Profound Announces Another RPG:OA First, Unveils RDi Plug-In

November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

Using Profound Logic‘s RPG Open Access toolset is about to get easier. This month the company rolled out its new Eclipse plug-in that allows IBM i developers to access Profound UI functions within the comfort of Rational Developer for i (RDi). The announcement marks the latest in a series of RPG:OA-related firsts for Profound.

RPG:OA, which IBM launched the in April 2010 under the official name of Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, was created to provide an RPG-centric mechanism for creating Web 2.0 screens, user interfaces for mobile devices, database connections, and integration points using XML and Web services protocols.

However, the process of creating RPG:OA handlers is somewhat complex–best left to modernization tool vendors and experienced do-it-yourselfers, IBM said. In April 2010, Profound became the first IBM i tool vendor to unveil an RPG:OA handler, which it sold as part of the Profound UI suite.

With the RPG:OA handler managing I/O with the backend RPG, Profound UI users could concentrate on building compelling interfaces using the suite’s Visual Editor, a Web-based, drag-and-drop GUI designer that provides access to hundreds of cross-browser widgets and delivers Web 2.0 interfaces using the latest JavaScript, AJAX, and DHTML technologies.

Profound’s Web screen design tool for RPG:OA is now accessible through RDi thanks to the company’s release of an Eclipse-based plug-in of the Visual Editor.

Now that the Visual Editor component is an Eclipse plug-in and accessible from IBM’s RDi development environment, using Profound UI should get even more straightforward. Users no longer must leave the RDi environment to access the Profound UI functionality, and can work with the Profound UI Visual Editor from within RDi’s Remote Systems Explorer.

After downloading and loading the plug-in, using it is as simple as right-clicking on a rich display file, and selecting “Profound UI” from the pop-up menu. The Visual Editor screen, with all of its widgets and functionality, opens under RDi as a tab, right alongside the user’s other LPEX tabs with RPG, CL, or other types of code.

According to Profound, the new plug-in will simplify development “by giving users the power to create rich, browser-based application interfaces by simple pointing and clicking, and through the availability of hundreds of ready-to-go, cross-browser widgets.”

The plug-in is the latest case of Profound leading the IBM i industry in RPG:OA adoption. Profound is the first modernization tool vendor to deliver an RDi-Eclipse plug-in that supports RPG:OA functionality. It was also the first vendor to make RPG:OA available to older i5/OS releases, the first to unveil a DDS converter, and the first to become an RPG:OA reseller for IBM.

In fact, Profound has built a comfortable place for itself with its array of RPG:OA-related functionality, and that appears to be translating into Profound UI customers, according to Profound CEO Alex Roytman. “As more IBM i developers were adopting the Profound UI platform, we started receiving requests to integrate the solution with IBM’s Rational tools,” Roytman says in a press release. “Our plugin significantly simplifies Web development with RPG.”

The Profound UI plug-in is a free download for existing customers. All versions of the Visual Editor are supported by the plug-in, and users can continue to use the standalone version of Visual Editor if they choose. The plug-in supports RDi 7.5 and all versions of Rational Developer for Power Systems (RDP). For more information see the company’s website at www.profoundlogic.com.