You might feel that it has been a little silent and not much have happened on the website lately, and you are right, but it is not due to us not being working.
As you might be aware of we are still in heavy development and DataEase 8 is only in Pre-Release i.e. available for purchase for two reasons:
1. Popular Demand - For some reasons YOU have got wind of it and want to get started right now and we could't see any reason why not (If you know DFW already that is!) as it is more stable and more functional than any previous version of DFW already.
2. We obviously want it to be tested so we can fix and clean it up for the "big day".
But don't think the "Big Day" is just around the corner. We are in no hurry, and neither should you. Release in many ways is only a marketing event, as we intend to work as hard on improving and moving DataEase 8 forward after it as before, so the reason we hold off is only one. We want it to be ready! Ready enough so you can develop with without needing our support, so what is holding at back the most at the moment is documentation/samples/templates etc.
It is a much better investment of our money to show all of you how to do something, give all of you a hint or a good idea, then doing it one-on-one. So if you have a challenge, or there is something you wonder about. Don't email us! Put it on the forum, and we will reply to it! That way everybody get to see what happens, and everybody get the solution.
Any-ways, this wasn't supposed to be about release but about current work being undertaken in DataEase 8.
1. PRE1 with a completely new GUI interface
where the flickering/windowing/dialogs etc is completely change. One hint: You can now have Maximized and dialoged at the same time, and all your maximized windows will be tabbed.
2. ExecDQL(MemoExecDQL,FileExecDQL)
We have written about this already, but basically this is an interpretive version of DQL which can be run from anywhere in your application. It will not need a pre-stored/pre-compiled DQL and it will not cause any "ripple" like execution of "OpenProcedure()" or "DocumentOpen()".
The DQL executed this way will be interpreted (i.e. created on the spot) and you will be able to transfer 4 Data-Entry arguments (Field1..4)
It will not generate screen output under any circumstance, but it will be able to export/list results to a file.
3. GDI replacement of ImageMan image library.
It is no big secret that images in DFW has been lagging behind so we are finally replacing the obsolete Imageman library with standard GDI handling. This will result in transparent images and better compression/resolution.
4. Integrated Email
We are impriving email further so that memo fields can be used directly in generation of emails. We will also integrate the configuration of the email "client" better. The biggest news however will be that you can also receive emails directly into a DataEase database.5. Scrolling forms with the roller on the mouse.
I guess this is self explanatory...6. MultiBoxReworking.
The road from LookupField to Multibox has never come full circle. Multibox deliver so much promise but deliver very little of it. One of the most annoying things with Multibox is that it is not sorted (alpha/numerical) but just deliver the dropdown in record order. The second most annoying thing is that it has an almost functionality... Self population!You can build a multibox upon itself, but then every time you select a value an extra copy will be added to the list. So a very neat functionality is ruined by it being "correct", so we will add sorting and we will add exclusive i.e. that only one of each occurrence
of a key in the underlying
value will be viewed in the list and voila....it finally becomes useful ;-)
7. "Stealing" functionality from Ffenics - Disable Close on windows and initial hide of objects.
Our "sister software" has adopted a lot our new functionality as their own, so I guess it is time we returned the favour. To be honest this is functionality that has been on our "todo" list since "for ever", and my guess is that it was implemented in Ffenics as a favour to the user base when it was first launched.
Now we are implementing it as a favour to our user base too ;-)
8. We don't list all the fixes etc, but a couple is worth mentioning...
We will try to best the insert/overwrite that has been haunting DFW virtually for ever. I say TRY because many have tried before us and they have all been bested...
Another small fix is that we will redefine enter in Memo Fields so it will now be new line rather than go to next field..