Hi, has anyone tried using DE player since updating. I get the splash screen them it closes. Any ideas ?  

I get the same!

This is intentional as Player is being moved towards a deployment/packaging tool while Developer will double as both Developer and Player.

These two products are two simialr. The needs in Developer and Player is different as the first need to be focused on ease of Development and the Player need to allow deployment and running of user defined applications much more streamlined.

The player that is shipped with Developer is for pre-viewing and testing of applications and you can start it directly from the Catalog via the Player Icon or the menu.



You can also set up a shortcut to start the app in Player 



The player can now be configured with different settings than Developer. The "installable" player will be confgured with its own application setup that can be tailored by the developer.

But for now if you want to run applicaitons in player start them with command line switches or via the DEOS function @OpenAppPlayer

Hi, thank you for feedback however the issue is not how to start the player, the problem is when the player starts it closes almost immediately aftewards and fails to open the database selection dialogue. I think it once threw a Prism error message. We have several users using the player and all experience the same problem.  It worked perfectly until the 7342 update.  

Re: "This is intentional as Player is being moved towards a deployment/packaging tool while Developer will double as both Developer and Player."

While developer (dataease.exe) can be used to open Apps in user mode it has a quirk when it is used for a user logon. 

When the user logon closes the app it prompts if you want to close the App. If the user chooses no then it opens the app in dev mode.

i.e. it's not a good idea to use dataease.exe for user logon.

deplayer.exe does work to open apps as long as a shortcut is created with the necessary parameters to the app.

[LE9 PATH]\deplayer.exe [APP Path] [APP NAME] [optional USER NAME] [optional USER PASSWORD]

If the plan is to have Developer ("dataease.exe") double as both Developer and Player then is there anything we should be concerned about using "deplayer.exe" for user logon? i.e is deplayer.exe as robust as dataease.exe ?

What is the "remoteease.exe" option for - it behaves exactly the same as "dataease.exe" ?

The player that is shipped with DataEase Developer is there for testing how the app will look in player mode.

There is now a lot of seperate configuraiton possibilites for apps in Player Mode.

Player files

When deplayer.exe starts up, it will check for spesial files that is only for player, and if the files are not found, it will revert back to the files used by dataease.exe.

By default player will start in silent mode, that is close if no application are found or the application starts with error code or the application with given user have no startup document. If prism return a error code, this will be returned by deplayer.exe when starting up, and can be read by the shell function starting it.

installdir is the name of the directory deplayer is started from. If deplayer.exe is installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\DataEase\LegEasy 9 Player" then installdir is "LegEasy 9 Player".

The %appdata%\..\Local\DataEase if put in file explorer will show you all dataease files managed by the current user.

The %programdata%\DataEase will show where other shared data is stored for all DateEase applications istalled for all users.

When opening a application from command line repositoryname is scanned for % and if there is any the environment strings are expanded.

Then we have different routes depending on if command line is with /s for silent or not and if a username/password given together with repopath and reponame.

Normal startup

Check if repo need upgrading and show dialoges for that
If blank user/pw given test for use of external login by first look for login.html in repo path and then in installed app path.

With login.html

Check if auto login is allowed by [STARTUP] AutoLoginPlayer=1 with default 0
If autologin is 1 try to login with blank/blank ot the DEUSERNAME/DEPASSWORD read from enviroment and if not show login.html
The login.html used a new mode on action eIDA_OPENAPP (21240) that can take a json string for setting app data used for login. When the json string is used, openapp switches to silent mode and only return error codes where 0 is success and 203, 205 and 210 is wrong username/password codes. When 0 is returned, the login service windows is hidden and the app is automatically opened.

With normal dialog based login

Check if auto login is allowed by [STARTUP] AutoLoginPlayer=1 with default 0
If autologin is 1 try to login with blank/blank ot the DEUSERNAME/DEPASSWORD read from enviroment and if not show login dialog

Silent startup

Repo is then tried opened by what is given on command line. In this process before trying to open repository, a look for valid license file is done.
First we check %programdata%\DataEase\installdir for a file named $4tp$.key and if found move it to %appdata%\..\Local\DataEase\installdir
Next the repository directory are checked for a license file
Next the %appdata%\..\Local\DataEase\installdir is checked
If no license found in any of there places, %appdata%\..\Local\DataEase\installdir is set as license path and a dialog asking for license if shown.
Last a license validation is done with the following info page in a browser is shown if not valid.
Opening of repos is done with given info, if username/password is not given or incorrect, a dialog/webpage is shown for login.
Temp files are deleted if no errors in startup.

deplayer.exe will be as robust and suited for running applications as developer.exe, and possibly even much more robust. 

