Focus on Revelation
November was a busy time for all at Revelation with a visit to the UK by Mike Ruane, the release of OpenInsight 7.2 and UD Heavy entering into its final testing phase before its release in a few weeks time. The highlight of all of these events was the release of version 7.2 with a whole host of goodies including:
Click here for further details of this release.
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CTO migration tools
Released in 7.2 Revelation's Character to OpenInsight (CTO) migration tools enable most MultiValue developers to simply take an ACCOUNT_SAVE of their existing application and restore it as an application within OpenInsight.
Click here for more details about CTO. | .
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. | Two RUGs and the BCS
During a very brief visit to the UK Mike Ruane, President & CEO of Revelation, could be found presenting at both the London and the Isle of Man RUGs and then also at the a meeting hosted by the Isle of Man Branch of the British Computer Society
Click here for the full story.
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News Update
- Revelation User Groups
- Isle of Man British Computer Society meeting
- Version 7.2
- CTO - Character to OpenInsight
- Latest Version Checker
- Contact Us
Revelation User Group
Friday 18th November saw the latest mainland UK user group take place in London and this was followed by the Isle Of Man (IoM) Revelation User Group meeting on Tuesday 22nd November. Both the London and IoM meetings were well attended with some familiar faces as well as some first time RUG attendees. Mike Ruane was to be the key speaker at both events with Martyn Phillips kicking off the proceeding in London and Andrew McAuley in the IoM.
Both began by introducing the speakers and then each attendee was asked to say a few words about themselves and their roles within their respective organisations. At both meetings it was interesting to see that whilst there were many people with 15+ years of Revelation exposure, several people with around 4 years experience and there were even some new users and non-Revelation users who had heard good things, wanted to see more and find out about the opportunities that being an OpenInsight developer can offer.
Following the introductions the attendees were told that with the recent release of 7.2, Mike would be spending his portion of the presentation showing some of the new features.
Turning to EMEA region specific topics Andrew and Martyn explained that one of the major events of this year has been the push into South Africa, spurred by a renewed interest by our resellers there. Stage 7 in Jo'Burg are pushing into the MultiValue world and WS&A are reaching out to the existing Revelation community and exploring new markets. Several representatives of Revelation Software Ltd and Revelation Software Inc. had visited Cape Town earlier in the year to address the User Group there.
The group members also heard how during early 2006 the emphasis for Revelation was going to be on the CTO (the new tool allowing MultiValue developers to port their existing code to OpenInsight and run green screen) and on promoting the Linux version of OI into that marketplace. OIL (OI for Linux) is maturing nicely and starting to pick up market penetration.
Finally there was news of an exciting new development to be released Q1 2006 - namely the UD Heavy (UDH). This special version of the Universal Driver makes data replication across servers possible. This means that as data is written to one server it is automatically written to another. If either server fails, the other one can take over. If backups are required the primary server can be put into 'journaling mode' while the secondary machine is taken off line, backed up and then the primary machine will replay all transactions since the secondary was taken off line. In addition, new tools would be provided to make the UDH more of an enterprise tool - allowing for example, the monitoring of all users and remote logoff of users holding locks.
The floor was then given to Mike Ruane who started by asking what people wanted to see. As the consensus was "everything" he went through the toolset tool by tool demonstrating the new features. The new improved edittable load speed was particularly well received, as was the interceptable debugger calls. The improved support for theming was welcomed as was the new improved Editor, although some requests were made for improved colourisation. Mike identified the issues at stake here and committed to improving this area. After a thorough demonstration Mike invited questions and suggestions for the product. Several questions were taken from the audience and all suggestions made were carefully noted. In fact knowing Mike they were probably fixed on the flight home!
Following the formal presentations a period of time was made available for members to network, share ideas and just catch-up.
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Isle of Man British Computer Society meeting
Mike Ruane and Andrew McAuley had been invited to address the Isle of Man British Computer Society on the topic of '"Who wants to be Normal anyway?" A look at post-relational, MultiValue databases.'. With so many IT people on the island (an estimated 1,000 out of a population of 70,000) there were bound to be several relational adherents so this topic promised to be of great interest to the Society's membership.
The day had started interestingly in the taxi on the way to the Hilton from the Ronaldsway Airport when the driver enquired why they were on the island. Upon hearing that it was to address the BCS he said "Oh yes - I heard about that on the radio this morning - it's open to everyone isn't it?". It seems that it had been reported about on the Island Radio so a healthy turnout was expected!
The meeting started with a lavish spread laid on by the BCS for attendees. Once this had been grazed the attendees made their way through to the presentation room where the speakers sat ready for them. Mr Cameron Christie (BCS Events Sub Committee) introduced the speakers in such glowing terms that they found themselves checking that they were the people being described! Mr Christie put it very succinctly when he explained that one of the best things about multi-valued architectures was that they made it incredibly easy for anyone to develop applications. The other side of this was that one of the worst things about multi-valued architectures was that they made it incredibly easy for anyone to develop applications! He then went on to call to the Podium Mike Ruane who introduced himself and launched into the presentation.
