Refresh build 14487 — table categories and nine sort orders in the Dictionary Editor, your font on every new window, and a debugger that remembers your session
A large dictionary reads as a handful of groups: file its tables into categories by
drag, by a checked list or from Table Properties, and sort them by any Table
Properties value. Every script shows on an MS Sans Serif window, new windows start
with the font you pick, and ClarionCL /afr moves a whole application to
another face in one command. Reports print a blob per detail and every band of a
Unicode report, the debugger brings back your breakpoints and windows, and browse
locators take text in any script. Already testing? Everything below is new since
build 14438.
ClarionCL /afr
Reports TEXT / IMAGE,USE(blob) per detail · Unicode bands that grow and collapse · HasPreviewer()
Debugger session memory · strings in one row · THREAD copies live · Step Source
Browses locators in any script · USTRING sort fields · Initial Values in any script
IDE and compiler Errors pad filters · warning 507 finds the missing ? · ClarionCL messages
Highlights of this drop — then the full tester guide, whose “What’s new” section lists everything that changed since you last read it.
Dictionary Editor: group your tables into categories
Add Category in the DCT Explorer names a group, and each category lists its own tables below the Pools, Globals and Tables folders. Drag one table or many onto a category, or right-click it and choose Assign Tables: a checked list with a filter and Check Shown makes “every ORDER table” two clicks, and a Current category column shows where each table sits now. The Category drop list on Table Properties does the same for one table. Categories are saved in the dictionary and travel in its DCTX text; an earlier Clarion 12 build imports the same file whole. From a beta request.
Dictionary Editor: sort your tables by any Table Properties value
The Sort Tables dropdown, the Dictionary menu and the Options page offer nine orders in three groups that follow the Table Properties dialog: Alphabetical, Prefix, Description · Driver, Driver Options, Owner Name, Full Path Name · Last Modified Date, Creation Date. Driver groups the tables by file driver, Full Path Name groups SQL tables by schema and file tables by folder, Owner Name groups them by connection, and the sort value shows in front of each table name so the grouping reads at a glance. A table you edit moves to its new place at once.
New windows start with your font
Tools › Options › Clarion › Applications (AppGen) › “Default font for new windows” picks the face, size and style once (shipped Segoe UI 11). Every wizard’s Theme page offers “Use my default font for the windows”, on by default, in both template chains; procedures from the Templates and Defaults tabs, Ctrl-D structures, the designer’s default window and a new Win32 EXE project start with it too. Report page fonts keep the layout’s values. Your own templates read it as %DefaultWindowFontName, %DefaultWindowFontSize and %DefaultWindowFontStyle.
ClarionCL /afr: change an application’s font face in one command
ClarionCL /afr myapp.app "MS Sans Serif" "Microsoft Sans Serif" replaces the face in every window, every template prompt that holds it and every embed that spells it in quotes. Reports are your separate decision: add the word reports as a fourth parameter and the report structures change too. It works on the application itself, with no TXA export and import, prints the count, saves only when something changed, and the AppGen’s usual myapp.bpp keeps the app as it was.
Every script shows on an MS Sans Serif window
A window on FONT('MS Sans Serif'), or MS Serif, Courier or System, the raster faces Windows ships for one code page, draws Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese and every other script in its LIST, STRING, TAB, menu, status bar, OPTION caption and MESSAGE, the way the ENTRY and TEXT always did. The runtime draws such text with the metric-compatible TrueType twin of the font (Microsoft Sans Serif for MS Sans Serif), so nothing moves; ANSI text and TrueType fonts paint exactly as before. From a beta report.
Reports: a picture or a memo per row from a BLOB
A report TEXT,USE(blob) prints the blob’s text and a report IMAGE,USE(blob) its picture, for each detail the row it is printing: a product sheet with each product’s photo, an order list with each order’s notes. On a REPORT,UNICODE page a BLOB,UNICODE prints its exact Unicode text. For embed code and third-party templates, ReportManager.HasPreviewer() answers “is a previewer attached” whichever previewer the report uses. From beta reports.
Unicode reports print every band, in every script
On a REPORT,UNICODE page a detail with a RESIZE TEXT grows to fit its text and a SKIP control collapses its band, exactly as on an ANSI report, and every TEXT prints Greek, Chinese and any other script as typed, whether its text comes from PROP:Text, a STRING or a USTRING. Reports without the UNICODE attribute print as before. From a beta report: fixed now.
The debugger remembers your session and reads your data plainly
Breakpoints (saved each time you set or clear one), open source files and the placement of every debugger window come back on the next run of the same program, kept in <program>.dbs beside it; your IDE settings file is never touched. A STRING, CSTRING or USTRING is one row with its whole text, Edit Variable takes the whole text, a record reference opens straight to its fields, and a THREAD variable shows the running thread’s copy, labelled (thread). Step Source steps straight through library calls, and F1 opens the debugger’s own help. From beta reports.
Locate and filter browses in any script
Type Cyrillic, Greek or Chinese into a Filtered, Entry or Incremental locator over a USTRING column and the browse filters and positions on it, in ABC and in the Clarion chain. A browse or process sorted on a USTRING field gets the string step and locator behaviour, its view filter and range limits quote the value, and an Initial Value in any script primes the record exactly. EntryLocatorClass.Shadow is a USTRING(40); regenerate to pick it up. From beta reports.
Full tester guide — mental model, conversion rules, DCT import table, screen controls, reports, blobs, SQL / SQLite / text drivers / TopSpeedW / Memory / IP, recipes, the new-language-surface quick reference, and what to focus on when testing. The guide’s “What’s new” section lists everything in this drop, and every section has its task topic in the F1 help’s “How do I …” chapter.
Open the full Unicode Tester Guide
Report tool authors —
the wide generator surface (IReportGeneratorW), format detection, the
EMF record set, transition paths per integration style, and the
PageTextIndexClass text index the previewer searches with:
Standalone pages (best full-width). Everything described there is implemented unless marked as a known limitation — if you see something different, the beta forum is the place.