The goal is to make a proper runtime evinronment where the developer can tailor the application completely and remove all "default" menus/look etc. to produce a proper installable vertical application.

By completely seperating the Developer Environment from the player environment a lot of hybrid problems can be avoided and the platform would be more secure from a development viewpoint as well from a runtime viewpoint.

One problem with Dataease application has been protection of IP as applications could easily be copied/code viewed/stolen if the code hasn't been encrypted which it normally isn't.

Moving forward the code can be protected and even only opened/read by the developer (both person and key) if that is the wish from the developer.

Thank you for the detail.

So for LE9 7342 it must be used similar to DE8.5 where there is a clear separation between developer (dataease.exe) and user (deplayer.exe) logon.

What is the purpose of 'remoteease.exe"?

If the users are set up in the application with login that will allow the Developer access you need to install the DEPLAYER distribution and use that instead.

LE9 can be installed/copied to server and used like DFD without the need for installation on each device. There are no dependencies to be installed on each device.

From 9.0.7354 we have changed how DataEase read the license number as well so the license number to be used on an app can be inserted into the RDRRxAAA.INI or in DATAEASE.INI etc

DE: extend initLicense to check ini files for licenses. This is the new order of how it is done:

1. RDRRxAAA.INI or RDRRxAAP.INI if player and it exists are checked for [LICENSE] Key=the licensekey for this application and if it exists, a key file is created in app directory

2. programappdata (ex. C:\ProgramData\DataEase\LegEasy 9 Developer) is checked for a file and if that exists it is copied to userappdata (Ex. C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\DataEase\LegEasy 9 Developer) if there not already are a key file

3. App directory

4. Dataease.ini or deplayer.ini if player is checked for [LICENSE]Key=the global license key and if it exists, it is written to userappdata

5. userappdata

6. programappdata

7. the exe that started this programs file path

8. if none of the above, license path is set to programappdata and a license dialog is shown

This means that there will be no need for setup or copying of files and DataEase can be updated in one location.

RemoteEase.exe will allow LE9/DE9 to be run "natively" on a server and accessed via Web browser with the correct distribution. 

It is only included in the distribution for internal testing and will make no difference if used without the correct setup/distribution.

remoteease.exe behaves the same as dataease.exe.

If you logon with a startup doc as required for user access, then on logout there is prompt if want to logout.
If "OK" is chosen then it logs out.

If "CANCEL" is chosen then it opens the the app in developer mode and the user has full designer catalogue access.

This implies it is the similar to dataease.exe that can only be used for Developer access.

Curiosity killed the cat and all that. ;-) Most of our install packages never see the light of day i.e. is never published for the general public. We use and test them internally so we can get the best result in the end.

At the moment one of our projects is to make a DataEase portal where one can run DataEase in the cloud "native". We already have dataease.cloud which run a RemoteApp (RDP) solution via HTTPS but its a little "cumbersome" to use RDP so we are looking into better ways to run a Windows App like LE9/DE9/L4D in the cloud.

RemoteEase.exe is built in paralell with DataEase.exe and is basically the same if you don't have the RemoteEase einvironment that will run it via a browser rather than on your computer.

Our main goal for all LegEasy products is to allow existing users with big legacy application of which there is much, much more than one would think to continue using their legacy investments while opening up the applications/databases to web/apps and integration with just about anything via REST API.

Anyone that has set up a Micorosoft SQL server, a Web Server, a Mail Server or anything else know how complicated it all is and how unlikely you are to get it working unless being heavily committed and invested.

The point of DataEase is in the name, to make hard stuff easy (whcih argueably hasn't been true for a long part of the DFW era) but this is where the future for DataEase lay - making hard stuff easy again.

The time where self hosting big applications yourself is behind us. Now you just want to buy the service and be able to expand/add to it at will without having to buy the hardware/software and try to glue it all together.

RemoteEase will not be sold as an installable solution but just as a cloud service where you can then immediately open up your app via REST and build web/apps etc. on top while all your users will get access to the legacy application to via a web interface they can use on thei iPad, PC, Telefon etc.