mrc has introduced its latest update to m-Power, a Web 2.0 capability called "Hover" that allows users to view data and drill down into their Web-based business applications without having to click. Instead the information is displayed as the mouse "hovers" over a link.
By running a mouse over any "hover-enabled" link, a user opens a "hover" window that will open to reveal the data records or report for that particular link without any clicking. If that hover window displays an application with a hover-link in it, the method allows for "cascading" that will let the user roll-over that link to reveal another hover window, showing that drilldown information as well.
"With m-Power’s hover feature, your business information is presented exactly as you need it...instantly," says Heather Gately, mrc’s marketing director. "And, this is all without clicking or opening a new browser window."
Say the mouse hovers over a customer number, a window might appear that displays open orders for that customer. If the customer number link is clicked, the hover data will stay and the user can then go hover over the link in the Open Orders window, reading "Update Order.""It's actually more like multiple levels of x-ray vision," says Gately.
mrc’s latest updates have also given m-Power customers the ability to incorporate more and more Web 2.0 technologies.
Here are just a few:
- Cascading Dropdown Lists—Easier way to make dropdowns reliant on one another. For example, let’s say your user needs to select a state, county, and city. m-Power’s cascading dropdown feature will allow your users to select a state from a dropdown menu. When they do, the dropdown list for counties and cities will refresh to show only the valid counties and cities for that state. Then, selecting a county will populate the city dropdown with all of the applicable cities for that particular county.
- Top-Ten Reports—Now it is very easy to create top-ten style lists which will restrict the output to a pre-specified number of records. This is perfect for creating simple reports where you only wish to show a certain set of records, for instance—the top 10 highest sales regions, the five worst-selling products, or three most profitable distributors.
- Importing Applications—One of the key features for all Web 2.0 applications is the ease for importing applications between one another. This makes it that much easier to create dashboard applications, pulling in a wide variety of Web applications, not just those built with m-Power. It also makes it easy to develop comprehensive management screens from relatively simple component applications.
- Web Pages sent through email have the same look—Web 2.0 applications contain all of the style information directly within the body of the page so applications are designed for maximum portability. Whether your page is run off the server at run time, sent via email, or saved to your local PC, the page will always have the same look and feel. This feature comes pre-configured and requires no additional configuration.
- Formatted Excel output—Many customers prefer to have reports run directly to an Excel file, but disliked that some formatting was occasionally lost. With Web 2.0 reports, by default, you now have the option of "Formatted Excel" as an output type. You only have to format once, through m-Power’s painting interface, and your formatted report can appear as HTML or open in Excel.
"We knew we were heading toward bringing Web 2.0 capabilities to the Enterprise, and we wanted to make sure our applications had it all. So, we went to our customer base for real-world requests and suggestions, to create a better blueprint for creating comprehensive, easy-to-use report templates.
"The results have given m-Power applications their dual layers of complexity and ease-of-use. And, since our customer base is so wide-and-varied in terms of industry, it’s been really interesting to witness how many of the new features apply universally across the board," adds Gately.
Additional information can be found at: http://mrc-productivity.com. Or, contact mrc via phone at 630.916.0662; via fax at 630.916.0663; via e-mail at
About mrc mrc’s development tool suite, m-Power, is used to create business applications and can run on any platform that supports Java (e.g. OS/400, Linux, Unix, and Windows).
Applications access DB2/400, Oracle, MySQL and MSSQL, or any combination thereof. Using these development tools, users create an endless variety of Java-based business applications from simple queries to reports, to complex custom enterprise systems and dashboards. mrc was a recipient of the 2004 Apex Award for application development, is a long-time IBM Business Partner, and has been producing award-winning development software since 1981.If you'd like to see how easy m-Power is to use, there is free Web trial available where you can build two server-side Java applications (including tutorial) in minutes without any knowledge of Java and nothing more than a Web browser. Take the challenge at: www.mrconlinelab.com .
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