Modal X 1.3 for Wicket released

We have recently released a new version of the open source Modal window extension framework for Wicket called ModalX. We have also added an getting started guide, a live demo and an example application that demonstrates its main features.

Feel free to leave any comments about the library here.

Take a look at the ModalX home page here:
ModalX Home Page

See the live demo here:
ModalX Live Demo

Wicket DateTimeField - trick for young players

If, like me, you tried to use the DateTimeField component in the Wicket extensions library and saw an extra spurious TextField appear in your form and you didn't know why... then read on:

It turns out that the DateTimeField is actually rendered as a Panel by Wicket. Being a field in a Form I naturally (according to what I saw in some online example code) just entered markup within my form like this:


<input type="text" id="startDate">


but of course that can't work. Wicket can't render a panel into an input element (well not with any success at least!).

It turns out that as a Panel the DateTimeField is best entered as a <div> in your markup:



<div id="startDate" />



That allows the DateTimeField to be rendered correctly. Yeehah!

Once again I want to congratulate the Wicket team on the world's best object oriented, component based, Java User Interface framework.... a big claim I know, but try it and I think you'll agree!

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New Trustee IT Web Application for Superannuation Funds

Step Ahead Software has done it again with yet another revolutionary product. When each Superannuation Fund duplicates similar IT systems, for both web interface and backend functions, over and over again, regardless of their size then that represents a huge waste of resources.

For larger trustees, with the advantage of scale, the 'per member' cost can be kept relatively low. For small and medium sized trustees the 'per member' cost can be unreasonable and hence the Jeremy Cooper Review of Superannuation in Australia raises concerns for the fees necessarily charged to members of funds that don't have the advantage of 'scale'.

Trustee IT changes this playing field forever and helps address many of the issues raised by the Cooper Report for small and medium fund managers.

Now small and medium trustee's can achieve a 'per member' admin cost that is similar to that of the larger trustees. This means that they can remain viable and autonomous while returning a better bottom line to the fund and greater returns for their members. They are also in a much better position to be prepared for the new MySuper changes if they are mandated by law.

Even if not mandated by law many of the recommendations in the report make for a better return for members and a better bottom line for the fund manager so some of these recommendations are simply good goals that most trustees would already have has part of their mission statement.

Check out Trustee IT at http://trusteeit.com.au

New website for Step Ahead Software Development

The software development section of Step Ahead Software now has a new website. It's at:

http://develop.stepaheadsoftware.com

If you need any software or web development let us know. We have been providing outsourced software development since 1994 and have a large range of satisfied companes from small businesses to large corporations like Canon and Lucent.

We specialize in development in the following fields:

1. Windows Desktop
2. Web application development
3. Enterprise website application development

We are experts in the following languages, frameworks and databases:

1. Java, JDO, JPA, Wicket, Echo, JSP, J2EE, DataNucleus, Hibernate
2. C++, MFC, OWL, .Net, GDI, GDI+
3. MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server

We also have 'off the shelf' modules for fast 'time to market' of a variety of projects:

1. Entity management framework: For extremely fast implementation of websites or desktop applications that require users, people, groups, organizations, authentication, products, etc.,
2. Visual editing framework for creating applications that allow users to manage a visually oriented view of the topology of a particular problem space.

Step Ahead: Authentication in the Matrix!

A little while back one of our customers, Matrix Education, expressed a desire to improve the security and protection of their rather sophisticated intranet based enterprise management software. To this aim we discussed integrating our entity management system into their web based intranet application.

Our entity management system is a powerful role based system that allows the management and authentication of entities including users, actors, organizations etc., It comes with a powerful, intuitive web based user interface to allow easy creation and management of entities and such as users and their roles and 'access rights'. Our separate workflow management system plugs right into the entity management system for customers who want to manage processes within their organization efficiently and automatically.

The customer understood that integrating our well established 'off the shelf' user management and authentication framework would provide a more reliable, high quality and less expensive alternative than building such a system from scratch.

Yesterday, after only a few days effort we completed the integration of our entity management framework into their system so now their web based enterprise system has modern, powerful user authentication built seemlessly into their existing JSP based application. The use of our access managing servlet filter allows us to hook into the 'smarts' of our entity management framework from just about any Java based web application including those built with servlets, JSP, Tapestry, Wicket and even Echo.