m-Power Web 2.0 reporting feature gives users X-ray vision

October 23, 2007 Lombard, IL – Admit it. At some point in your life, you stared at a wall and willed yourself to see through it, like Superman. Sometimes you might have even been able to imagine exactly what was on the other side. For all, I know, you might be squinting your eyes, trying to do that as we speak. But, unless you are Superman, you probably never had much luck....until now.

mrc has just introduced its latest update to m-Power, and it features X-ray vision.

This new m-Power Web 2.0 capability called “Hover” allows users to drill down into their Web-based business applications without having to click.


(Click image to go to application)


Now, a user can just run their cursor over any “hover-enabled” link and a “hover” window will open to reveal the data records or report for that particular link...without any clicking. And, if that hover window displays an application with a hover-link in it, you can roll-over that link to reveal another hover window, showing that drilldown information in cascading fashion.

“With m-Power’s hover feature, your business information is presented exactly as you need it...instantly,” says Heather Gately, mrc’s Marketing Director. “And, this is all without clicking or opening a new browser window.”

As you can see when you click on this sample graphic, when the mouse hovers over a customer number, a window appears to display open orders for that customer. If the customer number link is clicked, the hover data will stay and you can then go hover over the link in the Open Orders window, reading "Update Order."

“It's actually more like multiple levels of x-ray vision,” says Gately.

mrc’s latest updates have also given m-Power customers the ability to incorporate more and more Web 2.0 technologies. Here are just a few:

• Cascading Dropdown Lists – Easier way to make dropdowns reliant on one another. For example, let’s say your user needs to select a State, County, and City. m-Power’s cascading dropdown feature will allow your users to select a state from a dropdown menu. When they do, the dropdown list for counties and cities will refresh to show only the valid counties and cities for that state. Then, selecting a county will populate the city dropdown with all of the applicable cities for that particular county.

• Top-Ten Reports – Now it is very easy to create Top-ten style lists which will restrict the output to a pre-specified number of records. This is perfect for creating simple reports where you only wish to show a certain set of records, for instance – the top 10 highest sales regions, the five worst-selling products, or three most profitable distributors.

• Importing Applications – One of the key features for all Web 2.0 applications is the ease for importing applications between one another. This makes it that much easier to create dashboard applications, pulling in a wide variety of Web applications, not just those built with m-Power. It also makes it easy to develop comprehensive management screens from relatively simple component applications.

• Web Pages sent through email have the same look –Web 2.0 applications contain all of the style information directly within the body of the page so applications are designed for maximum portability. Whether your page is run off the server at run time, sent via email, or saved to your local PC, the page will always have the same look and feel. This feature comes pre-configured and requires no additional configuration.

• Formatted Excel output – Many customers prefer to have reports run directly to an Excel file, but disliked that some formatting was occasionally lost. With Web 2.0 reports, by default, you now have the option of “Formatted Excel” as an output type. You only have to format once, through m-Power’s painting interface, and your formatted report can appear as HTML or open in Excel.


“We knew we were heading toward bringing Web 2.0 capabilities to the Enterprise, and we wanted to make sure our applications had it all. So, we went to our customer base for real-world requests and suggestions, to create a better blueprint for creating comprehensive, easy-to-use report templates.

“The results have given m-Power applications their dual layers of complexity and ease-of-use. And, since our customer base is so wide-and-varied in terms of industry, it’s been really interesting to witness how many of the new features apply universally across the board,” adds Gately.


Additional information can be found at: http://mrc-productivity.com. Or, contact mrc via phone at 630.916.0662; via fax at 630.916.0663; via e-mail at mrc@mrc-productivity.com


About mrc
mrc’s development tool suite, m-Power, is used to create business applications and can run on any platform that supports Java (e.g. OS/400, Linux, Unix, and Windows). Applications access DB2/400, Oracle, MySQL and MSSQL, or any combination thereof. Using these development tools, users create an endless variety of Java-based business applications from simple queries to reports, to complex custom enterprise systems and dashboards.

mrc was a recipient of the 2004 Apex Award for application development, is a long-time IBM Business Partner, and has been producing award-winning development software since 1981.

If you'd like to see how easy m-Power is to use, there is free Web trial available where you can build two server-side Java applications (including tutorial) in minutes without any knowledge of Java and nothing more than a Web browser. Take the challenge! We know you can do it: http://www.mrconlinelab.com.

