Posted
over 3 years
ago
When you need to evaluate software products: applications, libraries, frameworks... Open source software has a powerful tool to perform the evaluation: the source code. It is like when buying a car, you see the tyres, wheels, doors, interior
... [More]
equipment and so on, but it is worth to open the bonnet and have a look at the engine.
Inspecting the source code you can learn a lot of things about the software and the team who developed it, if there is a disciplined and intelligent group of people behind that software. The things I usually inspect while browsing the source code developed by third parties are:
Is the code is well organized? Does if it follows coding guide lines like this one for java or this one for c#?. Can you can understand what the classes and methods do reading the name? Is the code well commented?Is the code complex? Is it spaghetti code or not. The code is complex when there are classes very big, methods have many parameters, and contains a lot of lines, classes have a lot of dependencies with other classes. An the opossite, the code is simple if classes are small, methods does not contain a lot of lines, you can recognize well known design patterns, there are not duplicated blocks of code.Is the code managed with a version control system and the changes are reflected properly? Does the software have a bug database? Does it provide tests? Does it have a good logging system?If you are an skilled developer or can ask to one, you can also check more things regarding the source code, but with these three aspects you can have a general idea about the source code quality of a software product. It is impressive how your opinion about the general quality of a product can change before and after inspecting the source code. Is it better before to be tied to a software product, to check also the source code. There will be less surprises in the future. [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
An information system has different goals and simplyfing the usually used form creation is one of them. As is known, forms can be simple or complex, depending if they are for internal or external use. A couple of years ago, they were printed on white
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& black. Nowadays many forms are sent via mail, which requieres a better design.
For this porpouse OpenbravoERP uses FOP. FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is an XSL-FO processor written in Java, which provides the feature to convert XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files. It is possible to create very complex forms with colors, tables, headers, footers, different masters on a single document,etc. And even including images, customized fonts, different barcodes, etc.
As one of the most powerfull options, I am going to explain how to add new customized fonts to OpenbravoERP.
We have to:
1-Modify the userconfig.xml configuration file located on AppsOpenbravo/config folder. Include a new entrance for each new font, style and weight.
For example:
<configuration>
<entry>
<key>fontBaseDir</key>
<value>/opt/AppsOpenbravo/fonts</value>
</entry>
<fonts>
<font metrics-file=”LucidaTypewriterRegular.xml” kerning=”yes” embed-file=”LucidaTypewriterRegular.ttf”>
<font-triplet name=”LucidaTypewriter” style=”normal” weight=”normal”/>
</font>
<font metrics-file=”LucidaTypewriterBold.xml” kerning=”yes” embed-file=”LucidaTypewriterBold.ttf”>
<font-triplet name=”LucidaTypewriter” style=”normal” weight=”bold”/>
</font>
</fonts>
</configuration>
2-Copy xml and ttf files to AppsOpenbravo/fonts folder.
If we have the ttf but not the matching xml file we can create it as follows:
java org.apache.fop.fonts.apps.TTFReader example.ttf example.xml
Compile the configuration and copy it to Tomcat:
For example:
compile.development -Dtab=zzzz
And the font is now available to be used on any FOP file.
For example:
<fo:block font-size=”9pt” font-weight=”bold” text-align=”end” font-family=”LucidaTypewriter”>Importe / Amount</fo:block>
Related information: FOP fonts manual (PDF) [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
Hello everybody,
There are some news that happened during the past days:
Miguel Armas from CanaryTek has updated our pre-installed and pre-configured application Virtual appliances to Openbravo version 2.22. They are available from
... [More]
SourceForge. There also step by step on-line instructions.I have been working on Openbravo documentation style guide. It does attempt nor desire to cover all aspects of technical writing. The objective is to be concise and focused for Openbravo documentation writers. Please, feel free to give suggestions or comments in our documentation forum. I also have created a small Help page explaining how to edit documents our Wiki.
Some community members in the Spanish support forum are starting an effort to document Openbravo processes and workflows. There is an early draft is already published.
Also in case the you missed Earthweb has an interesting article Ten Leading Open Source Innovators about companies that are innovative. Not all of them are open source or innovating so much but still very interesting. [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
by
jord...@users.sourceforge.net (Jordi Mas)
The Openbravo project has released the first Openbravo ERP virtual appliances to simplify the Openbravo evaluation process. The appliances are a contribution from Miguel Armas from CanaryTek (Grupo CPD) and are available for the VMware and Xen virtual machines. (0 comments)
Posted
over 3 years
ago
by
jord...@users.sourceforge.net (Jordi Mas)
The Openbravo project has released the first Openbravo ERP virtual appliances to simplify the Openbravo evaluation process. The appliances are a contribution from Miguel Armas from CanaryTek (Grupo CPD) and are available for the VMware and Xen
... [More]
virtual machines.
A virtual appliance is a fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment. Using these appliances users and developers have access to systems that are already setup and ready to run Openbravo ERP.
The appliances were built using the Linux operating system, PostgreSQL database and Openbravo ERP R2.22.
The appliance images are available in Openbravo's download area on SourceForge. There are detailed instructions of how to install the appliances on the Openbravo Wiki site http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/index.php/Virtual_appliances.
