About Web Clients

Users can access forms in the Mongoose-based application using any of these clients:

• The Windows-based WinStudio "Smart Client" – Includes Design Mode and runs in a Windows environment; installed from a CD/download or with Click-Once.
• A web-browser-based WinStudio "Smart Client" – Includes Design Mode and runs in a Windows environment using Internet Explorer; installed with Click-Once; can be used with Infor Ming.le.
• A browser-based "Web Client" –  HTML5 client that can run in all common browsers on all popular devices; can be used with Infor Ming.le.
• A "lightweight Web Client" – A specialized version of the Web Client optimized to run on mobile devices.

Web clients must be accessed by means of specially formatted URLs. For more information, see Creating URLs to Access the Web Clients.

NOTE: The lightweight web client is not used for SyteLine Mobile forms. For more information about SyteLine Mobile, see Setting Up SyteLine Mobile Access.

The rest of this topic addresses the similarities and differences between the web clients and the smart clients, as well as the further capabilities and limitations of the two web clients:

• Similarities
• Differences
• User controls in web clients
• Diagnostics support in web clients
• Further limitations of the lightweight web client

Similarities between the smart client and the web clients

For the most part, the web client can do anything that the smart client can do in "Runtime Mode". You can use it to access forms, manipulate data, save data, and so on. This means that, for the typical end user, switching back and forth between the smart client and a web client is relatively easy and comfortable.

Both clients have a similar user interface based on current Infor standards. This includes the layout and display of the menus, main toolbar, icons, and other UI elements. All components on forms also display in a similar fashion in both types of clients.

Differences between the smart client and the web clients

The primary difference is that, where the smart client has a "Design Mode" in which developers can develop forms and applications in Mongoose, the web clients are not able to run in Design Mode. For more information about Design Mode, see About the Design Mode User Interface.

Web clients also do not support the diagnostics tools available in the smart client. For more information, see Diagnostics support below.

In addition, other limitations that web clients have, compared with the smart client, include these:

• Several forms are not currently supported in the web clients:
• The Web Browser form
• The User Calendar form

  Mongoose, however, provides enhanced capabilities for calendar-related functionality in the form of a Calendar component that can be used in the web clients.

• The Replication Document Inbox form
• The Replication Document Outbox form
• Browse buttons are disabled on forms that have them.

  On the License Management form, for example, you cannot browse to a license file; you must access the license file outside of the Mongoose application environment and then copy and paste the contents of that file into the License Document field.

• The web clients do not support the "auto-insert" (*) row in grids.
• Where the smart client supports both a tabbed form layout and a non-tabbed layout option, the web clients support only a tabbed layout.
• Because web browsers typically use the default system language settings, if you customize the regional language settings in your Mongoose-based application to alter the display formats for dates, numbers, and times, these customized changes show up in the smart client but not in a web client.
• The web clients do not support the use of the response types Execute Exe or Goto Explorer Folder for form event handlers. Other response types are supported.
• The web clients do not support all the options under User Preferences that are available to the smart client. For more information, see Setting User Preferences in the WinStudio client and Setting User Preferences in a Web Client.
• The web clients do not support some aspects and attributes of themes. The web clients do recognize nearly all theme settings related to component styling, including foreground colors, background colors, fonts, and required field indicators. They do not recognize settings pertaining to the Explorer, tabbed layout, group boxes, notebook tabs, or the display of the main menus.
• Double-clicking and right-clicking are not supported in mobile forms, that is, forms that use a .mobi extension.

Web clients and user controls

Earlier versions of user controls—that is, user controls designed primarily to work within a "winforms" (smart client) environment—generally do not work in web clients. You can, however, update your user controls to take advantage of the web user control functionality now available. For more information, see About User Control Components and Edit Web User Control Assets Dialog Box.

Alternatively, you can make a User Control component work in both the smart client and the web clients by retaining the winforms assembly and also specifying a web assembly and URL. The web assembly contains a non-winforms class derived from our WSUserControlBase class, or by implementing the interface. This implrements the server-side communications between the WinStudio Runtime Service and your code.

You can write a web page which communicates with our web browser infrastructure using a javascript API that includes the ability to post requests back to the WinStudio Runtime Service in the browser.

The web assembly gets deployed on the web-rendering web server. The web content can then be deployed wherever you want.

Diagnostics support

The web clients do not support the same set of diagnostics tools that are supported in the smart client. However, if you need to use diagnostics capabilities on the web server, use this procedure:

1. On the web server for the web client, edit the user preferences XML file for the user to be granted diagnostics privileges.

   These files are located in the C:\ProgramData\Mongoose folder. ProgramData is a hidden folder, so you will need to unhide it to see the folder and its contents. The naming format for each user preference file is:

   appNamePrefsuserName

   where:

   • appName is the name of your Mongoose-based application.
   • userName is the user ID of the user being given diagnostics privileges.
2. Find the section in the XML file for "Diagnostics".
3. Enable the settings you want by changing the value of the elements from 1 to 0.
4. Run the Log Monitor:
   • For a Windows Server 2008 machine, select Start > All Programs > Infor > Tools > Log Monitor.  
   • For a Windows Server 2012 machine, find Log Monitor under Apps.

Now, when the user logs in to a configuration for that application, the WinStudio diagnostics data displays in the Log Monitor.

Further limitations of the lightweight client

Because the lightweight version of the web client is designed specifically to work on mobile devices, it has been optimized to load and render Mongoose forms more quickly. In addition, some component types have been modified to make them more "mobile friendly."

Specifically, the lightweight web client:

• Does not recognize theme settings at all.
• Cannot display Fusion charts.
• Must use the red asterisk as a required field indicator. Colored fields, being theme-based, are not honored.
• Cannot display background colors for TBD fields either (also theme-based).
• Removes some of the "Soho" styling; option buttons and check boxes, for example, use browser component styling.
• Uses combo boxes that, by default, do not display the qwerty keyboard when clicking/tapping in the drop-down field. Combo boxes are sized to the device viewport and the form size to make scrolling easy.
• Displays message boxes that are larger, adjust to the viewport width, and remove extra borders. If the message box contains Yes, No, Cancel, or OK responses, users can respond by pressing y, n, c, or o, respectively, on the qwerty keyboard.
• Properly sizes forms to the size of the device on which they are displayed.  
• In general, display text and buttons larger than in other client displays.
• Treats the Enter key in a fashion similar to the Tab key on other client displays, cycling through non-grid and non-read-only components.
• Treats the up arrow key in a fashion similar to Shift-Tab on other client displays, cycling through non-grid and non-read-only components in reverse order.
• Selects all text when clicking/tapping or tabbing into a field.
• Can trigger events on appropriate key presses. When this is the case, Mongoose captures not only the key that was pressed/tapped, but also the field in which the key press/tap took place.

Related Topics

Creating URLs to Access the Web Clients

About User Control Components

Setting User Preferences in a Web Client

About Themes

About Mobile Forms