Is there any way to connect EWB to a BAAS server such as Parse?  I would like to display
and change data stored on Parse.

Godfrey wrote:

> Is there any way to connect EWB to a BAAS server such as Parse?  I
> would like to display and change data stored on Parse.

If you mean Parse as in https://www.parse.com/products/core then it
will work fine. To a point at least. Push notifications are an issue,
but fundamentally this is just a way to call a service using AJAX, and
that is "easy". You'd have trouble with UI stuff, and the notifications
would need you to use PhoneGap and perhaps a module to interact with
the notification system, but if it is pure data access, then no problem.

(If you search back for the RemObjects SDK information, where an
external javascript module is referenced, that shows how you can do
this in a simple manner.)

--

Matthew Jones

If you mean Parse as in https://www.parse.com/products/core then it
will work fine. To a point at least. Push notifications are an issue,
but fundamentally this is just a way to call a service using AJAX, and
that is "easy". You'd have trouble with UI stuff, and the notifications
would need you to use PhoneGap and perhaps a module to interact with
the notification system, but if it is pure data access, then no problem.

(If you search back for the RemObjects SDK information, where an
external javascript module is referenced, that shows how you can do
this in a simple manner.)

Matthew Jones

Yes I want to use https://Parse.com.  Sorry I am not that familiar with AJAX.  Can I use the REST API
to store and modify data.  Dont need to use Push messages at this point.

Thanks
Godfrey

Godfrey wrote:

> Yes I want to use https://Parse.com.  Sorry I am not that familiar
> with AJAX.  Can I use the REST API to store and modify data.  Dont
> need to use Push messages at this point.

AJAX is basically using REST (or similar) to access data in the
background. But yes, using REST is easy using the built in
TServerRequest and TServerRequestQueue. I used it a lot in one of my
(now defunct) applications.

--

Matthew Jones

AJAX is basically using REST (or similar) to access data in the
background. But yes, using REST is easy using the built in
TServerRequest and TServerRequestQueue. I used it a lot in one of my
(now defunct) applications.
--
Matthew Jones

Thanks, that sounds good.  One problem I may have, is how to generate reports, when I dont
have my own server. I understand if you have your own server, you can create a report
as PDF and the client can view it.

Godfrey

Godfrey wrote:

> Thanks, that sounds good.  One problem I may have, is how to generate
> reports, when I dont have my own server. I understand if you have
> your own server, you can create a report as PDF and the client can
> view it.

Tim mentioned recently that you can generate HTML in a string, and then
assign it to a TPage content. That may be one way, if perhaps a bit
complex. I think I'd use a template on my web server, load that into a
string, fill in templated fields, and assign to TPage. If you keep it
simple, it would work okay.

On one desktop application, I had templates that have things like
<h1>%TITLE%</h1>
and the code searches for % and inserts the appropriate values. If you
want to get fancy, you can have %LOOPSTART% which then is cycled until
you get to %LOOPEND%, which allows nicely done table rows to run.

What is nice about this is that the template can be customised and
enhanced easily, while the processing is the same. (I looked to see if
there is a sample of my output on the web for this, but can't find it.)

--

Matthew Jones