Hi,

I have just been looking at http://www.openwebstudio.com/ and I am trying to find some real live demos of what it can do. (The demo page/screenshots on the site are impossible to navigate and puts me off). In theory it sounds awesome but I need to see some sites in actions so I can work out if it will be useful to me or not.

Any reviews?

Entrepreneur

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OWS is a great product & we now use it for all of our module developement. We can build advanced jquery/ajax applications in minutes instead of hours/days.

The only bad things about OWS is: bad website (not very user friendly), wiki is useless (most the pages are blank), basically no ducumentation & basically no community support given by r2i.

I would of thought r2i would of got their product started with some great community support to get people using their product (that hsn't really happend yet..hint..hint..), basically if you want support you need to purchase a subscription from r2i.

To get started I would suggest the following:

1. Watch these videos - http://www.openwebstudio.com/Community/Forums/tabid/55/forumid/2/threadid/22490/scope/posts/Default.aspx

2. Download & have a play with some of the samples posted in the forums HERE

3. You can use "OWS TOKENS" (they are actually called "COLUMNS & VALUES") thoughout your module: http://www.openwebstudio.com/Community/Content.aspx?topic=Columns_and_Values

4. Keep the ListX manual handy (OWS is basically just a new version of ListX & most of the stuff in the old ListX manual is still useful) - DOWNLOAD LISTX MANUAL

5. If you make anything cool, post it in the samples forum so we can all learn from it ;)

The good news is that the forum at OWS is pretty freindly, so if you need help I am sure one of us can help you get started. Hope this helps!

Adam gives the best listing I can think of for starting with OWS.

A step at a time and it will start coming together before too long.

Documentation and the wiki aren't great, though the ListX documentation does cover quite a bit to get going.  I've spoken recently with Kevin at r2i and I understand they will be relacing the wiki on the site with a beefed up version to make it easier for everyone to contribute.

I'm using OWS for most things now, and prefer to use it wherever possible because I do feel much better control over everything and at any time.  You can see samples of it on our website - http://www.accountantscircle.co.uk. Just about everything on the sides of the site are done in OWS, mostly the LiveChat and things like Blog modules aren't. I have it rotating banners around the site, as well as the starting point for the testimonials that scroll.

Also use it in conjuction with SmartThinker and Ventrian. The directory on the site here, is your UserProfile directory but the link to a profile (example) actually shows an OWS configuration (I've hidden the ST UserProfile module).

I do like the ST modules... just that OWS is easy enough to use once you get going and it gives me enormous flexibility.  I need this for our profiles, as we have different types of profiles - different information for different people/business types etc. (note: this is where I'd like to have a map to link to these too as I mentioned to you before)

Further to that, I've used OWS with the DNN Forums on the site to help integrate the DNN Forums to both the same custom profiles as well as the Ventrian Private Messages module.  Clicking on names in the forums takes it to the OWS profile as before, and clicking on PM in the forums takes it to the Ventrian PM module - all done in about 5 lines in OWS and no modification to the DNN Forums or anything else.

Even done the DNN login using OWS, so it's finally as I had always wanted - a direct simple login form on the first screen (no pop-ups, no going to a login screen etc).

Give Adam's advice a shot, step by step and if you need advice, tips or a quick 'how to' - try the forums... then let us know what you think!

Also feel free to drop me an email anytime as you have my details.

Cheers

David