User Group Meeting

It is NOW time to register

Following the success of the Revelation World Conference in sunny Las Vegas last month, we are pleased to announce that the UK office is currently planning a smaller user group meeting to be held in London on Tuesday 5th August. 

The time and venue will be announced shortly on our news page, along with further details as they are made available.  Please sign up for the change detection notification if you are not already a subscriber and be one of the first to receive the user group updates.

Mike Ruane, President of Revelation Software, will be present to showcase the forthcoming OpenInsight 9.0 release which features over 4,000 enhancements and brand new features, including WebOI.  In addition, Andrew McAuley will host a technical presentation and you will have an opportunity to put questions to both Mike and Andrew on any Revelation topic.

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Conference Wrap-up

This years revelation annual World Conference took place during May in sunny Las Vegas, USA.  Held in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, over 130 Revelation developers, users and consultants were never far away from the temptation of the slots and card tables - some of us even came away winners for once ;-).

Everyone at Revelation would like to extend our thanks to each and every person that helped to make this one of the best revelation conferences yet - and especially, thank you to those of you who made the long trip from the EMEA region.

As always, there was far too much going on for me to cover it all in one newsletter.  However, among some of the extremely popular sessions were those taking a closer look at the forthcoming 9.0 release with the accompanying license changes, the ability to interact with Google for charts, maps and more, without fogetting OI4U2.  For the propeller heads, the guys from WinWin Solutions, SRP and Sprezzatura were on hand to both confuse and enlighten.

Respite from the highly exhausting technical sessions came on Thursday when everyone headed off down to the Rio's bowling alley for some fun and relaxation - some of us even learned a few new and rather unconventional ways to bowl. 

Another evening was taken up by the vendor fair where leading consulting houses and Value Added Resellers networked with users and fellow developers, swapped stories and even helped address some attendees development problems.

Someone else going away with more than they had bargained for was Ted Archibald from Parsec Systems.  Ted was the lucky winner of Sprezzatura's Asus give away - who said that you can have too many fortune cookies?

Please click here for a complete conference wrap-up.  You can also view a Youtube slide show of the conference proceedings - Viewer Discretion is Advised :-)

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OpenInsight 8.0.6

Those of you who are current WORKS members will no doubt have noticed the release of OpenInsight 8.0.6 through the WORKS download section on www.revelation.com recently.  The 8.0.6 release can only be applied to the version 8.0.3, 8.0.4 and 8.0.4 releases.  If you are currently working on an older version, you will need to upgrade to at least 8.0.3 to apply this upgrade. 

If you are upgrading from release 8.0.3, 8.0.4 or 8.0.5, you will receive your authorisation code via an automated email upon submitting your request.  Please contact Martyn if you have any trouble upgrading or acquiring your authorisation code.    

We are also aware of a number of people still running 4.1.3 versions of OpenInsight.  The upgrade process from 4.1.3 to 8.0.6 is now a fairly cumbersome task and Revelation now have a 4.1.3 to 8.0.6 special upgrade build available.  This upgrade is not a published release, nor is it on general release, so please contact Martyn if you are interested in obtaining a copy of these upgrade files.
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OI4Web - Now available for download!

OI4Web is not to be confused with WebOI, as mentioned earlier. WebOI is a major new feature of the OpenInsight 9.0 release and you will hear much about this new and exciting technology over the coming weeks. On the other hand, OI4Web is available for download now and it provides developers with yet another way of getting to OpenInsight data through a web browser.

It is expected that OI4Web will most often be used with Active Server Pages (ASP) and this functionality provides a .NET "object" that can be used in any development environment that allows for the creation and invocation of ActiveX objects.

With OI4Web, developers can simply call an OpenInsight INET stored procedure and process the returned data.  The ASP page can then display, or utilise this data as appropriate.

The OI4Web object communicates with OpenInsight via Revelation's EngineServer technology using an 'asynchronous' connection.  Multiple client requests can be processed with a single, or a few, OpenInsight licenses.  Also, through the use of the EngineServer's open communication standard, it is now possible to deploy the web server and the OpenInsight systems on different servers.

Please click here for more information about OI4Web and to request a copy of OI4Web.
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Universal Driver 4.5

The Universal Driver (UD) 4.5 is scheduled for release on the 1st July 2008 and it will replace the existing Universal Driver version 4.0.  This brand new version of the Universal Driver will provide increased reliability through the use of the latest ACE communication libraries.  In addition, the new version benefits from improved performance in the Linear Hash manager.

Please keep an eye on the news page for the announcement of the actual release and then contact sales@revsoft.co.uk to obtain your free copy or to request the cost to upgrade your existing Revelation network product.

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Technical Tip - ARev32 Start-up Process

When the AREV32_CHILD_FORM or AREV32_STANDALONE_FORM is invoked (or when the command AREV32 is issued in CTO at TCL), a series of records are checked to control which commands and menus are run. It is important to understand the order in which these records are examined.

If the AREV32 command is issued with an explicit command to run (for example, typing "AREV32 RUNMENU STARTUP" at CTO TCL), then that specific command or menu is run, and AREV32 then terminates.

If no explicit command is specified, the AREV32 process will attempt to find any "startup" command and/or "reset" command defined for this application or user. The "startup" command is issued before any other AREV32 processing; this may be done, for example to attach tables, volumes, etc. The "reset" command identifies which menu (typically) should be used as the 'main menu' for this AREV32 session.

First, the SYSENV table is checked for a record with the same name as the current user. If this record exists, and field 1 of the record is the literal string "USER", and field 2 of the record is the name of the current application, then any value in field 3 is used as the "startup" command, and any value in field 8 is used as the "reset" command.

Next, the SYSENV table is checked for a record with the same name as the current application. If this record exists, and field 1 of the record is the literal string "ACCOUNT", then any value in field 2 is used as the "startup" command IF NO STARTUP COMMAND HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN FOUND, and any value in field 10 is used as the "reset" command IF NO RESET COMMAND HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN FOUND.

 If no "reset" command has been defined at this point, the current environment set (@environ_set) is checked (in the E.MENU field); if any value exists in this field, then the "reset" routine is set to the menu named STARTUP.

The VOC table is then checked for a record with the same name as the current user. If this record exists, then the "startup" command is set to the username (so that the VOC entry - a catalogued pointer, a PROC or paragraph, etc. - will be run) IF NO STARTUP COMMAND HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN FOUND.

Next, the VOC table is checked for a record with the same name as the current application, and (as above) the "startup" command is set to the application name IF NO STARTUP COMMAND HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN FOUND.

Finally, the VOC table is checked for a record with the name LOGON. If this record exists, and there is no "reset" or "startup" routines defined, the "startup" command is set to LOGON.

At this point, processing is ready to proceed. If there is a command defined for the "startup" processing, it is executed. After it has completed, the main processing loop (RTP18) is entered, and any defined "reset" command is evaluated. 

This technical tip has been taken from the Knowledge Base found on http://www.revelation.com, a useful resource for all revelation developers and power users.
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Latest Version Checker

*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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We are always pleased to hear from existing, expired and potentially new Revelation developers and end-users alike.  You can contact us in many ways:

Post 45 St Mary's Road Ealing London W5 5RG United Kingdom Email info@revsoft.co.uk sales@revsoft.co.uk Telephone +44 (0) 20 8912 1000 Fax +44 (0) 20 8912 1001

Click here for a map of our location

You can also find directions to our offices on our web site.

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