jrogelstad's blog

As many of you know we have been working hard on our next generation Mobile Web client platform that will enable xTuple users to use the application through a browser on both desktop and mobile devices. What you may not know is that this is the first business management system written that uses JavaScript in all layers including the database, the data service and at the application layer. You may be asking yourself a couple questions: First, "Are you crazy?" and second "Why is this a good thing?"

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Right after every major release I like to draw attention to new features that may not be immediately evident or even included on the product roadmap. Now that 3.8 has been published as a release candidate I'd like to point out that the new Display class that was introduced in 3.7 has been exposed to our JavaScript interface in 3.8 so that creating new table-style reports is easier than ever. Read more »

While open source projects are widely acknowledged to have strong technological underpinnings by both proponents and detractors, the latter will point out that the problem with open source software is you have to be a programmer to really get the benefits of open source. That has traditionally meant that 99.9% of the potential user base doesn't really get the biggest benefits. However, as open source projects like Apple's Mac/iPad operating systems (based on BSD) and Google's Android operating system (based on Linux) have become mainstream the old axiom that open source is only for geeks and hackers is becoming old school. The interfaces for products that use these projects have not only caught up to, but surpassed proprietary systems.

xTuple is no exception. In our 3.7 we have added features that make it a piece of cake to add custom fields to documents and reports. No programming required. Read more »

I've worked with several accountants over the years and one thing I've noticed about them is that they generally like things neat and orderly. Unfortunately the real world is often messy and chaotic. Transactions get entered for the wrong accounts, quantities, or dates, which leads to reversal transactions, then yet another set of corrected transactions. Even with a flawless transaction record a company of even a moderate size can end up with thousands of general ledger entries that make finding the source transaction of any questionable trial balance number like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Several features are being introduced in 3.6.0 to make life cleaner and more manageable for our accountants in the real world including a smarter G/L account search widget, the ability to modify erroneous general entries and a new optional Journal system. Read more »

We tend to put a lot of emphasis on xTuple ERP here since that is clearly the most influential project we sponsor as indicated by its consistent #1 ranking on Source Forge (yes, that's right... #1 of over 240,000 projects).  My recent kudos to the many xTuple contributors were focused almost exclusively on the PostBooks project.  However, I also need to give praise where it is due to major contributors of the original xTuple open source project: OpenRPT.  Open source contributor Ilya Diallo contributed print preview capability to OpenRPT and superstar full time developer Chris Ryan both wrote and rewrote OpenRPT almost entirely. Both efforts have a significant impact on xTuple ERP 3.6. Read more »