Hello EGL Distance Learning hard chargers!

We are now into our first day of the RBD EGL Distance Learning Course. In the first Session we covered the following Topics: We started by going through the EGL Quick Overview to level-set everyone on what RBD and EGL is all about. We then covered the RBD v8 Workbench Basics presentation. It is important to level-set everyone on the basics of the Eclipse Workbench and the understanding of Perspectives and Views. I did a quick Demo highlighting some of the aspects of RBD v8, i.e created a Rich UI Project, Handler, etc. I also showed how to create a database connection via the Windows -> Preferences option. During the break I asked everyone to start RBD and navigate throughout the tool to familiarize themselves with it and to use the Help facilities. In the Second session, I covered the first several topics in the RBD v8 Lanuguage Basics presentation. Here we talked about Data parts which can be variables with a primitive data type, i.e. String, int, Date, etc. or Data Items. The Primitive datatype of ANY will probably be new to a lot of you. Records are another Data part that can also have various "Stereotypes", i.e. Basic Record, SQLRecord, Serial, CSV, etc. Next were Arrays where you can have arrays of primitive data types, DataItems, and even Records. Once we had covered these basics we went on to discuss logic parts. Basically you will be working with Libraries, Programs, Handlers, and Services when creating Rich UI Programs. (There are other logic part types available in RBD, these are just them main ones we focus on here.) I showed Libraries and and how libraries are simply a file of reusable Functions, Data parts, and Records. I also covered

functions. We left off just before the Services topic in the Language Basics presentation. The rest of this presentation will be covered in the first session on Day 2.

Assignments. For today, there are two short workshops to be completed, (Note: download location for the workshops file can be found here:)
Work Bench Basics and Language Basics. The workshop file names are as follows: EGLRBDWkBenchBasicsWkshop.ppt (do all of this workshop) EGLRBDLanguageBasicsWkshop.ppt (do as much of this workshop as time permits) Day 2 workshops will be to finish EGLRBDLanguageBasicsWkshop.ppt. and do the Rich UI Basics workshop after the second session : EGLRBDRichUIBasicsWkshop.ppt

Recordings

The recordings for the first and second sessions of Day 1 of the EGL Distance Learning class have been uploaded to the following site: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/mar21class/ The file names are: EGLDay1Session1.wmv EGLDay1Session2.wmv These are in Windows Media (wmv) movie format. To Download do the following: open a command line window on your machine. Type: ftp public.dhe.ibm.com When the ftp server responds, enter anonymous as the User ID and your email address as the password. When logged on, type: cd software/rational/egl/education/mar21class (optional) type: ls -l (to see the contents of the directory.) Type: bin (to set the download to binary) Type: mget EGLDay1*.* Type: y (in response to the server)

Session 1 is 25 Mb, Session 2 is approximately 36 Mb. When done downloading, type: bye.

Hello EGL Distance Learning hard chargers! We are now full speed ahead on Day 2 of the RBD v8 Distance Learning class. Today in the first Session we covered the following Topics: We began the session where we left off from yesterday, the egl logic parts. Libraries, Handlers, Programs, and Services parts, and the differences between them. Next was the "Generate-able parts". The question comes up periodically, why do we need to know this? The main reason is to make you aware of what is going on in the background when ever you make changes to "dot" egl files and save them, and also to show you how this may impact how you architect the application. Best practice is to use Libraries. Libraries are a high performance reusable part in EGL. Libraries do not get Generated until you use a function, data item, or data record from within a Library in your EGL Handler or Service. We then continued on with Assignment, Logic, Arithmetic, etc EGL statements. We pushed past the hour mark to make sure we covered all of the EGL Language Basics topics. One of the most important items discussed was the Try/Onexception Block. This construct allows you to execute an EGL statement and gracefully handle error conditions instead of letting the run time display a cryptic message. Best practices in EGL coding strongly suggests using Try/Onexception when ever possible. We finished up the EGL Language Basics presentation with the last topics being the "built in" EGL System Libraries and Date/Time math. The second session covered all the topics in the RBD v8 Rich UI Basics presentation. During this hour I talked about the Rich UI Handler, the syntax, properties, and events associated with it. I demo'd how to do the Hello World

Rich UI handler using RBD and some of the features of the Rich UI editor. I also talked about the Document Object Model (DOM) and how Rich UI Handlers are integrated with it. Lastly I briefly talked about "Event Bubbling", and the Job Scheduler. Also during this session I switched to Demo mode and highlighted some of the aspects of Rich UI development creating the HelloWorld Rich UI handler and showing the Properties View, Creating an event function and "wiring" it to the event function. At the end of the Rich UI Basics topic I mentioned that there is an additional tutorial in the Additional Materials folder inside of the Workshop.zip file. This tutorial (in a pdf file) titled, "Create a mortgage portal with EGL Rich UI" covers most all of the material this course does. At the end of the course, for those of you that go on to do this tutorial, get it working in a browser external to RBD, and send me a screen shot in a word document with your name embedded in each of the handler 'portals', I will send a course completion certificate. Note however this is not an EGL Certification. Just something I would like to send you to show appreciation of working through all of the workshops and lessons of the course.