Mike initially explained what he was going to be talking about and then went on to discuss the 6 Normal Forms. Using a set of sample data he then went on to normalise the data to third normal form (3NF) with worked examples. Following this he went on to describe the characteristics of Multivalued databases - including the fact that they can be used to implement normalised databases, that they tend to have data aware programming languages and that they support both real and abstracted data. He further went on to describe the physical characteristics of MultiValue data implementations before showing a pivotal slide illustrating a multivalued table as a three dimensional object, thereby more accurately reflecting the real world.
At this point Mike handed over to Andrew to talk about practical implementations of multivalued databases.
Andrew began by showing examples of normal data representation in a multivalued database before explaining the basic concepts of the average MultiValue database from an Object oriented perspective with Dictionaries being classes, Fixed Fields properties and Calculated fields Methods. This led into a discussion of several real world scenarios where a non normalised data structure made more sense than a normalised data structure. Several Scenarios were described with details of how normalising added complexity without increasing benefits. This section took longer than had been anticipated due to Andrew's anecdotal approach to real world problems. Several Scenario slides were then skipped to allow Andrew to illustrate via reference to a Microsoft Visual Studio supplied sample database (grocerToGo.mdb) how the normalised data added complexity that was not required and by reference to a denormalised OpenInsight database to show how performance could be improved with no loss of functionality.
Upon conclusion questions were invited from the audience who chose to leave these until after the event!
Mr Mike Coleman (the Chair of the Island's BCS) concluded with a speech of thanks to Messrs McAuley and Ruane for taking time out of their schedule to address the assembled masses. He then presented them both with handsome certificates of appreciation - complete with BCS seal and turned to other BCS related matters.
All in all a thoroughly enjoyable meeting with a positive audience response!
Andrew McAuley
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Version 7.2
The full version of 7.2 is now available for any WORKS subscriber to download from the private WORKS area. The download includes the readme which details all of the modifications and enhancements, but here are just a few of the highlights.
The New Features in OI 7.2 include:
 | OIPI| | The second value of the printer device can now be a 1 to change the windows default printer.
New option for saving print files. 10 Saves report as a file. Can be loaded with LOADDOC command. Archiving New option for SET_PRINTER files. Value of 11 loads report into archive file New Option “Loaddoc” has an added parameter – true to load document from archive or false loads a saved report file. GET_PRINTER – New option “Archive” returns a list of reports in Archive file @fm delimited separated by @vm for date created. New option “archivedelete” added for SET_PRINTER where 1st parameter is file name. This option deletes a report in the archive file and does not need the init or term command. Print OIPI in postscript if INI file has Postscript = "yes" Added Routine to print PDF from preview based on page Range if page range option is on. Disabled PDF button on preview until report is completed. GET_PRINTER("DEVICES") can be executed before SET_PRINTER("INIT"). SET_PRINTER("RESETPAGES") message created. Run_Report now accepts DBL_SPC keyword as part of the list statement for double line spacing. New SET_PRINTER message DRAWCIRCLE has been added to allow printing circles at specified locations using current line and fill styles.
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| Report Builder |
| Table Browser| | Support added for filter and number of rows to display Email_Format validation has now been added for validations. UNC now accepted for new table locations.
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| Direct Print| | - The Direct_Print function provides a method to print data directly to a printer. This function bypasses the use of print drivers enabling the use of escape codes to be sent directly to the printer. It includes messages to be sent to the function for printing data. See the Programmer's Reference Manual Chapter 3 in the Online Help for more details
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| New System Editor| | The ability to open other subroutines while editing a stored procedure by double-clicking on its name has been added to the new System Editor. Support of respecting #defines in insert records has been added. Support for nesting $Inserts has been added. Support for collapsing multi-line $inserts to a single line has been added. Support for $uses to implement extended repository linking has been added. Support for repository linking non-declared subroutine calls has been added. Support for #pragma statements has been added.
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| Form Designer| | New Edittable Features New CARETPOS Property has been added. Property gets and sets the column and row of the cell that has focus. It has the same format as NOTIFYPOS but allows for the ability to use SET_PROPERTY. New HEADERHEIGHT Property has been added. Property gets and sets the column heading height for an edittable. It has the same format as ROWHEIGHT. New POS_BY_CURSOR message has been added to return the cell that the mouse cursor is over.
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| Utility Function Service| | New OBJECTID service has been added. It returns the OpenInsight object name of a window when passed its handle. Syntax: objectID = Utility("OBJECTID",handle)
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| XML Workspace| | - A new parameter has been added to Inet_OI_XML to hide or display the final message when the process has completed.
