The next Clarion release (9.1) has over a dozen new features, and many bug fixes and changes to improve the RTL and IDE, but two new features stand out above the others.  That is the support of Touch input and  the support for Registration-free activation of COM objects from side-by-side assemblies.

The Touch support is automatic and transparent, no code changes needed — just a rebuild of your app and you have it.  But you also have the option to use an interface to take full control of all the touch events and handle them as you see fit.  We have a few good examples that will show you exactly how to do that.

The Reg-free COM support is also automatic, and likewise requires no change to your code. If the OCX ProgID isn’t found in the OS registry then the RTL looks for a local manifest.  The declaration of the interfaces in the OCX can be placed in either the program’s manifest or in a separate manifest. In the latter case, the program manifest must contain the <dependency>
block with assembly name equal to name of the OCX’s manifest without the “.manifest” extension (this the preferable way).

Tomorrow we’ll be expanding the group of Clarion 9.1 alpha testers, and our goal is to get 9.1 to all 3rd party vendors by the end of the week.  If all goes well within another ~week it’ll move to a general release.