The concept of extensibility is not exclusive to GeneXus X. GeneXus 9.0 already included certain tools allowing us to extend the work in the applications; while GXpublic facilitated access to information in the Web to complement an application for the KB (through the Import/Export function), the Knowledge Manager allowed us to share that information among various KBs. However, any integration demanded that we call up an executable file outside of GeneXus - as in the case of Patterns – so, roughly speaking, nothing allowed us to modify (or mainly, extend) GeneXus.

Hence, when we began to work on rewriting what later became GeneXus X, there appeared the possibility of creating a tool to enable the extension of GeneXus. “GeneXus X features a three-layer architecture. There is Business Logic, that is like GeneXus’s core, which together with the User Interface layer may be extended by GeneXus users themselves,” commented José Lamas, a member of the Artech Development Team.

Thanks to this new way of operating, there are now three options to extend GeneXus. On the one hand, Patterns is a lot stronger and wholly integrated into GeneXus; at the same time, there is the possibility of enhancing the Web 2.0-type of applications generated by means of User Controls. These new controls lead to the growth of the GeneXus community, as you don’t necessarily need to be a GeneXus developer to be able to use the User Controls. Finally, we have GXextensions, the tools that allow us to really extend GeneXus IDE. “With GeneXus X, we developed the base of GeneXus for the next 5 or 10 years, so the more it allows us to do, the better it will be to work with. We start from the premise that the easier it is for us, the simpler it will be for the community. These extensions open the field to better developments, attaching more value to GeneXus,” Lamas explained.

In turn, GeneXus extensibility presents a new business horizon for those members of the GeneXus community developing User Controls and GXextensions. “Everybody may benefit from this value, because what really matters is that, from now on, the “Know Today” application is fairly close to development,” Lamas concluded.