m-Power Interface Enhancement Listing

mrc is proud to announce that with the August 4th, 2009 software update, we have released a redesigned m-Power interface. The ultimate goal to this project was creating a more modern look to m-Power, all the while giving developers more power and greater ease of use. Some of the many highlights to the new m-Power interface include:

• More graphics — Largely replacing text-based links, a graphical approach gives developers an easier way to identify available options.
• Navigation bar — While building an application, the navigation bar provides developers with a "bread-crumb" trail, allowing them to be able to step-back through the build process.
• Navigation bar menu — This new menu option, available by hovering your mouse over the down arrow in the navigation bar, allows you to quickly select a different application option without needing to go back to the Application Menu screen.
• View current template — While building an application, the selected template is now visible from the Application Menu screen.
• Greater flexibility — Developers can now choose to not only build and compile from the Application Menu screen, but they now have the ability to execute an application, access m-Painter, and even modify the application properties. Additionally, from a successful compile, a developer can choose to immediately run an application. These new options save the developers from unnecessary navigation.
• Improved interface help screens — The interface help screens have been updated to further assist developers within m-Power.
• Sign-off ability — Developers can now sign out of m-Power on any screen by clicking on their name in the top-right portion of the screen.
• Change Data Dictionary — Developers can also change Data Dictionaries on any screen within m-Power by simply clicking on the Data Dictionary in the navigation bar.
• Useful title text — Hover your mouse over an image for additional help text.
• Updated menu screens — The main menu and data dictionary menus have been update to provide developers with more information such as when to build certain applications and useful links, such as On-line documentation, customer portal, mrc Forum and Cup of Joe Blog.
• Improved Registered Tables screen — Developers can now more easily analyze registered tables within m-Power. New features, such as being able to run dictionary reports within Registered Tables, analyzing the type of a field, and updated Re-order screens have been included.
• Manage External Objects screen — Developers will love the ability to search, sort, and page through their list of external objects. Additionally, stored procedure logic has been updated to now only allow creation with RPG/CL/SQL programs, to minimize confusion.
• and much more!

Considerations

Be aware that the new m-Power enhancements rely heavily on .png images. This type of image allows professional images while allowing background images to be transparent. Internet Explorer 6 (and below) does not fully support .png images. Because of this, the m-Power interface will not look correct. You can check your current version of Internet Explorer by clicking Help, then selecting "About Internet Explorer". Please consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8. Additionally, the new m-Power interface fully supports Firefox version 3.0 and above.

Installation

The installation of the new m-Power look is the same process as any other m-Power update. Simply download the m-Power update, stop your Tomcat service, and extract the .zip file to your root drive. Lastly, start Tomcat.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact mrc support at 630.916.0662.