The first "finished" product of the DE8.5 line will be released later this month, but it is just the first in line.

Over the last couple of months, we have split the DataEase Product into different lines.

DataEase 8.5 Developer will now simply be the "designer and builder" of DataEase applications. 

Up to now a lot of clients have bought runtime and used developer to run the applications.

Not really in line with the Software License but we have been sympatetic. 

There has really been no benefit from running Runtime (or GROUP) but a lot of potential problems.

GROUP has basically just been Developer where the developer ability has been "greyed" out.

Not so anymore.

From 8.5 they are split into two different software lines.

Developer is no longer "usable" for runtime (if you don't want your users to change or enhance the application that is), while the new App Framework will be specialized for runtime where the developer will have much better control with both look, deployment, updating and maintenance.

We will get back with a proper presentation of this line later when the first in line, DataEase Application Launcher is ready but we can give you some pointers.

You might have been seeing that GetCurrent() has been enhanced at intervals with features like

GetCurrent("Version") or lately GetCurren("CPUID")

All these are added to give the developer better control of the environment the application is running in.

One of the latest additions is GetCurrent("AppDataPath").

This funciton will give you the path to the active user/dataease application data storage area.

It is in this area you will find DataEase.ini and where you should store shared images etc.

You will now be able to for instance control the background image/splash when you load DataEase.

Simply copy the image you want to use here and add 

SplashScreen=whateverimagename.png under the [STARTUP] section.

You can also use a full path to the image if it is located somewhere else.