February 9th, 2010
We are proud to introduce our partner in Latin America for Bindows, BindowsFaces and InfiView - Oh!STUDIO from Argentina.
For full details, see our Bindows Spanish page.
Today we start the Bindows 4.1 beta program.
This beta program will test several new features (key bundles, collapsible panel, threestate checkbox) and additional improvements.
For more details: http://www.bindows.net/documentation/Bindows41Beta.html .
You can download a free evaluation package at: http://www.bindows.net/download/download_beta.html .
Customers with covered maintenance will receive the full retail version automatically.
After a thorough beta process, we are happy to release InfiView 2.0 today.
This version is based on Bindows 4.0 and includes several major additions:
- Support for WebKit browsers (such as Safari-4 and Chrome)
- Support of IE8, Firefox 3+
- Support for nested groups
- Support for external resources
- Simplified launcher format
- New event actions
- New layout algorithm
Read more about this version at:
http://www.infiview.com/dev/infiview20.html
You can download a free developer package at: http://www.infiview.com/download/
Customers with covered maintenance will receive the full retail version automatically.
As many of you might already know we have a plugin out there called ”Bindows Plugin”, that help with development of Bindows applications in IntelliJ IDEA. JetBrains changed a number of things in IntelliJ IDEA 8 which broke our plugin. To be honest, we haven’t had the time to fix it and soon IntelliJ IDEA 9 will be released with even more changes introduced. Most notably, JetBrains dropped its support for internal browser windows and we used several of those in the Bindows Plugin.
So we built a new plugin from scratch. It’s called Bindows Tools and you install it normally from the plugin manager inside IntelliJ IDEA. It is a facet that you attach to your project module and includes features such as:
- live templates
- code completion for Bindows xml
- ADF launcher
- support for switching between multiple Bindows distributions (or toolkits as we call them now)
- customizable html launcher files also allows for launching InfiView applications
- cross platform support (Windows, Mac and Linux)
- multiple browsers support
In addition to this, JetBrains has added some great new JavaScript and Bindows aware features since IntelliJ IDEA v7.
To try the plugin, download IntelliJ IDEA v9 ultimate (ideaIU-90.xxx).
The pre-release version can be found here: http://www.jetbrains.net/confluence/display/IDEADEV/Maia+EAP
The plugin homepage in JetBrains plugin repository is here: http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=4503
And our page with information about the plugin can be found here:
http://www.bindows.net/documentation/tools/intellij_plugin/
A cool, short movie describing InfiView’s unique memory management technology.
InfiView - Infinite Memory Feature Presentation from infiview on Vimeo.
If you like it, please share with others (blog, tweet, email, etc.)
And don’t forget, the InfiView Developer Kit is still provided for FREE.
Don’t miss on this special!
Just go to www.InfiView.com and click on the Download button.
Enjoy 
A cool, short movie describing the capabilities of InfiView’s Layers technology.
Watch it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep21_JIJP44
If you like it, please share with others (blog, tweet, email, etc.)
And don’t forget, the InfiView Developer Kit is still provided for FREE.
Don’t miss on this special!
Just go to www.InfiView.com and click on the Download button.
Enjoy
Due to the huge success of InfiView 2.0 (beta) we decided to provide the InfiView Developer Kit for FREE (usually priced at $195).
The kit comes with 12 months of free updates.
This is a special, limited time offer.
Don’t miss on this special!
Just go to www.InfiView.com and click on the Download button.
We released a new version of the FREE Bindows gauges
(http://www.bindows.net/free_gauges/).
The Bindows gauges can be used with IE 5.5+ and Firefox, and now, also with WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari-4.
If you like the Bindows gauges - don’t be shy and tweet about it
Watch it at: www.InfiView.com
If you like it, please share with others (blog, tweet, email, etc.)
Enjoy
Today we proudly introduce InfiView 2.0 beta (http://www.infiview.com/).
This version is based on Bindows 4.0 and includes several major additions:
- Support for WebKit browsers (such as Safari-4 and Chrome)
- Support of IE8
- Support for nested groups
- Support for external resources
- Simplified launcher format
- New event actions
You can download a free evaluation package at: http://www.infiview.com/download/
Customers with covered maintenance will receive the full retail version automatically.
Today a customer made me aware of the fact that we have no sample for
creating Bindows apps using ASP .Net. He wanted a sample on how to add a
gauge and setting dynamic properties in the XML definition.
