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Attention Scripters and Report Writers

Posted Fri, 12/23/2011 - 12:01 by gmoskowitz

Internal work on the xTuple ERP 3.8.0 release is winding down - the first release candidate was published a few weeks ago and a second RC and final release are coming soon. Now is the time to start planning for 3.9.

I don't know yet what features will be added in 3.9. There will be some internal changes, though, that you need to prepare for if you write scripts, MetaSQL statements, or reports. Read more »

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Upgrading to xTuple ERP 3.8.0

Posted Wed, 09/28/2011 - 15:49 by gmoskowitz

Before you upgrade to xTuple EPR 3.8.0, there are a few things you should know: Read more »

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Sticking Your Head in the Lion's Mouth

Posted Mon, 07/18/2011 - 09:03 by gmoskowitz

Apple's new version of its operating system, OS X Lion, is due to be released to the public in the next couple of weeks. The new user interface features are very nice. Upgrading promises to be simple and inexpensive.

This is good for consumers but trouble for xTuple users. You see, current releases of OpenRPT and of PostBooks and other editions of xTuple ERP do not work well on Lion. Read more »

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Technology Preview: xTuple Connect

Posted Tue, 06/01/2010 - 10:54 by gmoskowitz

The xTuple Batch Manager package (xtbatch) is changing its name to xTuple Connect (xtconnect). The new name reflects the greatly expanded EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) capabilities that this package offers in the upcoming xTuple Connect 3.5.0 release.

A primary goal behind these changes was to build a completely automated order receipt and invoicing process. The companies that buy goods from our development sponsors generate orders as CSV and XML files and place them on an FTP server. These orders have to be retrieved, reformatted, and imported into the xTuple database. xTuple then must create invoices for these orders, print them, and send electronic versions back to the companies that placed the orders.

Thanks to our two development sponsors we have been able to add the following features : Read more »

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Getting the most out of PostgreSQL

Posted Mon, 05/03/2010 - 16:23 by gmoskowitz

A few weeks ago, three of us from xTuple went to the PG East conference in Philadelphia to talk with other people who use and maintain Postgres. xTuple has attended 3 years running. It's been a great event for developers and database administrators and we learn a lot by going. The tenor of this particular conference is changing, though.  Each year the presentations have been getting more relevant to companies considering running applications built on top of Postgres, such as xTuple ERP. Read more »

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C++ or JavaScript?

Posted Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:42 by gmoskowitz

 A software guy I know recently said that he prefers PHP to C++, something about C++ being "too fussy". I didn't comment at the time but the issue is an interesting one and is relevant to the haxTuple bug derby and xTuple application scripting. Read more »

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Design Bugs

Posted Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:08 by gmoskowitz

A couple of weeks ago I promised to talk about design bugs.

Simply put, a design bug is an error in thinking about how a problem should be solved. This is different from coding bugs, where the solution is basically correct but isn't written properly. Read more »

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Bug or Feature Request?

Posted Mon, 11/23/2009 - 09:12 by gmoskowitz

I started to write a description of how to report bugs, but found that others have done a much better job than I could. Take a look at the following:

With that out of the way, here's a problem of a different sort:

When is a problem with xTuple ERP a bug and when is it a feature request? Most software companies get lots of queries asking, "Why doesn't the program do X?" or "Why does it do Y?" xTuple is no exception. Read more »

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xTuple ERP and software usability - one developer's perspective

Posted Mon, 08/24/2009 - 08:56 by gmoskowitz

One of the core principles of software usability is that an application must behave consistently. Otherwise the application can lead users into making errors. Something as simple as arranging buttons in a different order on different windows can cause confusion and frustration. So, if we xTuple developers know about the dangers of inconsistencies, why do they exist and why don't we fix them all? Read more »

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Script Developers: Qt constants and scripting in xTuple ERP 3.3.0

Posted Wed, 07/29/2009 - 08:37 by gmoskowitz

This is the first in an occasional series of blog posts written from a developer's perspective. Most of the entries will be written for other developers - whether you work on scripts or the core, work for an xTuple ERP customer or want to extend PostBooks or are an xTuple VAR or are simply interested in how the product works internally. Some may have a wider appeal. Read more »