MEDIA ONLY: For press inquiries, feel free to contact Heather Gately, mrc Marketing Director, at 630.916.0662, x131, or at heatherg@mrc-productivity.com.

mrc introduces Web 2.0 reports and unprecedented style features to go with them

October 2007, Lombard, IL – Today, software tool developer mrc announces new Web 2.0 reporting for m-Power, a development software tool suite for modernization and rapid creation of custom business Web applications.

mrc has included a variety of new features that have been added to these new Web 2.0 templates including key new capabilities for Web-based reporting applications. The crux of these new features, according to Heather Gately, mrc spokesperson, is that the majority have come from the customer base.

“We knew we were heading toward bringing Web 2.0 capabilities to the Enterprise, and specifically we wanted to make sure our Web reports had it all. So, we went to our customer base for real-world requests and suggestions, to create a better blueprint for creating comprehensive, easy-to-use report templates. The results have given m-Power reports their dual layers of complexity and ease-of-use. Additionally, since our customer base is so wide-and-varied in terms of industry, it’s been interesting to witness how many of the new features apply universally across the board,” added Gately.

Notable updates include:

• Cascading Dropdown Lists – Easier way to make dropdowns reliant on one another. For example, let’s say your user needs to select a State, County, and City. m-Power’s cascading dropdown feature will allow your users to select a state from a dropdown menu. When they do, the dropdown list for counties and cities will refresh to show only the valid counties and cities for that state. Then, selecting a county will populate the city dropdown with all of the applicable cities for that particular county.

• Top-Ten Reports – Now it is very easy to create Top-ten style lists which will restrict the output to a pre-specified number of records. This is perfect for creating simple reports where you only wish to show a certain set of records, for instance – the top 10 highest sales regions, the five worst-selling products, or three most profitable distributors.

• Importing Applications – One of the key features for all Web 2.0 applications is the ease for importing applications between one another. This makes it that much easier to create dashboard applications, pulling in a wide variety of Web applications, not just those built with m-Power. It also makes it easy to develop comprehensive management screens from relatively simple component applications.

• Web Pages sent through email have the same look –Web 2.0 applications contain all of the style information directly within the body of the page so applications are designed for maximum portability. Whether your page is run off the server at run time, sent via email, or saved to your local PC, the page will always have the same look and feel. This feature comes pre-configured and requires no additional configuration.

• Formatted Excel output – Many customers prefer to have reports run directly to an Excel file, but disliked that some formatting was occasionally lost. With Web 2.0 reports, by default, you now have the option of “Formatted Excel” as an output type. You only have to format once, through m-Power’s painting interface, and your formatted report can appear as HTML or open in Excel.

• HTML output option to send directly in email body – Now, it’s easy to specify whether your emailed report will be sent as an attachment or directly in the body of the email. This is important because some e-mail clients are configured to not accept e-mail attachments.

• Customizable Splash Page – Sometimes large reports can take a few seconds to run. This feature provides an intermediate page that comes up to let your users know that their report is running.

• Better (and easier) Report Formatting – This includes the ability to conditionally print fields, so you’re always displaying exactly the information you wish to display, right from the start.

• Improved Print-Optimized HTML – Web 2.0 now lists fewer parameters for Print Optimized output so the feature “just works” rather than you having to configure too many parameters. This feature comes pre-configured and is highly useful for applications that require “hard copy” print-outs at the client destination.

• Easier options for Formatting Numeric Data fields– In the past, to format numbers in the form they should be displayed, like a social security number XXX-XX-XXXX, or a phone number XXX-XXX-XXXX, complicated edit codes would come into play. Now, this can also be accomplished by simple painting through m-Painter.

• Print and use totals anywhere—Because the new logic in Web 2.0 reports does all the gathering of data and calculations before formatting the output, totals and grand totals can be presented anywhere in the report. This clearly improves format and flexibility and simplifies things like margin and percent of total calculations.

Additional information can be found at: http://mrc-productivity.com.Or, contact mrc via phone at 630.916.0662; via fax at 630.916.0663; via e-mail at mrc@mrc-productivity.com

About mrc
mrc’s development tool suites: m-Power and the mrc-Productivity Series, are used to create business applications and can run on any platform that supports Java (e.g. OS/400, Linux, Unix, and Windows). Applications access DB2/400, Oracle, MySQL and MSSQL, or any combination thereof. Using these development tools, users create an endless variety of Java-based business applications from simple queries to reports, to complex custom enterprise systems and dashboards.

mrc was a recipient of the 2004 Apex Award for application development, is a long-time IBM Business Partner, and has been producing award-winning development software since 1981.

If you'd like to see how easy m-Power is to use, there is an online test drive available where you can build two server-side Java applications (including tutorial) in under half an hour without any knowledge of Java. Take the challenge! We know you can do it: http://www.mrconlinelab.com.