Posted by Steven Leung on March 11, 2010 under News, Tips & Tricks | 
One of the areas we’ve been working on this year is providing more ways for our users to visually present their data. In our release of Caspio Bridge 6.7, we’ve introduced a new Calendar DataPage that gives you the ability to display your information on the web using monthly and weekly calendars. This feature is great for any database where the date field is a vital component; such as events, schedules, due dates, appointments, etc.
Click here to view an interactive demo.
Just like Caspio’s Search and Report DataPage, the Calendar DataPage provides powerful data search, retrieval, and formatting capabilities. Additionally, there are a number of conveniences you have when deciding how users can view and navigate through your information.
Depending on your preference, the display settings can be customized to show today’s date, a specific month, or a certain week. More dynamic displays are also available.
The Calendar DataPage also lets you set the number of days relative to the day that your calendar will show. For example, you can set up calendar options that automatically show you any events happening a week from now, 30 days back, or one year ago from today. This way, if you want to automatically show a specific period, you don’t have to navigate the calendar by hand.
You can even set your calendars to automatically jump to the earliest piece of information requested from your database (the first matching record) or the latest one (the last matching record). This option is particularly convenient when using a form to search your database.
Click here to view an interactive demo.
Once entering an optional search, users will be taken to the right place and can start navigating the data, instead of being taken to a calendar containing today’s date, which may not have any information.
The Calendar DataPage option has been automatically added to the opening DataPage screen of your Caspio Bridge account. To lessen the learning curve for both new and existing users, the Calendars DataPage was designed to be similar to the other DataPages in Caspio Bridge. I encourage you to give the Calendar DataPage a try to see how easy yet flexible it is.
Don’t hesitate to contact our Support team with any questions or feedback. Refer to our online help for more detailed information.
And of course, feel free to leave a comment below.
Posted by Steven Leung on February 26, 2010 under News, Tips & Tricks |
Why was “Section 508 compliance” built into the recent Caspio Bridge 6.6 update? Imagine surfing the web with your eyes closed. All of a sudden, those little things you take for granted — like quickly scanning a table for information, making judgments based on color-coded status updates, or filling out a CAPTCHA-protected form — are no longer available to you.
You don’t have to be blind to be affected. Research from the University of Maryland estimates that 8% of men and up to 2% of women are colorblind. And there are others who need high-contrast color schemes in order to read anything at all.
Web accessibility is not only important to building a broader audience for your website. Governments around the world have adopted accessibility standards for their websites to allow for greater inclusion and help prevent discrimination based on an individual’s disabilities.
In the United States, the government standard is disclosed in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was strengthened in 1998 through the Workforce Reinvestment Act.
The United States government has provided a number of web accessibility guidelines that illustrate ways to comply with Section 508 (Penn State University has compiled a summarized version that links to technical details).
How are Caspio Bridge applications 508-compliant?
Following the appropriate guidelines, we’ve added backend platform features that allow your deployed DataPages to automatically be 508-compliant.
In most cases, there aren’t any visual differences in the DataPage, but the underlying behind the scenes HTML code changes make Caspio DataPages easier to navigate using a screen reader and keyboard commands.
Just released in Caspio Bridge 6.6:
- Images, including buttons, have alternative text. This way, if people can’t see the image, they still have a written description of what is there.
- Forms now use label tags to identify form fields. These tags tell browsers what text goes with what form fields.
- Tables can now use table header tags. Screen readers will read information back to the user in the proper groupings, announcing what the information is before it is read. To maintain backward compatibility with some applications using custom JavaScript, we’ve made the use of table header tags optional.
- Styles have been tested when zoomed and in high-contrast modes. Now, Caspio Bridge DataPages can be seen more easily by people who need larger magnification or bolder color differences.
CAPTCHAs are notoriously difficult for the visually impaired to enter. We’ve had an audio version of a CAPTCHA for a number of releases, and provided an automated way for mainstream browsers to find the right plugin if the one wasn’t already installed. For 508 compliance, we added an optional direct download link for an audio plugin that can be used to read the CAPTCHAs.
