user information table in there and
click OK
so now what I've done is tailed it I
told it that I'm going to data bind this
UX to this connection string in this
particular table and it has this
information and it knows what the
primary key is etc so that was step
number one was kind of telling the UX
well this is where you really need to
connect to
now that we've done that gives me a
warning saying well you got to kind of
reset things up so the next thing we
need to do here is to go to bind you X
component controls to table fields so
what this does is actually tell the
mapping between the field and the item
in these are my fields in my item in my
database so you can see it's still got
my old data here so I'm gonna go through
here I'm gonna say first name is now
going to go to my extended user
information table first name and you can
see now you have table alias and first
name last name phone and I don't think I
have phones so what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna go ahead and just unbind that and
make it updatable so I'm kind of just
telling you to ignore that and then user
name is actually called user ID so I'm
binding again my fields on my screen two
fields in the database and right now I
only have three which is first name last
name and user ID by the way this user ID
is used for two things one is to insert
the record into the extended user
information table but also use to put
them in the security system by the way
that's how it works it kind of links
somewhat using that information so I
rebound to the correct table on
connection string I've rebound these so
now my connection is properly so if I go
here to first name and you can see it's
pointed to my correct table in my
correct field so I could go into my
database add a phone field and then come
back in here and then create that
binding once again so it stores it
properly in that extended user range and
in fact you can add as many other fields
as you want it's really up to you in
terms of you just keep adding the fields
and button bind them and then alpha will
take care of it from there
now the actual connection of the
database system ARDS the security system
is not done through bounding so you see
that I am binding the user name to that
user ID field but password are unbound
because they're not saved into the user
extended table and more importantly as
alpha takes care of doing all that stuff
for security purposes now we have to do
two other things so first step was
rebind this bad boy second step is we
need to go to the server-side events
so as you can see on the on dialog
initialized there's a little piece of
code here so what this is is that you'll
notice when I create the new user here
I'm not selecting the role by the way
you could add that feature if you wanted
to but I want this to be a specific role
so if I look at my user interface you're
gonna see there's a hidden field here
called user roles so the value that is
in here which needs to be one of my
group names is what's going to be stored
in the security system as the role for
this user so kind of behind the scenes
we're saying go ahead and create this
user but guess what they're gonna be in
this one role and again you could expose
that and allow the user to select that
it's really up to you so what I need to
do is when this UX loads I have to go in
and give it the name I want it to use so
I'm gonna go back to server side events
go to on dialog initialize and and let
me double check I don't want to screw
this up let me go to my web security my
group I want to put them in in this case
is users its name users so what I need
to do is in this piece of code here I
just have to type in users so what it's
going to do is it's going to go into the
security system get the unique ID for
users and store it in that hidden field
and that's all I have to do so now when
alpha goes to store that in the security
system it's gonna link them to the users
group and again you can modify that but
that's how this works here next what we
want to do is go here so you'll see
what's going on is after the user has
submitted the dialog it's going to do
two things first it's going to save the
data into the extended user information
table and this is a pre-built set of X
basic that does that then if it is
successful you'll notice it's doing an F
an if statement it says if this was
saved so if this is correct then yes
it's saved in the Descent table I want
to go ahead and save them into the
security system and this is important
because if for whatever reason it failed
inserting the person in extend user you
don't want an orphan record you want to
make sure you have a record in the
extended user information table and also
a record in the
security system now because and this is
kind of an inside baseball but very
important because I redid the data
mining you'll notice that earlier on
when I started doing that it gave me a
message saying hey you got to make sure
that everything is up to date if you go
if you're going to do this rebinding and
one of the most important things you
need to do if you ever redo a binding
for UX on a site then what you need to
do is go find where any of these
server-side actions are and all you have
to do is click on it go to action just
crypting edit action this reopens up my
how this is happening so this is
basically a control panel that says how
should it save this information it's
gonna write all the code for you but you
can modify it by saying okay I want to
show message if there's a failure do
this I want to do some post stuff a lot
of really cool things you can do here
but the important thing is when I open
this and click OK it rewrites the
underlying X basic that actually
performs this task and that's important
because if I've changed the data binding
I want to make sure all my X basic is
fresh and understands the new structure
so super important if you ever change
the data binding on a UX make sure you
go and just edit the action and close e
you don't even have to change it just
that step alone will make it happen now
I want to do the same thing here with
the security system I didn't change
anything on security but just to be safe
I'm gonna edit that action and click OK
here that's all you need to do but it's
a very important step because if you
don't do that then potentially and it
may work sometimes but you may see an
error win this curse so now what I can
do is save this I'm gonna call this
number two so now I've got that saved
and by the way this is a newer feature
where since it's a new component it says
oh you know what you have security on
here so I'm gonna say it requires login
and I need only administrators can see
this and then I'm gonna go back to my
tabbed UI I'm gonna go ahead and add
this new component into my tabbed UI
new user and I'll actually make it even
look a little nicer and I'll click okay
so now I have my component there so I'm
gonna save this save this I'm gonna do
that full publish here of everything to
my local system here but this could and
what's cool is all these features work
on is alpha cloud etc so you know it's
gonna work from there so I'm gonna go
ahead and log out here do a refresh just
to make sure I've got everything refresh
I'm going to log in as administrator
user error okay so now I have
user button here so I'm going to click
that okay so I'm gonna put in Bill doe
now I'm putting in a phone but it's not
gonna save it so it's kind of worthless
but I'm gonna go ahead and do bill dough
and I'm gonna remember there's no and
password a slow down path and we'll save
this okay no errors everything look good
oh I think that's emptied here but let's
go ahead and look and see if it added it
to our web security system there's our
new user oh no it didn't actually use it
interesting I wonder what it didn't