Of course we need ASP .Net samples. The forum can be seen as a sample on
server communication, but it uses Perl for the backend. I decided to make
a small and simple, yet instructive sample. I hope I was successful.
An application generated from dynamic sources is not much different from one
made of static sources. You still need an ‘HTML file’ and an ‘XML file’.
The difference is that both these ‘files’ are generated on demand and their
content can be different from one request to another based on server logic.
This sample was made using the free gauges. You can download them
here.
It is not difficult to translate the lessons learned in this sample to a
full Bindows application (ADF). Just replace the script in the ‘HTML file’
with application.start(…) or biExec(…) just as you would with static
HTML and XML sources.
For this sample my ‘HTML file’ is Default.aspx, the file that is
automatically generated by the WebSite project template. I edited its
content with the following:
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<!-- Load free Bindows Gauges package -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="bindows_gauges/bindows_gauges.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is a very simple sample displaying a gauge.</p>
<div id="gaugeDiv" style="width: 250px; height: 250px;"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var gauge = bindows.loadGaugeIntoDiv("Gauge.aspx", "gaugeDiv");
function setNeedleValue(nValue) {
gauge.needle.setValue(nValue);
gauge.value.setText(nValue);
}
// setNeedleValue(25);
gauge.unit.setText("[kW]");
</script>
</body>
</html>
Then I added a new aspx file (Gauge.aspx) using a random template. 
This
also created a code-behind file (Gauge.aspx.cs) that I deleted. Because I
deleted that I also edited the file header of the aspx file to remove the
reference. All I kept was this bit:
<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
In the content I pasted the sample gauge from the free gauges package and
edited it up a bit to suit my purposes. I added a <% %>
section at the top, where I initialized some C# variables:
<%
// Two values setting the start locations for warning hints on the gauge scale.
// These could be configured from user preferences.
int warnLow = 25;
int warnHigh = 180;
int value = 125;
// Error handling / range assertions.
if (warnLow > warnHigh)
throw new ArgumentException("The low range must be less than the high range.");
else if (warnHigh < 0 || warnLow < 0 || value 300 || warnLow > 300 || value > 300)
throw new ArgumentException("Values must be between 0 - 300.");
%>
Further down in the gauge XML I referenced these variables. Here’s an example:
<Gauge2RadialScale startValue="0" endValue="300"> <!-- Needle --> <Gauge2RadialNeedle id="needle" value="<%=value%>" stroke="#000000" strokeWidth="3" innerRadius="0" innerWidth="40" outerRadius="360" outerWidth="5"> <Gauge2RadialNeedle.Filler> <Gauge2RadialGradientFiller color1="#808080" color2="#000000"/> </Gauge2RadialNeedle.Filler> </Gauge2RadialNeedle> </Gauge2RadialScale>
Download entire web site source code (ZIP).
Browsers have changed since the first menu implementations of Bindows were created. New restrictions caused various issues for our old menu implementations. For Bindows 4.0, I have been working on a brand new implementation written with these restrictions in mind. As a bonus, we now have nicer themes and we can expand the range of browsers we support. I hope you like what we’ve created.
In Bindows 3.0 (and previous versions) we had two different implementations for menus, XUL popups for Firefox and WebFX DHTML Menus 4 for Internet Explorer. These implementations allowed menus to be displayed anywhere on the screen. In Bindows 4.0 we have discarded these implementations and wrote a brand new one. Apart from unifying the two browsers, there are few additional reasons for this.
The ability to display a popup anywhere can be used maliciously (e.g. by hiding and impersonating an element of the main browser window). Since these implementations were first created, browser security patches have forbidden popups from being displayed outside the window (or even the frame) where they were created. As a result, Bindows menus that were placed near the bottom edge of the window/frame displayed some strange behavior. We were able to solve several of these issues, but some proved too difficult.
Bindows 4.0 introduces support for WebKit based browsers (i.e. Safari and Google Chrome). Neither of the menu implementations would work for these browsers, so we would have to add a new implementation anyway. We might as well write one that would work for all browsers, and solve our menu issues at the same time.
As a result of the new implementation there has been one major API change. The left and top properties no longer relate to the screen, but to the parent component (which is usually the BiApplicationWindow).
Two new methods have been added: popupAtComponent(oComponent) and popupAtMouse(oMouseEvent). The first sets the component property and displays the menu just below oComponent. The latter uses the mouse coordinates (from oMouseEvent) to display the menu.