Many people who are blind or visually impaired use WebbIE, which was first published in 2001. It has a number of features that make navigation easier for people using screen readers and uses a large high-contrast display for people who have difficulty seeing traditionally-formatted web pages. Here is a sample of a web form with 508-compliant CAPTCHA and the corresponding WebbIE screen:
You can see how the text would be read back to a blind visitor and how links and form elements would be announced. To enter the CAPTCHA, the user would hit the down arrow key until “Link: Listen and type what you hear” would be read. He or she would hit <Enter> and the audio for the CAPTCHA would be read. The audio played contains some distortion and static to prevent a machine from breaking your CAPTCHA security.
At Caspio, we’re proud to support more broadly accessible web applications, and based on our 508 compliance efforts, we’ve gained approval to be included in the United States government Buy Accessible Products and Services Directory.
To learn more about Caspio’s Section 508-compliant web applications, request a demo or contact our Government Services Division at 650-691-0900 ext. 741.
Posted by Caspio on February 4, 2010 under Commentary, News |
The magnitude of human suffering resulting from the Haiti earthquake is beyond what words can describe, and the stories and images of those affected have touched the hearts of everyone around the world.
Last month, Caspio and its employees joined resources to make a donation to the American Red Cross. It may be a small contribution in the grand scheme of things, but it allows us to be a part of the global movement where people from all over the globe are sending assistance.
Caspio has an especially close connection with Haiti as our CEO, Frank Zamani, visited several schools there in October of last year as part of a Mona Foundation delegation. See pictures of that trip.
There is still a long way to go before Haitians can return to a more normal life, and the Caspio team plans to continue to stay involved, finding other ways to contribute to the rebuilding of the nation and the recovery of the citizens.
Posted by Caspio on November 10, 2009 under Customer Spotlights, News |
Selected as the “Best of the Web” by Forbes magazine, bizjournals operates business news sites with an impressive following of 9 million unique visitors per month. As with our other enterprise-level media clients, bizjournals is widely adopting Caspio’s cloud computing platform to build interactive web applications that will engage online readers, drilling down to the local level and spurring community interaction.
“We’re a national leader when it comes to producing local-business research, but up to now, we haven’t had the right tool to bring our research projects to life on the web. Now, with Caspio, we do,” said Huntley Paton, executive editor of bizjournals.
Caspio has developed unique industry solutions that boost page views and revenues for hundreds of media websites. Today, we power web applications for over 80% of the nation’s top 100 newspaper websites and we’re thrilled to welcome bizjournals into our family.
Request a demo to see the latest features in Caspio Bridge and get immediate feedback about your upcoming web application projects.
Posted by Caspio on November 5, 2009 under News |
The Caspio team is thrilled to announce the release of Caspio Bridge 6.5!
We can’t wait to see how this latest edition will empower and propel our customers to push the envelope and further enhance their web applications.
The new version has over a dozen new features, and below are the top 5 which we believe will immediately improve productivity and ROI when publishing database applications.
1. Enhanced Import/Export Wizards
This wizard not only has a more intuitive interface, but also combines many important options for adjusting tables, fields, and data during the import process. It makes handling various data types and field mapping for replace/append faster and easier. Immediate alerts pinpoint any issues prior to upload and notify you when the data being imported is ready for use.
2. Support for Excel, Fixed-Width and XML Data
For additional data compatibility and integration, the new version supports Microsoft Excel Workbooks, Fixed-Width Text, and XML file formats. Using this feature, customers can upload data from Excel Workbooks and Caspio will automatically import each worksheet within into a new table. This process also works in reverse, tables being exported as multiple worksheets will be compiled into one Excel Workbook.
3. Smart AutoValues
The new AutoValue feature automatically generates frequently-used automatic values and assigns them to hidden fields. Now you can easily generate hidden values for assigning unique IDs, passwords, and numbers, or use the tool to capture user IP addresses and page URLs.
4. Editable Views
Views have been upgraded to support an editable table. The new wizard is streamlined to only three steps and allows a single table in any View to be editable. Using the new Views capabilities, creating complex apps becomes significantly easier and requires fewer DataPages.
5. Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Deployment
Our new Server-Side SEO Deployment is an anxiously-awaited technology that enables search engines to crawl databases, allowing you to reap the benefits of increased organic traffic and visibility for your websites. Refer to the previous post for more details.
Stay tuned for examples and more in-depth coverage on each of the major new features. Detailed release information is also available on our website at http://caspio.com/support/bridge/productupdates.asp.
We’d love to hear how these new features will help you enhance your database apps. Leave a comment below!