Openbravo also offers an on-line demo available at: http://demo.openbravo.com (0 comments) [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
by
jord...@users.sourceforge.net (Jordi Mas)
Dai Bo, Xin.Lv, JeffWang and Fat Dog and another contributors around the http://www.openbravofans.net community have completed the Chinese localization of Openbravo.
This is the second localization completed by the Openbravo community and
... [More]
the fourth available for Openbravo ERP (also available in English and Spanish and Italian).
The Chinese localization can be downloaded from the "Accounts & Translations" Openbravo download section at SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=162271&package_id=192431
Openbravo thanks all contributors for helping us to make a better product. (0 comments) [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
I think it is time to start my own blog and share with all of you the experiences, thoughts and ideas that I have as the CEO of Openbravo. It has been already more than a year since I joined this fantastic company and had the idea to start my own
... [More]
blog from that day onwards.
The idea was so strong that I was about to launch the blog the night we published our code in SourceForge. We had such a heavy workload that I judged at that time that the blog could wait. Today, almost 10 months after, we can not wait anymore and I would like to open this blog with the article I prepared at that time. The title of the post was obviously “Openbravo has gone live” and I continue to believe and feel strong on the reasons why Openbravo will make it happen!. The post prepared said the following:
Today is a great day for all of us, employees and community, since very early in the morning at 02:00 a.m. www.openbravo.com went live!. This website is the corporate website of a company that is committed to change the world of ERPs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). But how come?. The answer is quite easy: combine a great product with open source and a great professional services company and you will get it … the future of open source ERPs opened!.
We know that this will not be as easy and simple as it is to say it but we know that 1) the arguments for change are too powerful to fail and 2) we are ready to make it happen!.
Arguments in favour of a management system really adapted to the needs of SMEs, in favour of not charging for functionalities that aren’t really used, in favour of recognising the critical role of IT services companies (often named as distributors by proprietary software firms), …Our company background with more than five years of history, our vision and plans for the future and our people combining the right set of skills and excitement make us believe that we are ready!.
To finish this first article in our blog, I want to once again share our excitement with all of you; opening-up our ERP to the world; making it available to the community; building-up a professional services company; and directly delivering value to IT integrators and indirectly SMEs really thrills us up!. At this stage, we hope that you share our excitement and YOU JOIN OUR COMMUNITY! [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
We lived the transition from fat clients to light clients. In the client/server era we had the fat client, there was a great computing power at the desktop, a good graphical interface for enterprise applications, and users become very productive. But
... [More]
the Internet era appeared and we needed our applications to be accessed no matter were: at the office, at customer house or even at home. And then we get used the web browser for the application interface, we lost a little of usability and computing power in the client side but we obtained great benefits: central administration for applications, no need to install in the user machine, hundreds of concurrent users, universal availability where ever the user is located, etc.
Now we are living a revolution in the desktop because we have desktop computers with more computing power and with more graphical power. Operating systems and desktop applications look impressive: Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Beryl OpenGL desktop. But the web applications continue with this lack of usability and visual enhancements. My opinion is that the 75% of the success of a product demo is the look and feel of the application, how sexy is the user interface and how many “eye candy” can you show. And we want the best of the two worlds for enterprise applications: Usability, look and feel, computing power, for desktop side. Central administration, universal availability for the web side. And also we want to go further: to have the ability to work offline and access from mobile devices like smart phones.
There are several players in this arena, these players talk about rich clients and about technologies that satisfy all the wishes I wrote in the previous paragraph. There are a huge amount of proposals and some of them look promising: XAML by Microsoft, Flex by Macromedia, XUL by Mozilla, miscellaneous Ajax technologies, Dojo, GWT, etc. There are impressive demos and screenshots.
My question is: What is the right choice? We feel that users are pushing us to make a decision to enhance their user experience. But for the moment all of these technologies are just emerging and I cannot see a clear winner for the next years. Is it better to wait and see? Or do we have to choose and build our own proposal? This is the world of technology and these are the kind of questions we made to ourselves everyday. [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
by
jord...@users.sourceforge.net (Jordi Mas)
Openbravo project announces today Planet Openbravo, a network of weblogs of Openbravo developers and contributors, is already available on-line at http://planet.openbravo.com.
Planet Openbravo is a window into the world, work and lives of
... [More]
Openbravo developers and contributors. Its aim is to keep updated people interested in the development of the Openbravo project. Business, technology, events or community events are some of the subjects that Openbravo bloggers digg into.
Interested individuals can visit the Openbravo planet web site in regular basis or can subscribe to the Planet news feed using RSS readers such as Thunderbird or Google Reader.
Planet Openbravo is built using PlanetPlanet an open souce weblog aggregator widely use in other open source communities. (0 comments) [Less]
Posted
over 3 years
ago
My name is Adrián Romero Corchado, I have been working in technology for more than 12 years. I love Java, Linux, and everything related to technology and open source. I also have a little java application in sourceforge called Tina POS. Please have
... [More]
a look.
I recently joined the engineering department at Openbravo. It is a very good opportunity to work in a very dynamic open source company, there are not too many open source companies here in Spain, and I will write in this blog posts about Openbravo, technology and open source. I expect that this can be a very good experience.
And the last thing, please, forgive my English, I know that I need to practice more and this blog is also an opportunity to improve in this area. ;-) [Less]