let's see oh you know what I might not
have had them the same so let me go
ahead and try this again so
it's taking a little longer this time
yeah I must not have these there and by
the way there are lots of ways for you
to add error messages verify etc you
know this is just meant to give you that
basic structure so let's go check and
now we have build oh and notice it put
them into the users group so remember
that was where we set that hidden field
let's go ahead and go back out here
logout go into build o go ahead and do
the login and it takes us in the system
but you'll notice now since I made some
modification I didn't set it up but I
would set this on the tabbed UI that
they couldn't see this but you'll notice
the other thing is gone because I said
you could only see that if there so now
I have that ability to add it and the
cool thing is this is now online so if I
publish it to alpha cloud it's gonna
store it into the alpha cloud security
structure is your web server you name it
it just in this case is storing it
locally from what there so that's a
introduction to the create new user and
insert them into both tables it's a
really powerful it's one you're probably
gonna use for any of your solutions
there if you want this component again
send us an email send it back to you
again you'll have to go through and
tailor it for your particular project
meaning you have to make sure to map it
to the correct table and connection
string and after you've done that it's
very important that you also refresh
your X basics so that everything works
properly there with that I don't know
once we got a few more minutes to cover
and then we can cover them from there so
then great for that question
excellent in fact we have three and a
half more minutes so we'll go through
those security questions here one is
Wolford is Oh would it be possible to
write a script that would add both a
user and a role at the same time imagine
that would be possible if you yes
absolutely and the way to look at that
is there are a whole bunch thank you for
going there yeah there are a whole bunch
of wonderful functions here for working
with you off anywhere security
system yeah we couldn't put this in the
chat window security is one of them got
it so in here are a bunch of pre-built
security methods so you can see in here
you have for instance add user to role
add user to roles and this is where you
can put in the user so all of these are
available and the cool thing about these
is that it doesn't matter what again I
kind of emphasize it but if you're on
Alf cloud versus I asked for standalone
it doesn't matter all of these will work
so you can write these little scripts to
basically you don't even need a user
interface you could literally create a
user interface where you just collect
the data and then behind the scenes run
a bunch of scripts to actually do the
work and whatever you need to do it the
nice thing is that the other ones a
little easier to implement because a lot
of the heavy lifting is done for you you
just need to do mapping of the table
structure from there but if you go to
there there's all of these there's
creating a role on the fly create a user
getting passwords getting the roles for
user all of those are available through
this basically the set of context
security functions fantastic and the
source you're porting to looks like
release notes I think this is no in the
official document oh yeah that's true I
should probably go here and let's go to
the context option I've just got that
one hard-coded in there there we go
let's see well it's probably context
object there we go
so I'll copy that mm-hmm and go here yep
Oh already had me so yeah you see I go
here to contact security object and then
this walks it and it shows you some
example code and some other things like
that on how to use that really powerful
stuff very cool well we have one minute
left it looks like ends we'll just take
a quick one and is there a way to secure
columns in that table like in other
words encrypt columns that that user
information table might have some social
security number and there or something
like that what are some options there
for encryption well one of the nice
things you can do is you there is built
in encrypt string function so there's a
built-in encryption technology and alpha
and so you can encrypt and decrypt data
and what you'll need to do is if you
want to encrypt that data before it goes
to the server or to the database what
you can do is you can come in here and
in your after daya BOTS I can say okay
let's say it's a data submitted dot
phone number so I can go here I can say
okay phone number is equal to that and
then I can say phone number is equal to
in encrypt string phone number comma and
then the key just so now that encrypts
it now before it actually saves here I
have to do a little trick I have to tell
alpha that I change that so what I do is
down here where's my oh I just reset it
there okay that's fine
oh I thought I had to do the dirty rows
on that okay no that's the e submitted
so then it would actually a dot data
submitted duck phone number equals just
something that variable phone number
wouldn't quite do the trick because it
doesn't it's not aware of that right
well it depends okay so one of the
tricks is and it's not showing up here
but because I think this is an old UX so
let me go ahead and create a new UX here
sure and let me go to the after server
side after dialog there this is the
newer one
so I actually this is safe now if if the
user entered a phone number it's gonna
work so but the the way to be super fete
safe is if you change anything you want
to store it's possible they didn't
modify the phone number but you still
want to encrypt it so we can do is you
say e dot dirty columns is equal to this
plus phone and this is the name in the
database the phone number here the
column in the database so now what will
happen is this tells alpha when it runs
this little piece of code oh no matter
whether the user
modify it or not because alpha tries to
save cycles so it only will apply the
insert or update based on what was
changed so in this case it says o add
that one end so you force it now here's
the other trick is when you do the on
dialogue initializers you're gonna have
to decrypt this number using the object
and updating that field manually because
alpha won't do that for you
automatically otherwise it's just going
to show the decrypt the encrypted data
in that of the field version yeah so
there's a little more work to be done
but the nice thing is you can encrypt
data before it goes to the database now
I would highly suggest that instead of
doing all that complexity you get a
database that supports encryption built
in or you don't have that play yep yeah
it's the only way to fly and I know the
sequel server does the problem is when
you start getting to there they start
charging a lot more money for a good
reason but if you're that serious about
security he's probably worth the money
and you also then don't have to worry
about a code you don't have to embed
keys in here there's just a lot of
advantages fantastic dan thanks very
much for a thank you great questions
from everybody fantastic questions if we
didn't get to your question today please
send an email to guides at alpha
software comm and we will be happy to
address it in the meantime Dionne is off
next week we will let you know when our
topic will be though before we do it I
think we're gonna have a guest speaker
possibly Sarah if she's back in action
otherwise we'll find someone for you but
we do home to some more energy we will
see you next week at the next Wednesday
webinar thanks very much for joining us
take care and have a great week
Alpha Software Corporation
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