The 6th beta is out today (March 27). There are ~50 fix/changes/new features added to this release. We expect that next week we’ll make a final pre-release available to all users. You can view the complete list here.
Some of the new features in this release –

• New WindowManager method ModalEvent added that can be used to test if the current event is modal or not
• The ODBC driver now supports generating JOIN structures where the the column names in the ON clause of the outer join are in the same order as their respective table names in the OUTER JOIN clause
• The ODBC interface to TPS now supports LEFT OUTER JOIN clauses on the left hand as well as the right hand side of a join. If a join is on the left hand side, then it must be enclosed in brackets
• a new XMLWriter class to easily write new XML files

Yesterday (March 13) we released an updated beta version.  We are getting close to a general release and we’ll know better after the beta testers have had a few days to work with this release.

On the topic of conversions between LONG and TIME data types we introduced two new Pragmas. You can control how the conversions between a TIME field and a LONG are handled using these PRAGMA settings:

PRAGMA (‘define(time0=>off)’) or PRAGMA (‘define(time0=>on)’)

PRAGMA (‘define(sqltime0=>off)’) or PRAGMA (‘define(sqltime0=>on)’)

Summary of behavior when these pragmas are set on/off:

PRAGMA (‘define(time0=>off)’)

This is the default value. TIME(0) is converted to 1 (TIME:MIDNIGHT), i.e. mid-night to mid-night.

PRAGMA (‘define(time0=>on)’)

The compiler generates code to convert TIME(0) to 0 (TIME:NOTIME).

PRAGMA (‘define(sqltime0=>off)’)

This is the default value. The compiler does nothing additional for fields of SQL tables having the TIME data type.

PRAGMA (‘define(sqltime0=>on)’)

If the TIME value to convert is a field of a FILE, the compiler generates a call to the NULL function. If the result from the NULL() function is TRUE (field has a NULL value), the TIME field is converted to 0 (TIME:NOTIME) value. Otherwise, conversion is controlled by the define(time0) pragma.

It is easiest to set the PRAGMA to the desired value at the Project level (Project Properties) But PRAGMA directives can be set before any line in your code where TIME value is being used in an expression converting TIME to LONG).

Related; All SQL drivers have been updated so that a call to NULL(datefield) or NULL(timefield) will return TRUE if they are part of a DATE/TIME Group, and the corresponding column on the server is NULL.

We released 9.1 beta 4 last Friday (Feb 14).  The news on the 9.1 release has been focused on Touch support and Registration-free COM support, but there is a LOT more than that in this release.  Check the readme here for the complete list of fixes/changes and new features. We’ve expanded the beta test group to ~100 developers – if you’re a Clarion developer who is interested in working with the beta version, and have the time and patience to work with beta software… we’d be glad to add you the group – send an email to support to request access.

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.

At CIDC in September we showed a quick demo of an H5 enabled app.  For the details on what the H5 product is all about you can read this; https://clarionsharp.com/blog/clarion-h5/

At the conference I talked about our plans for H5:

H5 will be included with a future C9.x EE.  H5 will be our first Clarion Community open source project.  We’ll be posting the templates and classes onto GitHub so that Clarion developers from around the world can hack, enhance, branch, and generally share their ideas and expertise (working along side our core dev team).  At the conference quite a few of the Clarion devs present indicated they are looking forward to getting involved with the project, and I think there are many more who weren’t at the conference who will join in.

Currently we are refactoring the templates/classes to move each control into separate file(s).  This is a necessary first step to ensure its easy to work on files and get them checked back into the common repository while minimizing conflicting changes.  We expect to open the project on GitHub in approximately 2 weeks.

At the CIDC conference we showed a template (that is already included with C9) for easily creating CLASSes within your APP.
The Help doesn’t yet cover it, (but will in the next update) and it’s very simple to use without any docs. Here are a few screenshots to get you going;

start by inserting a new procedure and then select “Source Class”

if you press the Actions button, you have the option to declare the module as a generic MEMBER() so you can share the class between Apps as needed.  (this option was actually added during the devcon based on feedback during the presentation)

the embed points are pretty much self-explanatory

You may have noticed the other new template Procedure “Generated UserControl Class”. As the name implies that template creates a ‘user control’ which is comprised of a Window and all the controls on it.  We’ll post separately about that one.