Sage 300 ERP Desktops Through the Ages

Introduction

With our upcoming 2014 version of Sage 300 ERP (to be released in 2013), one of the features is an improved look to our Windows Desktop Launcher. I thought it might be fun to do through a bit of history and review all the various Desktops we’ve included with Sage 300 ERP.

16-Bits

The first Windows version of Sage 300 was for the 16 Bit Windows 3.1 system. In these earlier versions of Windows, there was no ability to have folders in your lists of icons. Having nested folders of icons was a big feature of IBM’s OS/2 Desktop. IBM released this icon/folder system as a custom control for Windows. We took the IBM library and used it as a basis for our original desktop shown below:

Here you could have folder (like Bank or Tax Services) which drilled down to further Windows. Basically using the innovative OS/2 technology of the day. Otherwise this desktop was implemented as a standard Windows MDI application written in C. This was the desktop used exclusively for versions 1.0A to 3.0A. It was also used for the 16-bit versions of 4.0A and 4.1A.

32-Bit

IBM never produced a 32-Bit version of their OS/2 control library for Windows. As a result we had to create a new desktop for our 32-Bit version, which we did using the Microsoft MFC framework. This is now in the age of Windows 95 where Microsoft now has nested icons and tree controls as introduced in the Windows 95 file explorer. These new controls are easy to use from MFC and we created a new desktop using these written in C++. This desktop has been included in all our versions since 4.0A. With 4.2A we dropped the 16-Bit version and this became our only desktop for a short while.

The toolbar and status bar are standard MFC application features. The licensing pane is created by embedding an Internet Explorer ActiveX control.

The Web

With version 5 we introduced our first web version. This was based on building our UIs in VB6 and compiling them as ActiveX controls. We could then run them in an Internet Explorer window. The controls would downloaded and installed automatically and they would communicate back to the server using DCOM or .Net Remoting.

But now we needed a way to select and launch the UIs this way, so we created and ASP application to do this. This was our Web Desktop.

One feature of this desktop is that since we are now Web, we aren’t limited by the usual Windows icons sizes, so all the “icons” are actually 80×80 pixel bitmaps which look quite a bit better than on the standard Windows desktop.

Of course the previous 32-Bit desktop is still in the product for the majority of people that aren’t running web deployed. As it turns out this desktop was never used much because the majority of people that used our web deployment mode only used it from Sage CRM and as a result those UIs were run by CRM rather than our Web Desktop.

The Sage Desktop

Shortly after our acquisition by Sage there was a companywide initiative to standardize the desktop/launcher program across all Sage products. This was the Sage desktop.

This desktop was written in C# as a standard .Net WinForms program. It included things like desktop notifications and news from Sage. Had a modern look and supported most things expected in the desktop. However Sage 300 ERP and CRE were really the only applications in Sage that adopted this and eventually development was discontinued. This desktop was included in versions 5.5A and 5.6A.

The Sage 300 Web Portal

With version 6.0A we introduced the new Web Portal which included data snapshots and a data inquiry tool in addition to the ability to launch screens.

For more information on this Portal, have a look at this blog posting.

Updated Windows Desktop

With the forthcoming release of Sage 300 ERP 2014 we will be updating the standard Windows desktop that we introduced back in version 4.0A with an updated look. We have all new icons for both the programs and for the toolbar. Plus a new look for the toolbar.

This gives the standard Sage 300 desktop an updated look. Especially by refreshing all those icons that have been in the product since version 1.0A.

Summary

A lot of attention gets spent on the Desktop/Launcher program since it is usually people’s first impression of running our program. Although most people do most of their work in a program like Order Entry, it’s still good to keep improving the Desktop. Looking back at the desktop’s you can see the influences of the various technologies that were popular at the time.