Qodly Studio

Developer Preview

Qodly Studio in 4D is currently in the Developer Preview phase. It should not be used in production.

Qodly Studio is part of the Qodly platform, dedicated to the development of web business applications designed, tested and published entirely in the Qodly Cloud.

As of 4D v20 R2, you can use Qodly Studio directly from 4D to build modern and sophisticated web interfaces that you can easily integrate to your existing 4D projects and deploy on premise.

With Qodly Studio, you will discover a totally new web UI, get familiar with the concept of datasources, and learn how to:

• create webforms by placing components on a page
• map components to data
• trigger 4D code by configuring events
• and much more.

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The use of Qodly Studio in 4D requires a specific license. Qodly Studio options and menu items won't appear if the license is not activated.

Configuration

Requirements

Browser

Qodly Studio supports the following web browsers:

• Chrome
• Edge
• FireFox

The recommended resolution is 1920x1080.

4D application

• Development: 4D v20 R2 or higher
• Deployment: 4D Server v20 R2 or higher
• Qodly Studio only works with 4D projects (binary databases are not supported).

Enabling access to Qodly Studio

By default, access to Qodly Studio is not granted.

Qodly Studio is served by the WebAdmin web server and displays data from 4D projects handled by the 4D web server.

To enable access to Qodly Studio, you must explicitly allow it at two levels:

• at 4D level (4D or 4D Server)
• at project level

If one of the two levels (or both) are not enabled, access to Qodly Studio is denied (a 403 page is returned).

At 4D level

As a first security level, you need to allow access to Qodly Studio on the WebAdmin web server.

This setting applies to the 4D application (4D or 4D Server) on the host machine. All projects opened with that 4D application take this setting into account.

Keep this option unchecked if you want to make sure no access to Qodly Studio is allowed on the application.

Check this option to make it possible to access Qodly Studio. However, you still need to enable it at every project level.

Additionally, you can configure the WebAdmin web server's HTTP/HTTPS port used.

note

After any change to these settings, you must restart the WebAdmin web server for the new configuration to be effective.

At project level

After you have enabled access to Qodly Studio at the 4D level, you need to explicitly designate every project that can be accessed. The Enable access to Qodly Studio option must be enabled on the Web Features page of the 4D application's Settings.

Keep in mind that user settings can be defined at several levels, and that priorities apply.

Activating authentication

Authentication on the WebAdmin web server is granted using an access key. For more details, see Access key.

Enabling rendering

To enable the rendering of webforms that are created in Qodly Studio, the following options must be set.

• The 4D project's Settings > Web > Web Features > Expose as REST server option must be activated
• The 4D web server must be running

When rendering webforms in the Web Studio, the renderer will connect to the 4D web server through HTTP or HTTPS, depending on the settings, following the same HTTP/HTTPS connection pattern as for the WebAdmin web server.

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See this page for information on how to render webforms in Qodly.

Note that when you click on the "Preview in a new tab" button, a tab will open at IP:port/$lib/renderer/?w=WebFormName on your machine.

Keep in mind that the Qodly Web Studio runs through the 4D WebAdmin web server. When you use Qodly Web Studio as a developer, even when you preview a webform in the studio, you're using the 4D WebAdmin web server. This allows you to see dataclasses, functions and attributes that are not exposed as REST resources for example (they are greyed out).

However, webform rendering happens outside 4D Web Studio, and is served by the standard 4D web server. In this situation, your web application cannot access assets that are not exposed as REST resources. See Exposed vs non-exposed functions and Exposing tables for more information on how to expose assets.

note

Renderer buttons are hidden if the configuration options are not activated.

WebAdmin server and deployment

For deployment, the WebAdmin server is not necessary. End-user access to your web application made with Qodly Studio is based on the 4D REST protocol, and as such, it works as through a conventional 4D remote application.

Using project methods

We recommend using class functions over project methods. Only class functions can be called from components. However, you can still use your project methods in Qodly Studio in two ways:

• You can call your methods from class functions.
• You can directly execute your methods from the Qodly Explorer.

Opening Qodly Studio

The Qodly Studio page is available when the WebAdmin web server is running and authentication is activated (see above).

There are two ways to access Qodly Studio:

• from your 4D single-user application, go to Design > Qodly Studio.... If the WebAdmin web server is already running, depending on its configuration, your default browser opens at IPaddress:HTTPPort/studio or IPaddress:HTTPSPort/studio. Otherwise, you will be prompted if you want to start the WebAdmin web server first.

• on a browser, with the WebAdmin web server running (launched from 4D or 4D Server), enter the following address:

IPaddress:HTTPPort/studio

or:

IPaddress:HTTPSPort/studio

For example, after launching a local web server on port 7080, type this address in your browser:

localhost:7080/studio

You will then be prompted to enter the access key to access Qodly Studio.

Using Qodly Studio

The official Qodly Studio documentation is available on the Qodly documentation website.

You can rely on this documentation and its associated resources for developing web applications powered by webforms. However, depending on implementation stage, 4D developers will either use Qodly Studio or 4D IDE.

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There is no direct compatibility between apps implemented with 4D and apps implemented with Qodly.

Feature comparison

	Qodly Studio for 4D developers using 4D IDE	Qodly Studio for Qodly developers
View and edit tables (dataclasses), attributes and relations	4D Structure Editor(1)	Qodly Studio Model Editor
Webforms	Qodly Studio Webform Editor	Qodly Studio Webform Editor
Desktop forms	4D IDE	not supported
Programming language	4D Language featuring ORDA	QodlyScript featuring ORDA
Coding IDE	4D IDE code editor/VS Code with 4D extension(2)	Qodly Studio code editor
Debugger	4D IDE debugger	Qodly Studio debugger
REST/Web roles and privileges	roles.json direct edit/Qodly Studio roles and privileges editor	Qodly Studio role and privileges editor

(1) If you click on the Model button in Qodly Studio, nothing happens. (2) When you open some 4D code in Qodly Studio, syntax coloring is not available and a "Lsp not loaded" warning is displayed.

