User Interface Model

Like the data model, all Progress Rollbase applications consist of a set of components which combine to form a functioning user interface layer. Each of these components is entirely customizable using point & click, drag & drop tools in a standard Web browser. Progress Rollbase also allows you to define your own UI components completely from scratch, or plug in third party scripts, widgets, etc.

Tabs & Menus

Tabs are the clickable section headers below the title bar in any of your Rollbase applications. Below the row of Tabs in each application you will see several links. These are the Menus associated with the selected Tab. Each Tab can have an arbitrary number of Menus. Menus are links to specific pages in your application.

Fields

Fields are the basic building block of object definitions that determine what kind of data is stored with each object record. Fields are used in pages, views, charts and other object components to display and input object data. Progress Rollbase allows the creation of over 25 different field data types. For each field you can define sophisticated validation rules, permissions, auditing behavior, and much more.

Pages & Forms

Each object definition comes with a set of pages used to display and input object data in various ways. You can edit each page using the Progress Rollbase Page Editor - a real-time WYSIWYG drag & drop environment allowing you to preview changes in real-time. Almost every page in your Progress Rollbase applications can be customized on the fly by clicking "Edit this Page" - it's as easy as a Wiki! Pages can also be cloned to create multiple different versions. Pages can be assigned on a Role and User-specific basis allowing you to show different pages to different users based on role and permissions.

Custom Event Handlers and AJAX API

All fields expose event handlers allowing custom script to be invoked in response to onchange, onfocus, onblur and other input field events allowing designers to change application appearance and behavior based on any field state or other criteria in the user interface. An AJAX API can be used by client-side components, such as those created in Flex or JavaScript, and field-level event handlers as described above, to retrieve and modify data, and use results to dynamically update the client user interface. This API is subject to the same permissions and access control restrictions as the standard Progress Rollbase user interface, and SOAP/REST Web APIs.

Views

Views consist of columns that correspond to object fields and display a list of object records that users can navigate, sort and filter. Each object definition can have an arbitrary number of Views associated with it and users can switch to any other available View as needed. Group actions such as mass update, tagging, flagging, marking as viewed/unviewed, mass deletion, mass email and much more can be performed from Views.

Dashboard Gauges

A robust set of real-time animated gauge components that provide professional graphical presentations of important business data. Data provided to gauges are powered by Progress Rollbase's JavaScript formula engine and can include computations that make use of the SQL Query API to deliver a highly customized result displayed in an easy to consume visual format.

Charts

A chart in Progress Rollbase is a type of information graphic that represents tabular text or numeric data. Some charts can be animated and offer interactive capabilities such as rotation or switching between 2D and 3D modes. You can create any number of Charts to represent your object record data in a variety of ways. Like Views, users can switch among available Charts in real-time. Multiple charts sections can be combined on a single page to form dashboards.

Reports

Reports can be created and modified to meet specific business needs using the Progress Rollbase report builder. Progress Rollbase supports tabular reports as well as HTML and document template based reports allowing custom formatting. Tabular reports allow you to report on field data up to three relationships deep. Each report layer is fully customizable and layers can be collapsed and expanded at runtime. Document template reports allow the creation of reports to display sums, counts, averages and other metrics using HTML, Microsoft Word or Excel to generate custom-formatted documents with just about any kind of presentation format.

Portals

Portals are powerful and flexible ways to build and expose a wide range of external-facing application functionality such as creating, editing, searching and viewing object records, and much more. For example, a Progress Rollbase application for managing sales leads might have a portal integrated with your website to collect information submitted by website visitors. A Progress Rollbase application for employee management might have a portal designed to be used on your intranet by employees for self-service access to employee profile information, company directory, benefits information, etc.

Portals are made up of a series of interconnected portal pages that form a working Web-based application. Portal pages that require authentication can only be accessed by portal visitors which can be represented by objects definitions that include username and password fields. Special login and forgot password capabilities provide portal visitor authentication capabilities. A growing library of advanced components such as captcha fields, URL parameter and IP address fields allow you to build sophisticated portals for just about any business function.