View source for Bxp Release 9 SER 1 - Release Notes

= bxp Release 9 Service Enhancement Release 1 =


As part of our ongoing development of bxp there are some system wide changes coming that will be rolled out in a package as part of our continuous program of improvement.


This document allows you to see what changes will be made and if you have any queries to raise them before the go live date.


Most of these changes are technical in nature and should present technical change to our users.


= Primary Details =


Roll out date and time in testing : 2016-06-10
Roll out date and time in production : 2016-06-15 22:00 

 Updated. 2016-06-07. Dates pushed by 7 days due to scope creep.

From this point, database tables may / may not be available to access as the content is converted. (Details below).



= System Wide Engine Change = 


== Footer update ==

An update of the page footer has been made to make it 4 lines instead of 3.  This is to help narrow screens such as mobile devices.


A link to the relevant release wixi has been included.  This should help users find articles like this on updates made.



== UTF-8 ==


As bxp is used more and more for mailbox content retrieval and is being used to facilitate more and more languages globally including operations now in Chinese, the support for a greater set of characters is required.


bxp was built on iso-8859-15 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-15] which has support for the Euro character.


bxp is has now changed the entire front end web pages to UTF-8 AND converted the database table storage to be able to store the characters natively.  This should not affect any reporting or content delivery.  Earlier browsers will have challenges delivering full character sets but there are direct fixes for these browsers and the challenging languages.


* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9999381/utf-8-encoding-does-not-work-properly-with-internet-explorer-but-works-perfectly]
* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3479383/why-is-ie-failing-to-show-utf-8-encoded-text]
* [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/928847]
* [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/925261]


The primary reason for this change is:
* Multilingual content support for bxp users in China
* Data import from international APIs such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
* Email retrieval causing green hamsters with Chinese mail


There will be no visible change to the front end of bxp.  There is no roll back on this operation.  Backups will not be affected in any way.

== HTML5 ==


The new features of HTML5 allow for enhanced interfaces and greater browser capability.  Unfortunately HTML5 is not completely historically compatible and never will be.  In fact it's not yet totally modern browser cross compatible either!  Rather than battle with continued cross browser compatibility issues we are going to split the capability of accounts.


Using a user level flag a user can be XHTML 1.0 or HTML 5.  If a user is set to XHTML 1.0 they will be historically compatible with everything.  If they change to HTML 5 though predominantly identical in appearance, new features will be available in a growing number of areas.


The official line on HTML5 [https://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/]


The new elements allow for nicer presentation of code [https://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/#new-elements]


There are numerous examples available of fun stuff including [http://html5demos.com/dnd-upload]
* Drag and drop file upload
* Browser video file playback support
* Local storage
* Offline Detection
* Canvas (for signatures)
* Geolocation native support


The challenge with HTML5 at the moment is that it is not universally consistent across all browsers YET!  bxp will be ready for HTML5 as it comes together.  This change allows clients to experiment with capability but revert for compatibility.


This will be a System Access Management flag at a user level.


== adodb connections ==


The bxp engine has been modified to share connections on a page which has seen a page performance increase for every process in bxp and opens the way for future performance enhancements.



= New Features = 



== Form development support ==


Due to the limited space available for form building options when using the Form - Edit feature, an expansion to facilitate tabs of functions has been implemented.


These tabs allow grouped functions to reduce the need to leave the console to find functionality.


The tabs are based on the development team in All n One's experience of building and supporting forms.


[[File:formtabs_001.png]]



== Form Types ==


A large number of new form types have been made available.  When adding a question to a form the grouping and listing of items has been shuffled to logically group types to make them easier to find and reduce section sizes.


The new types are

* IBAN Calculation
* IBAN Validation
* Inline Image
* Attachments Bar
* ContactHistory Bar
* Hidden Div
* Hidden NoDiv
* JQuery Date
* JQuery DateTime



=== IBAN Calculation & IBAN Validation ===


Please note that this utility is like an SMS in that it uses a 3rd party provider and there is a charge per validation.  Please contact sales@bxpsoftware.com for more information on charges and bulk rate purchasing.


The engine allows an history bank account number and sort code to be entered and the relevant IBAN details will be auto generated.


The IBAN Validation function checks and provides high level detail on the results.


All the details of the interface are detailed on the website https://www.iban.com


=== Inline Images ===


This allows any image to be stored inline in a form.  The encoding uses base 64, so this field can be treated as a text field, yet capture photos, signatures and other image based content.


=== Attachments Bar ===


The attachments bar provides a scrolling wide bar to allow you to see the uploaded documents to a record without the need to go into the contact history.  This bar provides a quick way of accessing your attachments.  The bar supports natively a number of common office document formats with more type support planned for the future.


