Bob Z and the present and future of Clarion

by Unlicensed user

On Friday morning Bob Z bookended the conference sessions with his Clarion roadmap first thing in the morning and a Q&A session at the end of the day. Since he touched on some of the morning topics in his afternoon session I've combined them into one report.

Bob’s morning topics included:

• Unicode
• 64 bit integers
• Touch support next phase
• H5
• PHP templates
• Possible GoFundMe projects

Unicode

There is a major upcoming RTL change (no ETA yet) for Unicode, and when it is complete all windows and controls will be created with the Unicode API. That means that all text is drawn with the new Unicode functions. 

In support of this functionality there's a new UString data type. The BString (Microsoft binary string) type, which has been present for some time now, is being legalized. 

Unicode support raises issues for TPS files. There are two options:

•  Modify the TPS file format to allow fields of UString type. New programs would be able to read old files without problems.
• Do not modify the TPS file format but use codepage name attributes to tell the program that the strings contain unicode values. Old programs would be able to read new files but of course would just use string fields as regular strings. In any case the string fields would need to be twice as long to support unicode values. 

Bob demonstrated a small Clarion program with unicode support using the Cla$ToUnicodeA function, which receives a string and an equate for the code page. The program showed some text in four different Unicode  code pages, in English, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic.

The compiler however is currently only compiling ansi source not Unicode so in the demo the strings had to be coded individual characters.

Upcoming touch enhancements include functions to determine device screen compatibility, as well as recoding internal window classes so that the OS handles both the open and close of the on-screen keyboard properly. There have long been problems with the Windows code for keyboard management.

Themes – Bob referred to the still-missing template which will be posted soon. See http://clarionuix.github.io/Gen1/

The PHP templates are or have been enhanced with Bootstrap.

Diego says the long-promised H5 is only a few weeks away. 

Bob mentioned the T4 templates, and the T4 template engine that is part of the Clarion.NET product. SoftVelocity is considering making the T4 engine available outside of the APP context which raises a number of interesting possibilities for code generation.

The T4 templates, ASP.NET templates (Bootstrap enabled) and the WinForm templates will all go up on GitHub. 

Another possibility for GitHub is the ABC library files. Should SoftVelocity do this, and if so who would contribute? 

Funding enhancements is tricky - which resources should be allocated where? One possibility is to use a crowdfunding site like GoFundMe to raise the money needed. 

Initial projects could include:

• Bigger, wider template dialogs
• Remember just where I was in the IDE (lists of all kinds)

Mobile Product Announcement

Bob Z stated that H5, NetTalk and similar products are all stepping stones to true mobile apps. SoftVelocity is promising 100% web mobile apps using a full JavaScript stack with Apache Cordova, with generated code and modeled on the Clarion app methodology. Zero JavaScript knowledge is needed to build working data driven apps.

You will be able to put apps on the web or on IOS, Andorid, Windows Phone, Windows 8/10, Blackberry stores. 

The one overriding development principle is to make something simple to use it must actually be simple. 

There will be an official announcement on January 25, and a live generated app will be available for download on the apple App Store and the Google Play Store by Feb 25^th.

Does your vertical market need a mobile or tablet app? SV will partner with you at no risk to you.  

Q&A

My thanks to Unlicensed user for passing along his notes, as I was somewhat occupied with microphone duties during the Q&A session.

§ The only way to make something simple to use it to have it actually be simple.

• Q/A
○ Update wizards to a newer look and feel
○ TypeScript support vs. just JS
○ Which JS framework
§ Something Node based
○ Clarion.NET -- some update coming
○ Unicode will be all or nothing
§ Months away
[02/10/2015 9:52:11 AM] David Harms: Thanks Mark! I have similar notes but will cross reference, much appreciated.
[02/10/2015 9:52:36 AM] David Harms: I definitely wasn't making any notes while I was taking questions<g>
[02/10/2015 5:11:05 PM] Mark Goldberg: notes from q & a
[02/10/2015 5:11:11 PM] Mark Goldberg: • Jeff Thompson: Progress on 64 bit and compiler
○ Z: underlying, also tied with unicode, path will never be a short one, some limitations as well, not all drivers will make the cut to 64 bit. ISAM - 32 bit, 64 will be SQL.
§ No time frame
§ Long path to get there
• Tom ___ : What are the top 3 differences between PE and EE
○ Classes , JSON for example
○ Functions in the IDE itself, caching of abc classes
○ Huge solutions, multiple applications
§ Difference in MSBuild, and circular dependencies
§ One does the .SLN vs. a collection of .cwproj
○ Planning on going to a single edition
• Rick Martin, 64/32 bit
○ TPS would require 32 bit
• Paul Epner (succession plan)
○ Ours is linked to yours, do you have one ?
○ Z: Don't really have one.
• Tom: .NET releases
○ .net 4.0 framework (replacing .net 2.0)
• Dries: Any plans to add exception handling
○ Or ____ between classes
○ Z: no plans, If you have a proposal eMail Z directly
• Harms ;;; name spaces
• Harms ;;; PTSS
○ GoFund, would you consider switching to something that we can vote on issues.
○ Z: If anyone knows of a system like that…..
• --- GPFS & Exceptions in ide
○ Please give directions on how to reproduce…
• School Licenses (Free)
○ Have them get in touch with Z
• ----
○ Expect it in 30 days
• Dries, with JavaScript tap into WinRT
○ Z: that's not the goal
○ Z: WinRT is an experiement - that has not gone that well
○ Z: will communicate with back end storage
○ Z: Looking for Multi-Platform, trying to avoid tying to MS
○ Harms
§ node__ is a server side library
• Mike Hanson
○ I work in a team of 10-12 developers, many comfortable writing classes, other not so much, how do they relate to each other ? Some way to ease classes more comfortable into the IDE.
○ Moaning that a constructor can fire anywhere
○ Have some control over the order that constructors fire
• Dave Harms
○ Asks about OOP use
• Carl Barnes
○ How are PTSS processes
○ Z: Talking about Team TopSpeed
• Dave Moyer
○ Switch to compile between 32/64
• Jay
○ Peg in the succession planning -- when go to an annualized subscription model
○ Z: good point, considering, merge into one product.
○ Harms
§ I hear that often,
§ It skips the is this release worth it, is that worth it ?
○ We need inertia
• Arnold Young - I used code jock, when do mobile, will I be able to use the mobile controls
• Z expect eMail with discount code and links to themes extra
• ??? - PDF Tracker announcement
○ Asking for a PDF viewer
• Merle Windler
○ New clarion user, the struggle he had to find the hidden video's in the training things
• Mike Gorman
○ 2nd, the thing on the training videos ect (Merle)
○ Clarion community at large, to upgrade and re-issue all of the training videos
○ Z: I could make an appeal to the community
○ Z: all of these videos on Clarion Live, nice to have a summary, which is summarized and searchable via google
• Carl Barnes:
○ Major loss if isam drivers lost ( text, dos )
• ??? --- Git Integration
○ Easy ways to collaborate among each other
○ Harms - - Make Rick Martin stand up.
• ??? -- missed it
○ Harms -
• .NET Update --- what's the long term view ?
○ Z: interesting in a way, gives you 64 bit out of the box, templates missing to drive it.
○ Z: free up the T4 generator, could be invoked from the editior, could have access to the DCT, could execute mini code templates.
• ??--- .net code vs. clarion is it the same DCT
○ Z: Yes
• Carl Barnes - tell us about clarion 11
○ Haahahaha
• ??? -- something in the dICTIONARY
• Moyer -- will the discount include clarion.net
○ Z: I had not considered that, but I'll add it.