Today there were the following assignments: During the break, I asked the class to finish the Language Basics Workshop After the second session, I assigned everyone the Rich UI Basics workshop.
Today's workshop file name is : RBDv8RichUIBasicsWkshop.ppt Tomorrow we will do the Widgets presentation and workshop and the Services presentation and workshop.

Recordings

The recordings for the first and second sessions of Day 1 and 2 of the RBDv8 Distance Learning class have been uploaded to the following site: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/mar21class/ Today's file names are: EGLDLDay2Session1.wmv EGLDLDay2Session2.wmv These are in Windows Media Viewer (wmv) format. To Download do the following: open a command line window on your machine. Type: ftp public.dhe.ibm.com

When the ftp server responds, enter anonymous as the User ID and your email address as the password. When logged on, type: cd software/rational/egl/education/mar21class (optional) type: ls -l (to see the contents of the directory.) Type: bin (to set the download to binary) Type: mget EGLDLDay2*.* Type: y (in response to the server) Session 1 is 38 Mb, Session 2 is 36 Mb. When done downloading, type: bye.

Hello RBD v8 Distance Learning hard chargers! We are continuing full steam ahead on Day 3 of the RBD v8 EGL Distance Learning Course. Today in the first Session we covered the following Topics:

We began the session by talking about Cascading Style Sheets. I will continue to emphasize that the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a best practice and should be used when ever possible. I used the materials at the end of the EGL Rich UI Basics Workshop during this part of the discussion and encourage you to do this Cascading Style Sheets workshop if you have not already. After this we talked about Debugging your Rich UI Applications using the RBD v8 Debugger; how to set up your workstation to debug, showed some examples of Debugging and what the Debugger is. You will then use the RBD v8 Gallery Sample application to get hands on experience Debugging an application. At this point we ended a little early so I started the Widgets presentation up to about the selections Widgets. In the second session we picked up where we left off and I covered briefly as possible all of the EGL Widgets. During this hour I went through what the various Widgets are, the kinds of Widgets (IBM, Dojo, and your custom widgets), and then showed via the slides all the widgets provided by RBD v8.

Today there were two assignments: During the break, I assigned the class to do the Cascading Style Sheet workshop (at the end of the Rich UI Handler basics workshop) and to use the Debugging presentation as a workshop to get hands on experience debugging a real Rich UI Application. After the second session, I assigned everyone the Rich UI Widgets workshop.
The workshop file names are : RBDv8_Debugging.ppt (Note, this is the presentation file done during the first Session. It has all of the steps documented on how to debug the EGL Gallery application. Follow the steps of this presentation ) RBDv8WidgetWorkshop.ppt

Recordings Note: Yesterday's recording for Session 1 ended up being just the voice. For some reason the video portion did not get recorded. If you don't want to just listen to my voice( which I wouldn't want to do...) you can get any of the last class's recordings by going to the following site and download the same day/session. I apologize.
ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/jan24class The recordings for the first and second sessions of Day 3 of the RBD v8 EGL Distance Learning class will be uploaded to the following site:

ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/mar21class The file names are: EGLDLDay3Session1.wmv EGLDLDay3Session2.wmv These are in Windows Media Viewer format. To Download do the following: open a command line window on your machine. Type: ftp public.dhe.ibm.com When the ftp server responds, enter anonymous as the User ID and your email address as the password. When logged on, type: cd software/rational/egl/education/mar21class (optional) type: ls -l (to see the contents of the directory.) Type: bin (to set the download to binary) Type: mget EGLDLDay3*.* Type: y (in response to the server) When done downloading, type: bye.

It's Almost Friday!

(Great picture, eh? How did that giraffe get up there! ? ) Hello Distance Learning hard-chargers! Wow! It is already Day 4 of the RBD v8 Distance Learning Course! Today in the first Session we covered the following Topic: Services: In this section I discussed Services in a broad sense and how you should look as EGL Services as modular pieces of code that can be "assembled" like cogs in a machine. The communication code created behind the scenes by RBD is WSDL or Web Services Description Language. This is XML code that allows Services created and published to the Web World to be able to communicate. I then talked about how you create Services, and the Rich UI Handlers that make calls to those Services. The last topic was to show some examples of Services and how Rich UI programs call them. Then in the second Session we covered the following Topic: Database Access: In this section we focused on Relational Database Access. The EGL parts needed to access data and how the Tool can be used to more easily connect to data, access data, and write the EGL Code to do Relational Database Access. I then stepped the class through the creation of a Database Access program. The 3rd workshop in the Services workshop is then used to repeat and reinforce this information. We will start up tomorrow with the File Access presentation. Today there were two assignments: For the break, I assigned the first two workshops in the Services workshop file: Services Workshop 1 and 2. (5_EGLRBDServicesWorkShop.ppt) After the second session, I assigned everyone the third Workshop that steps you through Database Access.

