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PHP 8.1 is now supported + Users can join multiple groups + Custom Code API - V. 11.7 is out

Posted by Eugenio on 18 Aug 2022

Dear users,

it took more than expected but DaDaBIK finally supports PHP 8.

The ionCube loaders for PHP 8.1 are now available so you can run this new DaDaBIK 11.7 Elba on PHP 8.1, the latest stable version of PHP.

PHP 8.0 at the moment is not supported, maybe it will be in the future. PHP 7 is still supported.

There is more:

1) Users can now join multiple groups

This new version comes with a huge improvement, sponsored by one of our customer, related to permissions management: a user can now join multiple groups.

This means each user belongs to a (main) group plus one or more (optional, additional) groups.

How do permissions work now?

The permissions for a user will be computed considering all the groups the user belongs to (main group + additional groups), using a most permissive strategy. You can check the resulting permissions for each user in the new Permissions -> Show user Permissions page. All the details in the documentation, chapter "Permissions based on multiple groups"

By default this feature is enabled, you can disable it by setting $enable_multiple_groups_permissions to 0.

2) Custom Code API
A set of API functions will be released to make your custom code leaner, more readable and secure. In V 11.7, the first function, get_record_details(), has been released. In one code line you can get the field values of a record belonging to any of the tables you have in your database, without directly executing SQL queries. For example here I am getting all the info (name, address, ... ) of the customer having id 10:

$customer_info = get_record_details('customers', 'id', 10);

Finally a small but time-saving improvement: If the database $db_name you specify in your config_custom file doesn't exist, DaDaBIK tries to create it. This allows to create an application with DaDaBIK without using any external tool, not even for the creation of an empty database (experimental feature currently available for MySQL only).

There are also other changes and several bugs fixed so as usual I suggest to have a look at the change log.

You can buy your new license here.

You can upgrade your existing license (for free, if you are in your free upgrade period) here.

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

I created a complete, enterprise-ready, custom CRM application in 2 hours (video)

Posted by Eugenio on 11 Jul 2022

Dear users,
the most comprehensive tutorial on our YouTube channel ("Create a Web Application in 25 minutes without coding ...", 16k+ views) is quite old (2017) and still based on DaDaBIK 8.

The latest version of DaDaBIK, 11.6 Elba, has a lot of additional features so I thought it was time for a completely new and improved version of the video.

I decided to build a complete CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application with DaDaBIK, trying to exploit all its features, it has been fun and challenging!

The result is a two-hours video: I'll guide you, step by step, to create this application, starting from scratch. I think it is extremely useful for new users and it's also a good refresher for power users (it has 22 chapters, so you can easily watch the topic you are interested in).

This first 2h part is completely no-code while a second (and last) part of this tutorial will be published in the near future and will show some low-code development (custom functions, buttons, hooks, conditional fields, row level custom filters) that will refine and improve the CRM app. I will also show the development of a CRM funnel using an external library that I will integrate into DaDaBIK.

If you enjoy the video, don't forget to hit the like button :) this increases the chances that other people in our little niche will see the video and, as a result, can make our community grow, which is beneficial for all of us.

Finally, I'd like to create a series from this video: in the future, for example, I could show how to build an inventory management system or a library management system. Please let's discuss in the YouTube comments which application (if any) you would like me to build, using DaDaBIK.

Here is the video:

Have a good summer!

Best,
--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

V 11.6 is out: save time with Permission Templates + Warning for unsaved data

Posted by Eugenio on 14 Jun 2022

Dear users,
V 11.6 is out with two main improvements.

Permissions Templates
One of the most tedious tasks when I develop a DaDaBIK app with many user groups is setting permissions for all of them when I create a new table or add a new field.

The new permissions templates are literally a time saver.

