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In continuation of our march towards understanding Rapid Enterprise Architecture, today we will talk about Data Model Layer in WaveMaker.

In any modern day enterprise, there are many data sources that applications integrate to, and these data sources are distributed, diverse and provide varying degrees of real time data.

Modern day applications need easy and sophisticated mechanisms for Data Manipulation and Data Management. WaveMaker abstracts out all the complexity, low level data manipulation needs and presents a unified REST API Layer for any type of Data Source, thereby significantly improving the productivity of an application developer dealing with data management and data integration.

In case of WaveMaker, application can integrate to a variety of data sources. They include,

The diagram below shows a unified architecture, that allows all the data sources (irrespective of its type) to be surfaced to the application as REST APIs.

As an Application Developer, one need not worry about the underlying complexity of the Data Source. WaveMaker simplifies it by presenting a REST APIs / Endpoint to connect to the Data Source and manage it seamlessly.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the data source is then managed by Variables from the application. The Variables are bound to the UI Widgets. In this way, all the complexity of the data source and business logic is hidden from the UI developer and applications can be developed in a faster pace.

When it comes to Database as the Data Source, WaveMaker has built-in features that makes it easier to manage the information model. WaveMaker supports a built-in Database Designer that makes it easy to model the database schema using drag and drop mechanism.

WaveMaker supports auto generation of the ORM layer for the database tables. The objects are then abstracted using a DAO as well as a Service (REST) Layer as shown below.

WaveMaker enables extreme productivity in developing Data Driven Applications. Most of the data driven applications needs faster response, responsive UI, easy data management and real time data visibility. Using the above architecture, WaveMaker easily supports creating UI Widgets (forms, grids, lists, charts etc.) that can be easily bound using REST APIs to any data source on the back-end. Also since all the interaction is REST based, the user experience is seamless by using SPA UI pattern.

Let’s continue our march towards understanding Rapid Enterprise Architecture, in this blog we will cover one of the most visible aspect of modern applications being the User Interface Widgets.

User Interface Widgets play a very important role in both the User Interface Design and the User Experience of the application. Both UI Design and UX Design if done right with users in mind, can make or break application usage.

WaveMaker Platform provides a number of User Interface Widgets out of the box for developers. In case of WaveMaker, the User Interface Widgets not only help in providing beautiful UI out of the box but also are designed to increase the overall productivity of Widget Interactions. For example, by default many of the Widgets give out of box pagination, default selections, security, templates etc.

In doing so, WaveMaker UI Widgets play a critical part in enabling rapid development of applications by enabling a lot more tasks than just front end UI development.

User Interface:
Modern apps dictate both sophistication and variety in terms of out of box widgets. Different use cases dictate various forms of the widgets being used. Widgets need to take care of flexibility and advancement in both form and function. Finally every widget needs to be responsive.  WaveMaker provides all the standard HTML5 widgets from lists, grids, containers, charts, forms, panels, and all other HTML5 controls that an app requires by default in responsive form. Explore the list of widgets. 

Back-end Integrations:
In case of WaveMaker, the widgets also handle the following common functions required in a full stack application,

WaveMaker leverages the concept of Data Binding by Angular, to bind Widgets with Data (View & Model). Widgets can be configured to bind UI Elements to specific fields of the Data Model provided by Variables.

The Variables provide data integration for the widgets. Performs updates and synchronization to the actual data services in the backend. Manages client-side memory efficiently with scopes.
The Variables,

  1. Holds the actual data rendered by the widgets
  2. Data structure used for binding, with attributes and related objects
  3. API source from where the model object is obtained (DB, REST API or Java Services)
  4. Events that control the updates between widgets and actual service, vice versa

In summary, WaveMaker Widgets are highly sophisticated that not only enable creating  beautifully looking UI out of the box for Web and Mobile Apps but also due to its backend functionality they can greatly increase the productivity in developing the applications.

Head over to WaveMaker Rapid Application Development Platform page to learn more about the features and frameworks.

In continuation of the RAD Architecture Series, we are going to focus on Client-side Framework in this post.

Good user interface and usability can have a strong positive impact on the adoption of the application by end users. At the same time, it takes good skills to build good user experience. It is not just science but an art that is mastered by a few.

Developing the UI for web applications has been very sluggish, unresponsive and difficult for many years.  However, in the recent past, with the advancement of client-side technology (JavaScript, browsers, standardization, frameworks), it is now possible to create sophisticated UI. However, it  is important that one selects the right combination to make all this work seamlessly and simplify the developer experience. Otherwise it still can get complex and messy for UI developers.

With WaveMaker Platform, the following aspects were evaluated before selecting the right framework:

And finally the most important one was selecting a framework that had support and backup of a large community of developers, users, and enterprise adoption.

With the above considerations, WaveMaker chose to adopt AngularJS client-side framework. AngularJS was created by Google and has a big following among client-side developers and is backed by a strong community. All applications including web and mobile developed using WaveMaker auto-generate AngularJS code for the client-side user interface.

With WaveMaker, all the client-side UI widgets are wrapped using AngularJS directives.

WaveMaker allows developers to drag and drop these widgets to create a sophisticated user interface. These widgets allow customization using properties and offer greater sophistication in terms of usability and support data binding with any backend sources.  You will learn more about them in the next blog post in this series.

Another advantage of WaveMaker is that developers can customize client-side behavior by writing custom JavaScript as well as importing 3rd-party jQuery or any other JavaScript framework. Head over to the Wavemaker  Rapid Application Development Platform page to learn more about the features and frameworks.

In the next blog post in this series, we will deep dive into the UI widget architecture. Stay tuned!

Modern businesses demand greater agility, speed, and continuous innovation when it comes to applications. Apps are the lifeline for enterprise innovation. Additionally, end-users have raised expectations around usability, availability, and usage of apps. Enterprise developers have to rethink the type of architecture and approach to use while developing web and mobile apps.

Within the industry, analysts use various terms such as Rapid Application Development Platforms, Low-code Development Platforms, etc. to categorize platforms that enable quick and efficient development and delivery of apps.  As we explore such platforms, one subtle yet critical aspect that fosters a highly productive development environment is the app architecture enabled by the platform.

WaveMaker RAD Platform is built on a set of core principles that enables a modern app architecture. In this set of blog posts, we will talk about the various aspects of a modern app architecture enabled by WaveMaker. This is the first post of the series, where we explore the list, and then in subsequent posts, we dive deep into each one of them. Please note that the word app refers to both web as well as mobile applications across all the blog posts in this series.

There are various components of a full-stack application that impact the working and productivity of the application. The choices that are made for each component determine the flexibility and suitability of the overall application for meeting modern business needs.

Fostering modern app architecture by choices made for the following,

In the upcoming posts, we will talk about the choices made by WaveMaker for each of the above. We will also talk about how WaveMaker unifies all the above into a unified platform, thereby, providing maximum productivity for Mobile & Web app development.

So stay tuned, and let's deep dive and create some waves!!