We received plenty of feedback indicating that customer and also Software AG employees would like to see enhancements to our current CAF controls documentation.
The next documentation improvement effort that I want to drive will target exactly this area.
In order to make sure that we deliver meets the expectations and needs of the people who work with CAF, I would like to get input from YOU:
- What are the top 5 controls that need better documentation?
(If you are willing to take the time to tell me what the top 10, 20 or 50 are even better! And I am also open to suggestions for how you would document them better, of course!)
Thanks in advance for taking a few minutes to write down your thoughts.
You can start with 1) Table controls (mainly the tree tables). 2) Scripts 3) Search controls 4) How to handle the controls with javascript perhaps could be a good idea to integrate this in each control documentation.
In general will be usefull an explanation for each category of controls with examples.
As per how to document, check the Microsoft model for Silverlight
Better documentation(or inline visual cues) would be on how what are allowable containers from one container to another. It is really vague and a way to show what would be allowable would be great.
Hi.
I would like to see better documentation on how to implement simple partlets using the webMethods ESB. There should be many more samples on this.
Also an better explanation on where things should be processed and how, what can be placed in JS, what should be java code.
The samples provided today are also poorly documented.
And also the organization of the data elements in the designer view such as under Control → Table:
Async Column
… sporadic other elements
Hidden Column
… sporadic other elements
Standard Column
… sporadic other elements
Trucating Columns
then you organize that into an Alphabetical list which the the type of Column precedes the behaviour scatters columns in the list. So instead I think you could Call it
… sporadic other elements
Column - Async
Column - Hidden
Column - Standard
Column - Truncating
… sporadic other elements
And then your alphabetical sort in the list of the designer which result in more organized fashion oppose to the kind of scattered approach. It looks like there was some of this going on in the “Data Total” and “Data Total Selected” and “Tree” and “Tree Toggle”
in my opinion the main problem is not the documentation of the single controls (although it may be worth to improve this as well) but the missing documentation about the overall concepts and how to start using CAF.
It may be easily accessible for JSF and Ajax experts, but our main goal is to enable even non Experts to create Portlets etc., and getting started for those people is quite hard.
After understanding the core concepts the examples on http://www.ajax-softwareag.com become helpfull, but they do not help getting started as well.
What’s also completely missing (please correct me if I just didn’t find it) is a reference for coding Java script and Java. The tutorials and samples just tell to copy some code to some place, but this does not help me for developing own code.
There are a lots of capabilities that are hidden in webMethods and one of them being WSRP. I happened to stumble upon the WSRP producer/consumer page on system administration by chance and thats when I knew that it exists. But since lack of documentation I dont know what to do of it even though I want to use it. I dont even know what version of wsrp is supported.
Maybe we can find many more such potentials and document them better.
Hi,
First of all, the description in Designer’s help for CAF components should have more than one line. That is the first place you usually look for details.
It is also important to describe the benefits and disadvantages of using one type of control over a similar one.
Clues to avoid pitfalls (it is better not to change this X control property unless...)
Detailed description of which type of ContentProvider is better for which CAF component and why.
Easily to deploy samples for EACH component.
I struggled a lot with SelectableListTableContentProvider and ListTableContentProvider when handling updateable lists. Also the concept of content providers would be interesting.
Also the client side controls (invoke script, return value script etc) inside tables are not documented or covered in samples.
I am new to webMethods CAF. I would prefer to have some sample on how to create webapplication in WM CAF. I think if you could add this thing in new documentation. It would be real good help.
Appreciate the idea of getting feedback and preparing the documentation.
Present documentations mostly concentrating in Syntax and not in how to use. So please consider the following points while preparing the documentation.
Workable samples for each and every controls should be there.
There is nothing called getting started available for any of the webMethods product. Please add such documents which will be easy for us to learn.
Please enhance the documents available for tree controls and add things like along with which control some specific controls can be used.
There is no document/reference available for nested tables and dynamic creation of controls in CAF UI.
Procedure to be followed to use the control should be there in the document.
I second all of Suresh’s comments above. On top of that:
In the CAF reference manual, the Java type required for the value of the control is incorrect for many of the controls. Usually the package in the manual is close to the actual package, but not exactly the same. I can find the correct class or interface by searching, but it can be timeconsuming.
The procedure for configuring the ws endpoint address from on an environment variable needs to be documented, preferably in a “getting started guide”. Anyone planning to deploy their CAF code to a production environment (which is everyone using it) needs to do this, yet it isn’t documented anywhere.
The procedure for adding custom-developed portal pages into the MWS noodle shell menu (fabric tasks) needs to be documented. In addition, the procedure for making changes (such as reordering the menu items) should also be documented.
In general, search through the forums for frequently-asked-questions, and loop them into the documentation.
Do we have any results in this matter yet? Are there new Examples which we can download right now and will work without any IS services? So it only demonstrate how to use the controls?