Category: News

Enterprise Edition of PHPRunner and ASPRunner.NET provides Active Directory authentication option. It is a useful feature but it has some restrictions, for instance, you cannot use a hybrid database/AD approach where some users will use Active Directory login and some others will have their usernames and passwords stored in the database.

This changes in version 10.6 where Active Directory is no longer a replacement for database-based login but a supplement. Active Directory is now considered a “security provider” and works the same way as “Login via Google” or “Login via Facebook”. We are also adding new security providers like OpenID, SAML, AzureAD and Okta.

This is how it works on the backend side. If you have used “Login via Google” or “Login via Facebook”, you should be already familiar with this concept. When user logs in via a third-party security provider we create a record in the users table with a unique id that for Facebook starts with fb, for Google it starts with go, and for Active Directory that prefix will be ad.

Some businesses may require two people to confirm certain actions like big transactions may require a supervisor’s approval. Another scenario – certain actions require entering the second password. This additional password can be changed daily and distributed among employees in the morning along with the secret handshake. Btw, the whole application doesn’t need to be password-protected, you can add the password to a certain action.

In this article, we will show how to implement this additional password security feature. We will cover two scenarios here:
1. Password-protecting custom button
2. Password-protecting editing the field in inline mode

Let’s imagine you have a web application where multiple users adding data at the same time i.e. a helpdesk application where end-users submit tickets and support staff needs to see new tickets as soon as possible. This article explains how to show new records on the page automatically without reloading the page. New records will be also highlighted to make them stand out.

SaaS applications, also known as multi-tenant applications, are very popular these days. A single instance of the software is available to multiple customers/tenants. Each tenant’s data is isolated and remains invisible to other tenants. All tenant databases have the same structure. The data is different, of course.

Tri-part events are a special code snippets that provide a convenient way of programming interactions between the browser and the webserver.

Why three parts?

Any web application consists of two parts – server and client. The client part runs in the browser on the computer of the web site visitor. This part takes care of all user interface interactions, such as buttons, input controls, blocks of text and images. Client-side code is written in Javascript in most cases.

Server part – this code runs on the webserver itself and has direct access to the database, can send emails, read and write files to the disk. In PHPRunner-created applications server code language is PHP, ASPRunner.NET uses C# or VB.NET, ASPRunnerPro uses Classic ASP.

Most real-life tasks though require a joint action of both client and server parts. For example, the user presses a button and wants something changed in the database, or an email being sent.
Tri-part events provide a relatively easy way to create such integrated code snippets.

They consist of three parts running one after another:

• Client Before – this Javascript code is run immediately after user’s action such as pressing the button.
• Server – this part runs on the server after the Client Before part has finished. You can only user server-side code here (PHP, C# or ASP).
• Client After – back to the web browser, another Javascript code part.

If you purchased or upgraded PHPRunner, or ASPRunner.NET less than one year ago logon to control panel and find download links and registration keys under ‘My purchases’. There should be ‘Reg info’ link next to your latest upgrade purchase.

Note: Software maintenance coverage needs to be continuous. If your last purchase or upgrade were more than one year ago you have till June 20, 2019 to renew your maintenance. After that date you will have to purchase PHPRunner, ASPRunner.NET or ASPRunnerPro at the full price.

New customer purchase links:
PHPRunner
ASPRunnerPro
ASPRunner.NET

Upgrade/maintenance renewal links:
PHPRunner
ASPRunnerPro
ASPRunner.NET

What’s new in version 10.2

Collapsible menu bar

Hide/collapse menu bar on the left. This feature is inspired by AdminLTE template.