Sample file types
[[File:attachments_bar_002.png|800px]]


An example of a very full bar in mid scroll
[[File:attachments_bar_001.png|800px]]

=== Contact History Bar ===


There has been a tradition contact history bar which has been available since 2013.  This engine has been expanded to use the full width of the screen.  Configurable options are a planned expansion of the question type but for the moment the bar is a fixed format.


[[File:contacthistory_bar_001.png|800px]]



=== Hidden with div AND Hidden with no div ===


For advanced forms there is sometimes need to generate data using JavaScript and then put that information into a field.  Historically the solution was to add a text box to the form, then use JavaScript to hide the text box.  These two new types now allow that field to be added without the extra JavaScript speeding up dev and page delivery as the extra HTML is no long written.  


Not much to see but very useful.


=== JQuery Date and DateTime boxes ===


Frequently JQuery is used to add a bit of spice to forms.  Now instead of having to put in a manual line to add the library the engine in ''Form Management > Form - Primary Details > Form - Advanced Settings > Choose your form > JavaScript onLoad'' section, the bottom option when changed to true adds the library automatically.


Using this library, you can now add two question types.  They are visually appealing but do add a lot of overhead to the HTML of the page.  Form over function but a very nice addition to making forms more user friendly.


JQuery Date Box
[[file:jquey_datebox_001.png|800px]]


Jquery Date Time box
[[file:jquey_datetimebox_001.png|800px]]



== Presence ==


As part of the Gamification modifications being developed this feature is being added.  We will add a new optional turn on feature to bxp to allow detection of a user up to the last minute.  This small code change simply update your presence information.


This is a system level option.  i.e. You can turn in on for your bxp or not.  The setting will be in System Settings in SAM.  It will be turned off by default which means current system operation will not change.


Every user will have presence setting on their account (a last seen date time field).  When you submit a page it will update your presence.  For pages left open, i.e. waiting for something to happen, there will be a chunk of hidden AJAX on the page.  Every minute it will update bxp to say (page open... doing nothing at the moment).


The status will be
* Active (submit within the last minute) - Dark green
* Waiting (submit from AJAX engine within the last minute - Light green
* Away (No AJAX submit or activity within 2 minutes) - Orange
* Inactive (No AJAX submit or activity within 5 minutes) - Red
* Logged out (Logged out) - Black


This engine will help in a number of ways, if not all implemented in this SER: 
* Security visualisation of proper log out
* Conference centre presence capability
* Enhanced Contact History to show if user available today


[[File:presence_001.png|800px]]



== Jotter ==


The Jotter engine has been released and is now live for all clients [[Jotter]]



== Slim Interface ==


For time sensitive functionality within bxp, e.g. integration with phone systems requiring screen pops, having a fast interface is far more important than a pretty interface.


On an account by account basis, it is possible to set a parameter in System Access Management, to present the users a less pretty but faster interface.


This kind of configuration is prevalent in Windows as "Adjust for Best Performance". [http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-adjust-visual-settings-windows-7-best-performance.htm]  All the pretty touches are turned off in favour of providing a faster interface.


This functionality will also be possible to enable via QueryString parameter rather than having to default the entire account.


Work is ongoing to provide a "min.css".  Though the engine is in place work with a number of clients is seeing us refine the options.



== In Browser signature capture ==


bxp has the ability to capture signatures and store them in bxp.  These images integrate with PDFs for door step contract signature capability.  For more information please see [[In_Browser_Signature_Capture]]



== Changes and fixes ==


* ww5 testing server now supports short url redirects.  i.e. ww5.allnone.ie/demo works like ww3.allnone.ie/demo


* Appointment Management > Diary Reporting > Diary - Filtered Listing > part hours now displaying correctly.  e.g. 12:00 till 14:30, now shows as 2.5 hours not 2 hours.  Also days now show as number without fraction part.


* The SautinSoft PDF Metamorphosis suite has been installed to facilitate RTF to PDF conversion [[RTF_Templates_for_Outcomes]]


* Used http://www.xiconeditor.com/ to generate a new bxp favicon.ico in 64x64, 32x32, 24x24 and 16x16


* There has been massive refinement of the favicon imagery based on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23849377/html-5-favicon-support


* Control Bar - addition of ! to start of URL allows the link to open in the same tab / window instead of the default open in a new window.


* Worklist - Data file.  Now renders the SQL to a hidden on the page for troubleshooting.


* AJAX parameter 41 now facilitates complex where clauses for very custom AJAX data retrieval requests.



= Bits that came close =


For a release you never get everything done.  There were some projects which are very nearly finished but didn't cut the testing mustard.  These projects will be seen in the future.


* MD5 password hashing
* Form type - AJAX Contacts
* Private message
* Inner Blog


Watch this space... for even more....

[[Category:Topic:About bxp]]