Mendix unleashes client-side scripting potential!

Abdul Gaffar Abuthalib
2 min readJun 14, 2020

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For the open-source enthusiast who just started their Mendix journey would definitely like to read this writeup!!!

JavaScript in Mendix

As a Mendix practitioner, we knew that we have an option to write JavaScript & JQuery snippets through JavaScriptSnippet widget which is available in the Mendix App Store.

In Mx v8.x.x, we can write any JS snippets in Mendix Studio Pro without using any outer source widgets.

There is a feature named JavaScript Actions where you can write your JS snippets and that can be called in the nanoflows.

By the way, the nanoflows are used to handle any client-side implementations on any device such as browser, mobile, tablet / iPad.

TypeScript in Mendix

Microsoft TypeScripting is being used in Mendix from two different perspectives.

1) When you want to make use of Mendix SDK.

Mendix Platform SDK gives you full access to all aspects of your application model. Such as .,

Importing legacy code

  • Bootstrap new apps & modify existing apps
  • Automatically generate CRUD pages for your entities
  • Transform legacy business logic to microflows

Analyzing your application

  • Counting and listing the components of your app.
  • Creating a “Death Star” architecture diagram of your app.
  • Calculating industry-standard software metrics like cyclomatic complexity and fan-in/out of microflows.

Modifying your application

  • Generating documentation.
  • Transforming microflows into Java method.
  • Setting up scaffolding for Selenium page objects.

Exporting your application

  • Batch updating page elements and labels
  • Reorganizing the layout of your app model in the blink of an eye
  • Exposing your microflows as Web Service/App Service and your entities as OData resources

2) Building pluggable widgets.

Mendix UI framework is built on top of Bootstrap and ReactJS.

Mendix purely supports to incorporate any open-source libraries/components of Bootstrap and ReactJS in case, if the UX designer / UI developer who thinks of using the open-source components from out of the box of Mendix in order to meet the business needs of the customer, then the pluggable widget building is the right place to convert the JavaScript / ReactJS component into the Mendix widget.

I hope this gives you some insights into using the client-side scripting in Mendix.

Stay hungry! Stay foolish!!

Thanks much!!!

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Abdul Gaffar Abuthalib
Abdul Gaffar Abuthalib

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