Since its introduction in 2008, Valence has helped countless IBM i developers create top-notch web and mobile apps using some of the slickest UI technology available.  As the customer base grew, CNX introduced a number of additional development tools to Valence, including AutoCode and App Builder, to make the process of creating and deploying apps as easy as possible.  But despite all this UI wizardry for creating NEW applications, many companies running on IBM i today still rely on core applications rooted in the AS400...Learn More

CNX Announces Major Update to Valence 5.2 at POWERUp 2019  Introduces an HTML5-based 5250 emulator along with other expanded functionality May 20, 2019 ANAHEIM, CA. CNX announced at the COMMON POWERUp 2019 spring conference today the general availability of version 5.2+ (“5.2 Plus”) of the Valence Framework for IBM i. Marking the 16th major update since Valence 1.0 was first introduced in 2008, this latest Valence build brings expanded functionality to core developer components of the software, along with a new...Learn More

If your company’s ERP system dates back to the AS/400 glory days, your users are likely accustomed to running programs that generate “old school” spool file output.  While working with printed reports was quite common in the past, today most users prefer to work in a more paperless fashion, opting for on-screen apps or downloaded spreadsheets wherever possible. In cases  where spool file output is created through RPG logic in conjunction with printer files, Valence 5.2 includes a tool to help you convert the...Learn More

If you’re a Valence developer with a fair amount of 5250 subfile programming under your belt, you certainly don’t miss the days of creatively abbreviating columns and “folding” rows in an effort to squeeze everything your users need into a 24×80 text screen.  By contrast, creating a Valence grid app through Nitro App Builder is so simple and naturally accommodating for large numbers of columns that it can be tempting to include everything under the sun in your grids so users never...Learn More

A big tip-of-the-hat to Seiden Group’s Alan Seiden for this month’s highly useful Valence tip-of-the-month… For all the great UI wizardry we’ve come to know and love in modern JavaScript frameworks such as Ext JS, that love sometimes comes at a bit of a waiting-for-the-app-to-load price, one that’s particularly noticeable when working with a low-bandwidth connection.  The dastardly “spinning wheel delay” has occasionally posed a bit of an annoyance for our own dev team while doing live Valence demonstrations at conference sites sporting less-than-stellar internet speeds. To clarify, modern web architectures rely on pre-loading the...Learn More

Recently I’ve had some fascinating conversations with people regarding Nitro App Builder, the low-code app builder included with Valence.  In case you’ve never heard of it before, Nitro App Builder is a tool that’s quickly taking over as the development method of choice for many apps that would have been coded manually in Valence just a year or two ago.  It creates really useful apps by configuring them interactively, with little or no programming required. I’ve found that some people love...Learn More

Twenty-two years ago today we officially registered CNX as an Illinois corporation (wow, that’s a shocking thing for us to write), so we thought it might be fun to take a short trip down memory lane on this blog post.  So much has transpired in those years that we could write a book, so we will necessarily need to keep it brief here — perhaps one of us will write that book later!   Anyway here it goes: In the early 1990’s...Learn More

Your IBM i HTTP Server powered by Apache is a powerful web-serving system akin to a bank staffed with multiple fast-working tellers. The AJAX requests coming in from your front-end apps are like customers entering the bank to perform transactions. Each “customer” queues up in an orderly line on a first-in/first-out basis, and is serviced by the next available “teller” as soon as they’re finished dealing with the prior customer. The tellers in this analogy are the CGI jobs you can see...Learn More

Just about every business has a situation where users need to perform a single process against multiple items in one pass.  For example, you might have a list of open invoices that you’d like to flag as ready for payment, or a group of inventory items that you would like to transfer out of a special holding area. Rather than making your users do individual transactions for each invoice that needs to be paid, or each product that needs to be moved, you...Learn More

Older Valence file maintenance apps created through Nitro AutoCode can sometimes exhibit a display problem upon migration to Valence 5.1.  This can also be true for AutoCode-based file maintenance apps created in 5.1 builds prior to 5.1.20171202.0.  The most common symptom is that a portion of the edit/add window displays outside of the portal boundary, as shown here. Figure 1 – Example of partially visible edit/add window in migrated AutoCode app There are two methods to fix this problem.  You...Learn More

Power Servers running IBM i are remarkably stable systems, to such a degree that it’s easy to overlook those rare occasions when something on the system has gone awry and requires operator attention. When an exception does occur, many IBM i sites have third party monitoring tools or home-grown software in place to notify system administrators that an issue has occurred that may require some kind of action.  For instance, if a job goes into MSGW status or an expected process is not running in a particular subsystem, a message...Learn More

Whether you’re a seasoned SQL pro or just learning the ropes of SQL syntax on IBM i, the SQL parser built into Nitro Query App Builder is an invaluable tool you can leverage to quickly generate a web-based report for your users, or even a file maintenance application containing multiple joined files. SQL-based data sources were introduced in Valence 5.1 back in May 2017, and the feature was formally removed from Beta status this month. Assuming you have a basic familiarity with your IBM i database, new...Learn More

One of the most common requirements in a modern business application is the need to present users with easily digested summaries of data in list form.  The ability for inquiring minds to quickly and easily drill down into that summarized data to glean specific details where needed is an added bonus.  As such, the Ext JS Pivot Grid — complete with auto-summing cells and expandable rows — is a fantastic tool for combining summary and detail information together in a highly intuitive user...Learn More