If you need to run a Mendix project on a Windows server you can install it as a service by using the Mendix Windows Service Console. The tool can be downloaded from the support portal. It is located next to the Modeler download of that release.

Quite recently this service console received a major update and it is now at version 2.1; note that this version is meant to be used for Mendix 3 projects. The update contains a number of noteworthy improvements:

Both the project and Mendix server can be updated via the console. For the latter you simply download the … Continue Reading

Your application can be started directly from the Modeler or it can run on a server. Those environments differ and to deal with that we use configurations. A configuration describes among other things where the database is located and how much memory your application needs.

In version 2.x there were two configurations: development and test. The fact that there were two configurations was mostly used to allow for two team members to have a different setup. Logically speaking the Modeler should only start applications in ‘development’ mode and even ‘test’ should be run on a server.

In version 3 we … Continue Reading

If you never want to miss a Tech Tip you can subscribe to the RSS feed at

http://techtips.mendix.com/?feed=rss2

Add it to your favorite RSS reader and new tech tips will appear automatically.

First of all, a happy new year to you all. 2012 promises to be an exciting year for Mendix. We will keep on innovating and telling you all about it through these tech-tips and other channels.

The familiar sprintr feedback widget can now be added to all web sites, not just Mendix applications. See this blogpost for more information: http://www.mendix.com/blog/feedback-for-all/

We have immediately used this new feature ourselves to add the feedback mechanism to our documentation pages. So from now on, if documentation you are looking for is missing or contains an error, you can easily tell us about it. It … Continue Reading

Visual modeling relies more heavily on the mouse as an input device than traditional (textual) programming. Still, the keyboard can be used in many places as an efficient replacement for a mouse click. Here are some examples.

Confirming a form with an OK button can be done by pressing Enter. However, if you are editing text in a multi-line text box (e.g. a microflow expression) Enter inserts a new line. In those cases you can press Ctrl+Enter to apply changes and exit the form. The Escape key closes the form without saving the changes.

If the keyboard focus is on a grid … Continue Reading

If there are errors in the project the Modeler prevents deployment. It may be the case that the errors are all in one document that is not even being used yet. In version 3, you can now exclude the document. This means that it is not checked for errors and not deployed. It is as if the document does not exist. Indeed, usages of the document result in errors.

You can exclude a document by right-clicking in the project explorer and choosing ‘Exclude from project’. The name of the document will be put into parentheses and the icon will be grayed … Continue Reading

We are happy to announce that Mendix 3.1.0 has been released. Virtually all improvements are based on the feedback from you, our users, and so we thank you for helping us improve our technology!

As described in an earlier tech-tip the version numbering has changed and 3.1.0 is a minor release. This in contrast to the version 2 line of our technology where 2.4 to 2.5, for example, was a major release.

There is nothing minor about the list of changes, however! Eight new features, seventeen improvements of existing features and 59 fixes. Several of the features and improvements … Continue Reading

The Modeler is integrated in several ways with the agile project management tool sprintr. You can create a new project both from sprintr and the Modeler. If you create a project from sprintr you can enable the Team Server yourself and then open the project in the Modeler. If you create a project from the Modeler, a corresponding Team Server project is automatically created.

The first thing you typically do is collect requirements in the form of stories in sprintr. Once you have done that and identified which stories you will be doing in the first sprint, you can open the … Continue Reading

Database synchronization brings the database in line with the domain model. You do not have to manage your database; you simply edit the domain model and the rest happens automagically.

In version 3 the synchronization algorithm has been rewritten and it can handle more cases than before. To do this it keeps an administration in special system tables. Because of this you should not edit the database yourself: do not delete or rename columns or tables. Otherwise, the administration will not reflect the real database structure and synchronization will likely fail.

It should not be necessary to modify the … Continue Reading

… Continue Reading