Project management

In accordance with the management of 4D projects, only the following usages are supported:

• development with Qodly Studio must be done using 4D (single-user).
• deployment of 4D applications powered with Qodly webforms must be done using 4D Server.

Known issue

• In the current implementation, building merged 4D applications (stand-alone and server) that use Qodly webforms requires that the .4dz packed architecture be disabled, otherwise 404 errors are returned. If you build such merged applications, make sure you set the PackProject XML key to False in the buildApp.4DSettings file.

From QodlyScript to 4D Language

4D developers can use the Qodly Studio documentation to learn how to design their webforms in Qodly Studio. Code examples are provided in QodlyScript, but since QodlyScript inherits from the 4D Language, you won't be lost. Converting QodlyScript code to 4D language is easy, it only requires some adaptations:

Variable names

QodlyScript only support local variables, so variables in QodlyScript examples are not prefixed with $. In the 4D code, make sure to prefix variable names with $ so that they are identifed as local variables by 4D.

Symbols and keywords

Some basic symbols, operators, and keywords differ in QodlyScript and must be adapted to the 4D Language. They are listed below:

QodlyScript	4D Language	Comment
,	;	argument separator
=	:=	assignment operator
==	=	comparison operator
declare	#Declare
switch	Case of
constructor	Class constructor
extends	Class extends
end	End for, End For each, End if, End case, End use, End while
forEach	For each
string	Text	var type
number	Real	var type

Some other items have a different case (ex: this vs This) but can be pasted directly in 4D code.

Command names

QodlyScript command names are written in camel case without spaces. You might need to adapt these commands to the 4D Language.

• Usually, you will only have to simply convert names. For example, newCollection in QodlyScript is New collection in 4D Language.
• However, some command have been renamed for a better compliance. They are listed below:

QodlyScript	4D Language
atan	Arctan
highestProcessNumber	Count tasks
callChain	Get call chain
objectClass	OB Class
objectCopy	OB Copy
objectEntries	OB Entries
instanceOf	OB Instance of
objectIsDefined	OB Is defined
objectIsEmpty	OB Is empty
objectIsShared	OB Is shared
objectKeys	OB Keys
objectRemove	OB REMOVE
objectValues	OB Values
sqrt	Square root

Example

• QodlyScript code:

 declare(entitySelection : 4D.EntitySelection)  
 var dataClass : 4D.DataClass
 var entity, duplicate : 4D.Entity
 var status : object
 dataClass=entitySelection.getDataClass()
 forEach(entity,entitySelection)
    duplicate=dataClass.new()
    duplicate.fromObject(entity.toObject())
    duplicate[dataClass.getInfo().primaryKey]=null
    status=duplicate.save()
 end

• 4D Language equivalent code:

 #DECLARE ( $entitySelection : 4D.EntitySelection )  
 var $dataClass : 4D.DataClass
 var $entity; $duplicate : 4D.Entity
 var $status : Object
 $dataClass:=$entitySelection.getDataClass()
 For each($entity;$entitySelection)
    $duplicate:=$dataClass.new()
    $duplicate.fromObject($entity.toObject())
    $duplicate[$dataClass.getInfo().primaryKey]:=Null
    $status:=$duplicate.save()
 End for each

Offline use

You can develop with Qodly Studio while your computer is not connected to the internet. In this case however, the following features are not available:

• Templates: the Template library is empty
• UI tips: they are not displayed when you click on icons.

About license usage

To render webforms, you must have an available license, as rendering a webform opens a session on the project database's main web server.

URL Schemes

Qodly Studio's URL scheme configuration (HTTP and HTTPS) determines how many licenses are retained when rendering webforms. With the appropriate configuration, you can avoid unnecessary license retaining.

As explained in the configuration section, the WebAdmin web server provides a secured web access to Qodly Studio. On the other hand, the renderer communicates with the 4D web server of the database using REST requests. As such, it behaves like a conventional 4D Client.

If you run the renderer from the Qodly Studio and these two web servers are not reached through the same URL scheme (HTTP or HTTPS), it might lead to wrong licence counting.

Example

1. You run the Qodly Studio on an HTTPS URL scheme (e.g. https://127.0.0.1:7443/studio/)

2. The web server of your database is started only on an HTTP port.

3. In Qodly Studio, you click on the rendering icon. You are warned that the two web servers are started on different schemes, but despite this you click on the Confirm button.

As a result, two licenses are retained.

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You can enable/disable the display of the renderer pop over using a Qodly Studio user setting.

SameSite attribute

The behavior previously described is due to the session cookie of the 4D web server. This session cookie has a SameSite attribute that determines if the session cookie is sent to the web server.

If the SameSite attribute's value is Strict (default), the session cookie is not sent to the web server, so a new session is opened each time a page is rendered or refreshed.

For more information on the SameSite attribute, check out this blog post.

Recommendations

To avoid using more licenses than necessary, we recommend doing one of the following:

• Run the renderer on another browser tab (by entering the rendered URL of your Web form: IP:port/$lib/renderer/?w=WebFormName).
• Ensure the Qodly Studio and your database are reached on the same URL scheme.
• Use the Lax value for the session cookie of your project database's web server.

Hello, World

This 5-minute video provides a "Hello World" example and covers how to enable access to the studio, create a basic interface, and configure an event that greets the user by their name: