Web for Forte - what is the right product?

Question

We are using Web Enterprise on a new application and on another existing
Forte application.
Concerning our experiences on the new application:
1) Watch what version of Forte and WE you use. Earlier that 3.M.2 and WE
E.1, we experienced a page truncation bug (that Forte admitted was their
bug).
2) Upgrades between Forte versions have been difficult as each upgrade means
an upgrade to the WE pieces. The only way we have been successful in these
upgrades is by recreating the repository, creating the new HTTP/HTML
libraries/projects, and importing (in order) our projects. This is time
consuming. It would be nice if Forte did not force the WE upgrade when the
Forte version changes.
3) As of yet, we have not been able to get a load balanced Web Access SO to
work. The help desk has suggested using a higher port number range (from
1780 up to 6000) but we haven't tried this yet.
Concerning our experiences with the existing application conversion:
1) The GUI interface of a windows application and a browser application are
basically different. There are things that are easy in a std GUI that are
much more difficult with a browser. So, if using std HTML, typically the
application will behave somewhat differently.
2) We used JavaScript within our HTML to do some basic editing within the
browser. This was much easier than doing std HTML to Forte for every type
of edit. In fact, we even used Forte to dynamically generate JavaScript in
certain circumstances.
3) We did NOT use Java at all.
4) The Forte application we are converting is old (4+ yrs) and was not
designed in the ideal way. Much of the processing logic and sql is embedded
inside windows. My point is that if the architecture of the existing
application is 'good' (good separation of pure GUI functions from business
rules from db access), then moving to WE can be fairly easy. If every Forte
window operation calls some method rather than invoking inline code, then
that is a good step. If every window operation calls some external
(non-window) method, then that is even better. That makes the replacement
of the Forte GUI with a browser based GUI much easier.
5) We tested, very briefly, the Window Converter operations of WE. It did
seem to work but we really could not utilize this facility because of the
poor design of the Forte GUI. We would have been forced to re-write our
existing GUI to take advantage of this.
6) We are attempting to reuse what we can from the existing application but
we are also taking advantage of this rewrite to implement a cleaner
architecture within a newly developed framework.
Jerry Fatcheric
Verizon Wireless
Hi Forte Experts
We are developing an application in 'pure' Forte 4GL, but have now reachedthe point >where some 20 windows must also be used from a WWW interface,
both for dataentry and >lookup of info.
So what is the right product(s) to look for / buy? Forte for Java ,WebEnterprise, >WebEnterprise Designer or is the functionality already in
30M2 and all we need to do >is to open the documentation-kit...?
Suggestions or War-stories are welcomed...
thanks
jens chr /KAD Denmark

Answer 1

Adobe makes three products that could work here: Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and Photoshop. Other companies also make programs that will do these tasks.
You make it sound like this is a one-time need. If that's true, I would think that the Adobe products are overkill. In fact, to edit the photos you might want to look at freeware products like RawTherapee, and there are plenty of freeware slideshow applications.