I also suggest the Calling an RPG Service (Workshop 4) in the CallingRPGServiceWorkshop.ppt provided in the Additional Materials folder if you want to give it a try.
For those of you that want to work with another database, there is a tutorial written by a colleague that steps you through the process creating a Rich UI Application that uses MySQL as the database. Note that this tutorial is written to use with EGL CE, but there should be no problem using RBD v8 to do this tutorial. You can get that tutorial from here: http://www-949.ibm.com/software/rational/cafe/docs/DOC-3370

Recordings

The recordings for the first and second sessions of Day 4 of the RBD v8 Distance Learning class have been uploaded to the following site: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/mar21class/ The file names are: EGLDLDay4Session1.wmv EGLDLDay4Session2.wmv These are in Windows Media Viewer format. To Download do the following: open a command line window on your machine. Type: ftp public.dhe.ibm.com When the ftp server responds, enter anonymous as the User ID and your email address as the password. When logged on, type: cd software/rational/egl/education/mar21class (optional) type: ls -l (to see the contents of the directory.) Type: bin (to set the download to binary) Type: mget EGLDLDay4*.* Type: y (in response to the server) When done downloading, type: bye.

"Just The End of The Beginning by artist Glen Tarnowski"

Hello RBD v8 Distance Learning voyagers! Can you believe it? It is already Day 5 of the RBD v8 Distance Learning Course! Today in the first Session we covered the following Topics: 1. Sequential File Access. The capability of reading from and writing to files on your system. To do this a key element is the build file and the Resource association file. I talked about how you create these files, how they interrelate, and how you use them to connect to serial files, comma separated value (csv) files, indexed files, vsam files, etc. In the second session we covered: 1. Deployment of your RUI Applications This is one of the more important topics. How to deploy your RUI Applications. There are two alternatives using EGL CE to deploy your Rich UI application: Plain HTML parts and as a Tomcat Deployable Application. 2. Inter program communication and the Info Bus.

Being able to call other RUI Handlers and pass information or even other objects is an important part of any application. We show through the InfoBus workshop how to use the Info Bus to Subscribe/Publish to and EGL Listener (the Info Bus) in order to do just that. Additional materials included. Included in the presentation material are some additional presentations you are welcome to go through at your leisure and if you have any questions feel free to send an email and I will respond cc'ing everyone in the class list so that they can get the answer as well. There is a presentation on Model-View-Controller, External Types, and Browser History. The Browser History topic shows the steps on how to implement Browser History using the History() widget. The RBD Samples Gallery has well commented code and the Help facilities are excellent resources if you would like additional information on how to implement this in your Rich UI applications. Best Practices While EGL Rich UI is new, we know from other languages, projects, and practices, that this still holds true: Use Libraries. Define and Use Data Items, records, and common functions (especially Database Access functions) in Libraries. Keep Handlers and Widgets, modular, stand alone, reusable, and share-able when ever possible. Develop a naming convention, i.e. : custTxtfld, custTxtlbl, getCustArray. Package names are lower case. Handler naming uses "Camel back" notation. etc. If you would like to see an application created by one of our past students, Nikola from Croatia, wrote a cool music related application using EGL Rich UI. Go to the following URL, enter your favorite band, i.e. Eagles, click on the My Favorite Band is button, and see what happens! http://www.myegl.org/LastMaps/ Today there were two assignments: For the break, I assigned everyone to finish the Services Workshop and to look at creating a Sequential file access program on your own based on the information in the presentation. I know this is a stretch so let me know if you have questions making this work. After the second session, I assigned the InfoBus Workshop. (EGLRBDInfobusWorkshop.ppt) and the Deployment Workshop, (EGLRBDDeploymentWorkShop.ppt) Lastly, there is ALSO the EGL Distance Learning Survey. Please complete this survey!! Here is the link:

RBD EGL Survey Please continue to do the workshops and send me emails if you have questions or problems. Recordings
The recordings for the first and second sessions of Day 5 of the RBD v8 Distance Learning class have been uploaded to the following site: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/rational/egl/education/mar21class The file names are: EGLDLDay5Session1.wmv EGLDLDay5Session2.wmv These are in Windows Media Viewer format. To Download do the following: open a command line window on your machine. Type: ftp public.dhe.ibm.com When the ftp server responds, enter anonymous as the User ID and your email address as the password. When logged on, type: cd software/rational/egl/education/mar21class (optional) type: ls -l (to see the contents of the directory.) Type: bin (to set the download to binary) Type: mget EGLDLDay5*.* Type: y (in response to the server) When done downloading, type: bye.

As mentioned above, If you have not done so already, your very LAST ASSIGNMENT is to take the following anonymous survey letting us know what you think about RBD and EGL. Please, Please, Please take this survey: RBD EGL Survey: As you move forward using EGL don't forget that the EGL Cafe is your main link to support and the EGL Community. Please contribute to it and participate by

posting questions, answers, code snippets, and documents such as while papers.

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/community/cafe/egl.html