What’s Your Function?

I can’t say that this code actually returns an accurate value but I was impressed that I could just copy it out of an app I wrote back in July (an app that served as the subject of this blog’s first post, incidentally) and slam it into one of the new ZC function constructs to see it “just work” by returning the string value as one would expect.

The idea is to take whatever zoho.currenttime() is reporting and express it as UTC but I suspect the ZC team has since added features native to the platform that obviate the need for it:


string calculations.CalculateUTCTime()
{
// see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=560486
grab_time=zoho.currenttime;
epoch_seconds=((grab_time.toLong() / 1000)).toLong();
days=(epoch_seconds / 86400);
days_int=(days.toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
day_fraction=(days - days_int);
secs_left_over=(day_fraction * 86400);
hrs=(secs_left_over / 3600);
hrs_int=(hrs.toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
hrs_fraction=(hrs - hrs_int);
hours=hrs_int;
secs_left_over=((hrs_fraction * 3600)).toLong();
mins=(secs_left_over / 60);
mins_int=(((mins)).toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
mins_fraction=(mins - mins_int);
minutes="";
if((((mins_int).toString()).length() < 2))
{
minutes="0" + (mins_int);
}
else
{
minutes=(mins_int).toString();
}
secs_left_over=((mins_fraction * 60)).toLong();
secs_int=secs_left_over.toLong();
seconds="";
if(((secs_int.toString()).length() < 2))
{
seconds="0" + secs_int;
}
else
{
seconds=secs_int.toString();
}
// see: http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=7323
a=(days_int + 2472632);
b=(4 * a + 3);
b=((b / 146097)).toLong();
c=(((0 - b) * 146097)).toLong();
c=((c / 4)).toLong();
c=(c + a);
d=(4 * c + 3);
d=((d / 1461)).toLong();
e=((0 - 1461) * d);
e=((e / 4)).toLong();
e=(e + c);
m=(5 * e + 2);
m=((m / 153)).toLong();
dd=(153 * m + 2);
dd=((dd / 5)).toLong();
day=(0 - dd + e + 1);
mm=(((0 - m) / 10)).toLong();
mm=(mm * 12);
month=(mm + m + 3);
year=((b * 100 + d - 4800 + m / 10)).toLong();
month_str="";
if((month == 1))
{
month_str="Jan";
}
else if((month == 2))
{
month_str="Feb";
}
else if((month == 3))
{
month_str="Mar";
}
else if((month == 4))
{
month_str="Apr";
}
else if((month == 5))
{
month_str="May";
}
else if((month == 6))
{
month_str="Jun";
}
else if((month == 7))
{
month_str="Jul";
}
else if((month == 8))
{
month_str="Aug";
}
else if((month == 9))
{
month_str="Sep";
}
else if((month == 10))
{
month_str="Oct";
}
else if((month == 11))
{
month_str="Nov";
}
else if((month == 12))
{
month_str="Dec";
}
ts=((day + "-" + month_str + "-" + year + " " + hours + ":" + minutes) + ":") + seconds;
return ts;
}


Fast Food, Rapid Prototyping

A recent post from Gabriel Coch at the InfoPatterns blog steps through the use of Zoho Creator in conjunction with Toucan Navigate to show “the concentration of Fast Food Places along the I-95 corridor“:

My main objective was to accomplish this without a single line of code (no html, no javascript, no nothing) and yet provide enough functionality to answer some basic questions, hence making this potentially useful in the business world.

Paid Zoho Creator Gigs?

We’re starting up a list of folks who want to advertise their Zoho Creator skills to potential clients. Just contact me and I’ll add your info to the the page.

Online Forms: Everybody’s Doing It

A post over at the Google Docs blog describes a new form creation feature, Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information:

…in some cases, you want to collect just a tiny bit of information from dozens, scores, or even hundreds of users or more. Some of them are Google Docs users. Some of them are not. Either way, you don’t always want them all mucking around with the whole spreadsheet and you’re tired of telling those new to Google Docs that they don’t need to switch to Gmail just to use Docs (huh? you didn’t know that either?).

We’re really excited to bring you forms! Create a form in a Google Docs spreadsheet and send it out to anyone with an email address. They won’t need to sign in, and they can respond directly from the email message or from an automatically generated web page. Creating the form is easy: start with a spreadsheet to get the form, or start by creating the form and you’ll get the spreadsheet automatically.

Reading the entire post left me thinking of blist, DabbleDB, EditGrid, Smartsheet, Wufoo, and Zoho Creator. It must be at least a little disappointing for the smaller outfits in that list to see Google Docs generating similar technology in-house. Then again maybe this fact is just “validation of the model” as some like to say. Since Zoho Creator is really a project inside the much larger AdventNet I’m not sure its team would care much and in any case the unique thing that Zoho Creator brings to the table is that it has a GUI form builder but also an accompanying scripting language. Sites like EditGrid and Wufoo have great user interfaces, AppJet is doing great things with scripting on the web, but the hybrid approach might be entirely unique to Zoho Creator.

SSLick Feature Addition, Much Anticipated

After many desperate, impassioned complaints, I see on the ZC blog that there is now SSL Support in Zoho Creator.

Yep, more proof of Zoho’s remarkable commitment to and support of the customers.