The fact that we have a single implementation for all supported browsers means we also have only one set of CSS styles (for each theme), which applies to all users. When we created our brand new themes for Bindows 4.0, we took this opportunity to revamp the theme properties for menus, making the CSS classes consistent with the rest of Bindows. Your old themes will not be compatible with Bindows 4.0 without some changes. The good news is that we have many compatible themes, free to download at http://www.bindows.net/download/themes/.
We are proud to release Bindows 4.0 today.
The release comes after the longest and most thorough beta program (three beta rounds) in the Bindows history.
Bindows 4.0 includes four major additions:
* A completely redesigned menu system - best in the market
* Initial support for new browsers (IE8, FF3, WebKit 525+, Chrome, upcoming Safari version)
* Exciting new looks - 6 new themes and a powerful theme engine (so you can create your own)
* Enable development of complete Ajax applications without writing a single line of JavaScript!
For a comprehensive description of the new features:
http://www.bindows.net/documentation/40/
Bindows customers with covered maintenance, will receive the FULL retail version automatically.
Bindows 4.0 beta program participants are eligible to purchase developer licenses at a 50% discount, until March 10, 2009 (to purchase, please contact sales@bindows.net).
As always, we would be glad to hear your thoughts and comments.
Enjoy the new version.
The Bindows Team
For quite some time now, I’ve been working on improving the looks of Bindows. I’ve lost count of how many theme variations I created in order to find the right one(s). Now that it’s done I’m probably not touching Photoshop nor CSS for a while…
Over a year ago we set out to do some major improvements to Bindows and look and feel was one of the core things. Another one was the Actions stuff that I wrote a bit about in an earlier post.
In the betas of the 4.0, we added a whole series of themes that one can use with Bindows and now, in the final release, we complete the journey and replace the default look with a, IMHO, really cool one. It doesnt really have a lot of fancy stuff but just the right balance between cool and useful.
Bindows 4 is out there today, I hope you’ll enjoy it
Chongqing Huidu Technology Co., Ltd.
We are proud to introduce our reseller in China for Bindows, BindowsFaces and InfiView - Chongqing Huidu Technology Co., Ltd.
As official Bindows reseller, Chongqing Huidu Technology will also provide localized Bindows technical support for the Chinese market.
For full contact details, see our Worldwide Partners page.
Bindows Labs has added two exciting projects to its list:
* Bindows support for Chrome. We develop it as part of the Bindows 4.0 beta program and so far are pleased by its performance.
* A Visual Designer for Bindows. Following multiple enthusiastic requests from our customers, we are developing a technology that will enable quick and easy design of the GUI for Bindows applications.
We do not have planned public release dates yet.
If you would like to be a closer part of the process (alpha, beta, etc.) please email me at “ran @ bindows.net”.
BindowsFaces and its excellent support of Sun GlassFish technology is now featured in the official Sun GlassFish Technology Partner page:
http://www.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/gf-isv-partners.jsp
More exciting news coming soon (check at http://www.bindows.net/BindowsFaces/).
Ran
BindowsFaces latest beta version is: BindowsFaces beta 0806, released on June 5, 2008
This version provides the following new and improved features:
* Comet Support - BindowsFaces now includes an API for implementing Comet support for different server environments. An adapter for the GlassFish Server is included in the BindowsFaces package.
* Ajax Navigation - BindowsFaces makes use of the JSF navigation mechanism but does not “leave” the current AJAX application.
* Live Scrolling - When a larger number of rows is to be loaded into a data grid the loading time suffer, live scrolling a method to avoid slow user interfaces. BindowsFaces now supports live scrolling in the Grid component.
* dataTable population - BindowsFaces now supports standard dataTable population constructions using the column component.
* Custom Classes - BindowsFaces enables you to use Bindows custom classes or entire applications that you developed in a JSF environment.
* Themes - BindowsFaces now supports the Bindows themes (Click to see the new cool Bindows themes.)
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LINKS:
On June 6, 2008, we released the latest beta version of Bindows™ 4.0!
Bindows™ 4.0 (beta 0806) includes four major additions:
* Enable development of complete Ajax applications without writing a single line of JavaScript!
* A completely redesigned menu system - best in the market
* Exciting new looks - 6 new themes and a powerful theme engine (so you can create your own)
* Initial support for new browsers (IE8, FF3, Safari)
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To see the new themes: Bindows Themes
For more details on this exciting version: Bindows 4.0
To download a free evaluation package: Evaluation - Bindows™ 4.0 (beta)
