Creating Solutions with Formativ
With Formativ, customizing GroupWise is easy! Developers, power users and even casual users can develop solutions.
With Formativ, GroupWise becomes a rapid development platform for the enterprise and the individual. You can address business needs faster and at low cost.
To develop Formativ applets, use Formativ Creator. If you only need to run Formativ applets, use Formativ Runtime.
- Wide range of solutions possible.
- Fully integrated development environment.
- Dynamic visual form designer.
- Integrated Web technology.
- Easily add GroupWise toolbar buttons and menu items.
- Associate applets with GroupWise events, such as on send.
- Create custom forms and dialogs.
- Easy access to third party services, such as COM.
- Secure environment.
- Secure and rapid distribution.
- Low cost runtime engine (Formativ Runtime).
Click the heading below to review developer features in more detail.
Developer Features in Detail
What can I develop using Formativ?
Advansys Formativ is a completely new paradigm in GroupWise development. Developers, power users and even casual users are now able to develop Novell GroupWise solutions using powerful applets. You no longer need to be familiar with several application programming interfaces and development languages. Using Formativ, customizing and extending GroupWise has never been easier!
Formativ gives you the power to develop a wide range of utilities, enhancements and applications for Novell GroupWise quickly and cost effectively.  See below for a detailed list of capabilities.
- Easily add toolbar buttons and menu items to GroupWise that execute your applets.
- Easily associate applets with GroupWise events, such as the On Send Event (when a message is sent).
- Build solutions that embed your business processes directly into GroupWise.
- Build custom forms and dialogs using the dynamic visual forms designer.
- Build solutions that create GroupWise messages, including mail, appointments, notes, tasks, phone messages etc.
- Build solutions that can export data from GroupWise, and import data into GroupWise.
- Build solutions that access the GroupWise message store, providing full programmatic access to all your email messages, appointments, notes, tasks, phone messages and documents.
- Build solutions that integrate directly with GroupWise Address Books.
- Use the supplied, out of the box sample applets as is, or modify them to more closely suit your specific needs.
- Build solutions that integrate GroupWise with third party applications and systems.
- Build solutions that update GroupWise client settings on startup.
- Build solutions that modify the appearance and functionality of the GroupWise client.
- Build solutions that have access to the various GroupWise programming interfaces from a unified environment.
- And much more!
Industry standard applet language
You develop applets by using the Formativ language, which is 100% compatible with industry standard Visual Basic Script. To provide easy access to the underlying GroupWise message store and the GroupWise client, the Formativ language includes hundreds of commands designed especially for use with Novell GroupWise.
For those users who like to get even deeper into the workings of GroupWise, the Formativ applet language also provides comprehensive access to the underlying native GroupWise Object, Administration and Token programming API’s.
Fully integrated development environment
The Formativ development environment is integrated directly into GroupWise, appearing as a natural extension of the GroupWise client. The Formativ Integrated Development Environment includes a dynamic visual forms designer, syntax highlighting editor, GroupWise integration tools and online documentation.
Add GroupWise toolbar buttons and menu items – easily!
Adding new buttons to GroupWise toolbars and new items to GroupWise menu is trivial using Formativ. Simply choose a button image from the gallery, provide descriptive text, and with point and click simplicity, your new buttons and menu items appear in GroupWise – with no programming!
Information about the new buttons and menu items are stored within each applet, so if you share your applet with others, your buttons and menu items automatically appear on their machines!
Associate applets with GroupWise events – easily!
Formativ lets you automatically trigger your applets when specific GroupWise events occur. For example, you can have an applet run automatically when GroupWise starts, new messages arrive in the In Box, when messages or particular types are opened, deleted, sent and many more options.
Information about the events, with which your applet is associated, are stored within each applet. If you share your applet with others, your applet will be executed automatically on their machines at the appropriate moment.
Create custom forms and dialogs
The Formativ applet language contains the power needed to create forms and dialogs you can use right in your applets. Create data collection forms, feedback dialogs, wizard dialogs – just about anything you need in your applets which interact with your end users.
Easy access to third party services
The Formativ applet language is based on COM technology. This means you can use any COM service installed on your PC from within your applets!
For example, your applet could extract information from the GroupWise address book and publish it using Microsoft Word, or import Outlook Address book information directly into GroupWise! Or you could have a applet query your corporate CRM or human resources system for key information, then create a GroupWise message based the extracted data. This capability alone makes Formativ the ideal tool for integrating third party systems with GroupWise.
Secure environment
Formativ applets are stored using a proprietary file format and are not Visual Basic Script files. They can only run within the secure Formativ execution environment – this means they cannot be executed as attachments, within email messages or from Windows. They are not executed by the Windows Scripting Host (although this does need to be installed). These architectural features protect you from malicious script-based viruses that plague Microsoft Outlook users.