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Just a few of the fixes in 7.2
Basic+ and System Routines include new OCONV output formats which include DQ, DW, DWA, MCU, MCL, MCT, MCN, MCA, MC/A and MCAN. We have also caught and removed a rouge 64K limit which effected the display of the repository list of database columns. The ability to have double line spacing when using RUN_REPORT has been added through the inclusion of DBL_SPC as a keyword along with other fixes associated with the RUN_REPORT command.
With regard to interface design we have addressed an issue with loading large amounts of data into an edit table, this has reduced the time to populate a 10,000 row edit table from around 2-3 minutes to below half a second. Numerous other enhancements have been made to the visual presentation of controls on the screen.
Both OIPI and the Report Builder have seen numerous fixes some of which include the ability to request pages to print to .PDF in OIPI and for the system to create the .PDF file once the report is completely formatted by OIPI. In addition the COLHDRFONT and SET_PRINTER properties in OIPI now correctly sets the fonts as required. The Report Builder also now uses commas for decimals for European printing and other display issues.
The RDK includes fixes with regard to assigning user passwords and it also now enables the Manifest file and custom MFS's to be deployed correctly. Deployments created with the RDK now also include the LH3.DLL, LH"CLNT.DLL, VSPDF.OCX and the VSPRINT7.OCX files with the full deployment.
The Table Builder has seen allot of attention as well. Among the numerous fixes is included the ability to print dictionaries to .PDF and the Table Browser is now non-modal.
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CTO - Character to OpenInsight
CTO is a new set of features that are built into OpenInsight version 7.2 and above and enable MultiValue developers to take a virtual ACCOUNT-SAVE of their existing application and restore the saved account as an application within OpenInsight. All files will be created in a specified location, all dictionaries will be converted as best as possible and character-based programs will be able to be pre-compiled and run 'as is' under a VT100 emulation.
The CTO interface supplements the GUI interface that is synonymous with OpenInsight. Both the GUI and CTO interfaces communicate with the Revelation OpenEngine (the heart of the database environment). Therefore both interfaces have access to all of the files and programs stored in the database and they can interoperate. Developers can have the best of both worlds (GUI and CTO), with no middleware add-on costs, as well as take advantage of OpenInsight's economical Server Deployment Packs.
Rather than drawing Windows or Linux Desktop graphical forms however, the CTO handles the processing of traditional MultiValue PRINT, INPUT, etc., statements, including support for cursor movement and screen attribute control.
In addition, CTO emulates a toolset and environment that are familiar to the traditional MultiValue developer and user, including a command line prompt, support for PROCs and Paragraphs, a 'master dictionary', a spooler interface and system tools like ED, BASIC, LIST/SORT, etc.
The CTO interface can be invoked from a terminal emulator using telnet, or directly from the Windows command prompt.
Once the CTO conversion is complete the MultiValue developer is provided with a number of choices. With OpenInsight's CTO interface, developers can run existing character-based applications 'as is' and migrate them to a graphical user interface on as 'as needed' basis. Alternatively, a hybrid application can be created, made up of a mixture of character and graphical user interface forms all within the same application.
CTO is included in OpenInsight at no additional charge. With OpenInsight release 7.2 and above, MultiValue developers can create professional looking, scalable, extensible, robust applications in a fraction of the time it takes to create them using other development tools, and deploy single user runtime versions at no extra cost. A 250-user system is less than £20.00 per seat with no annual maintenance fees.
In early 2006 Revelation will be promoting this new technology and there will be conversion white papers, seminars and other developer focused initiatives aimed at helping non-Revelation MultiValue developers to harness the power and flexibility of OpenInsight. We are also currently considering completing some free of charge CTO conversions - Please contact Martyn via email (mp@revsoft.co.uk) for more details if you are and existing MultiValue developer or user and are interested in such a conversion.
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Latest Version Checker
ARev Full Dev OpenInsight Full Dev 16-bit Full Dev 32-bit
ODBC Driver OI-32 only Network Products NT, Win2K, & XP Novell 3.x & 4.x Novell 5.x & 6.x Linux | – 3.12
– 3.7.5 – 7.2
– 1.1 – Win2K Svc 2.1 / UD 3.0.0.2* – Rev. NLM 1.5 / UD 3.0.0.2* – Rev. NLM 5.5 / UD3.0.0.2* – Latest Novell cipx.exe – Universal Driver 3.0.0.2* |
Running ARev?
CPU Utilisation up,
Performance down,
on modern Operating Systems, like XP? Call Martyn on
+44 (0)20 8912 1003
for further details
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*The Universal Driver is the new preferred driver for all ARev and OpenInsight based systems. Please check the web site at http://www.revsoft.co.uk/universal_driver.htm for more details about this product and how it can benefit your system.
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Contact UsWe are always pleased to hear from existing, expired and potentially new Revelation developers and end-users alike. You can contact us in many ways:
You can also find directions to our offices on our web site.
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