Let me give you an example, let's say you have three groups (IDs 1,2,3) and when you install a new table or add a new field you want to assign all the permissions to group 1, all the permissions except delete to group 2 and only read permissions to group 3; you can now add this to your config_custom file:

// group 1
// the values you see here (e.g. '111111') are a sequence of 6 numbers representing the table permissions (read, delet, edit, create, details, csv) and a sequence of 7 numbers representing the field permissions (results, edit, create, details, quick search, advanced search, csv)
$permissions_template['table_default'][1] = '111111'; // all the table permissions set to "1" means YES for all
$permissions_template['field_default'][1] = '1111111'; // all the field permissions set to "1" means YES for all

// group 2
$permissions_template['table_default'][2] = '101111'; // all the table permissions set to "1" except from the second (delete)
$permissions_template['field_default'][2] = '1111111'; // all the field permissions set to "1"

// group 3
$permissions_template['table_default'][3] = '100010'; // only read and details table permissions
$permissions_template['field_default'][3] = '1001010'; // only read, details and advanced search field permissions

That's it. Every time you add a new table or a new filed, these rules will be used by DaDaBIK to automatically set (granular) permissions.

And there's more! You can also set specific templates for specific tables, overriding the general rules, e.g. let's say you want to follow a different rule only for the fields you will add to the table "customers" and only for group 2 the edit must be disabled; this is the template rule you will add:

$permissions_template['field']['customers'][2] = '1011111'; // all the field permissions set to "1" except from edit

You can read all the details in the documentation; you'll find a new chapter dedicated to permissions templates. I think this is a huge improvement.

Warning for unsaved data
I guess it happened to some of your users: they modify a record, then they click somewhere (maybe they just want to sort the grid of a master/details form) before clicking save and they lost their changes.
Now DaDaBIK warns you if you are leaving the page with unsaved data. You can enable/disable this feature separately for edit and create forms. Since it is still an experimental feature, it is disabled by default.

Permissions Templates are available for DaDaBIK Enterprise and Platinum only, warnings for unsaved data also for DaDaBIK Pro.

There are also other changes and several bugs fixed so as usual I suggest to have a look at the change log.

You can buy your new license here.

You can upgrade your existing license (for free, if you are in your free upgrade period) here.

Best,
--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

V. 11.5 Elba is out. Force Password Change, better UX/vocabulary for search feature

Posted by Eugenio on 28 Apr 2022

Dear user,
version 11.5 is out. This release contains two main improvements:

1) The new Force Password Change feature

2) A more clear vocabulary and better UX for the search feature

Let me go into some details:

1) Admins can now set, for a user, the new field "Force password change"; if the field is set yes (it's yes by default, when an admin manually adds a new user), the user is forced to change the password after the next login.

2) I realized that the labels of the buttons were not very clear. The "Search" button on the top menu is now called "Advanced Search" (because it is actually a link to an advanced search form) and it only appears when at least one field is available in the search form; the "quick search" submit button on the top of the results grid and the "search for items" submit button in the advanced search form are both just "search" now.
Furthermore, the submit button label for the insert form is now just "Save" (according to the feedback received, "Insert a new item >>" was a bit confusing - but you can still use it if you want).

If you use the online demo, please note that it is still based on V 11.4 so you won't see these improvements.

As usual I suggest to check the change log for the complete list of changes and bug fixes.

You can buy your new license here.

you can upgrade your existing license here.

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

V. 11.4 Elba is out. New FIXED HEADER layout + improvements on LDAP and performance

Posted by Eugenio on 28 Feb 2022

Dear users,
In DaDaBIK 11.4 Elba you will find a new fixed header layout, lots of improvements on LDAP authentication, a new config parameter that can improve your app's performance and some bug fixes.

Fixed header was one of the most voted feature in our suggestions forum and it is now available. Especially if you have lots of columns in the grid, it can be very useful.

Here is a preview:

LDAP: we have a new, simple and short, mysubdomain\username (or more in general mysubtree\username) syntax supported for binding; in particular it can be useful if you are using Active Directory and you don't want to specify the full base_dn path for binding. Several other things related to LDAP have been improved and fixed, you can see the complete list in the changelog. All these improvements might help with the issues discussed in this forum thread.

Finally, a new config parameter, $force_search_before_rsults, allows to set, for each table, if you require that a search is executed by the user before showing the results. This can be useful, especially for tables having a lot of records, to avoid the execution of (sometimes useless) SELECT queries when the user opens the related page and to reduce your server's load (and, therefore, possibly increase the performance).

The new LDAP binding feature has been sponsored by: University of Zürich - Department of Biochemistry

The new $force_search_before_rsults feature and a new layout hook (see change log for details) have been sponsored by: Univillage Consulting

There are other changes and bugs fixed so as usual I suggest to have a look at the change log.

You can buy your new license here.

you can upgrade your existing license here.

Peace.

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