Hi Larry,
It seems that the Beep function makes low level BIOS calls, which can be a
problem with modern operating systems and hardware. Similarly which I also
forgote to mention is the support for old Hercules Graphic cards. Basically the
changes are to make it more robust for recent Windows versions.
Is the Beep important?
Note that generally the purpose of this version is to improve command line
operating for scripting and dynamic web applications, and the underly
functionality hasn't changed, so unless you are implementing these it is not a
"must have" upgrade.
Regards
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From: LN
To: Dataperfect Users Discussion Group
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Dataperf] New version of DP on the horizon...
Hi,
Why remove the Beep function?
Larry Neuton
On 6/9/08, Brian Hancock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi everyone,
Lew has been working on a new version of DP with some improvements for
scripting, and I have had the pleasure of doing some preliminary testing. Lew
doesn't have easy access to the group mailing list and has asked me to ask a
few questions.
The major thrust of the new DOS based version 2.6Y is to support scripting
a little better, this allows it to perform better in web based applications,
and also desktop application which are driven by scripts.
The major change is that by default if you use the /EI switch to import
data from a transaction logs, then reports will output to STDOUT (often
referred to as printing to the console). For example if you run the DOS DIR
command at a DOS screen the output streams onto the console screen, and after
DIR has finished you can still read the output on the console. In contrast a DP
report printing to the screen only displays while DP is executing, and is
removed from the screen after you exit the report and before DP exits. There
are a couple of advantages to being able to output to STDOUT (or the console).
Firstly at present to use output from DP in another program you first have to
save it to a file in DP, and then open the file with another program to use the
data. It is currently not possible to pipe data from one application into
another. Many DOS users would be used to piping the output from DIR to the
MORE command so you can view the output a page at a time. There are many
advanced text processing tools which could be used with DP more quickly and
efficiently, such as AWK amd SED, etc. The new version allows piping to
secondary processes.
A major advantage of using STDOUT for output from DP is that data can be
sent directly to a web browser or other internet application. At present you
need to save the output from DP into a file, and then with another program read
the file and output it to the web browser. This has two problems, firstly,
there are more steps to getting data to the browser and so is slower, and
secondly, until a report finishes and DP exits nothing can be sent to the
browser, so there is often a long period of inactivty until the web browser's
screen suddenly fills with data. (users often think a problem has occurred with
this delay). Using STDOUT, output from DP reaches the web browser screen as it
is output from DP, so even a long slow DP report can present results to the
user while it is still running.
So that is the background to the new version. Some of the changes are:
- the ;;W field output formatter will act on normal text fields and not
just multiline alphanumeric memo type fields
- from a /EI transaction log you can select for more that one report to
run, this is a bug fix from 2.6x. This has great benefits in that you can
compartmentalise reports. For example, you can have a simple report to add
data, another to delete data, and another to edit data, but only need one
report to view the output, With the current 2.6x version you must either
combine sections of the report the output into each of those operations, or
execute DP twice. Now you could specify the two reports as in #R:=3= #R:=10= to
run report number 3 and when that is finished run report number 10.
- the ;;W acts on all of the XML/XHTML predefined entities,& & "
" ' ' < < > >
- the ;;W transforms a single line break (carriage return) in a AxAy memo
type field to a <br /> instead of <BR> to conform more with XML and XHTML
standards.
- the ;;W transforms two consecutive line breaks in an AxAy memo field to
two line breaks <br /><br /> instead of a single <p>. This also makes it more
conforming to XML and XHTML standards.
- the ;;W transforms bold markup in an AxAy field to <b>...</b> in place of
<B>...</B> to make it conform to standards.
- The Beep function is to be removed
This leads to the questions, currently the ;;W output for an underlined
text in an AxAy field output as <I>....</I> which with HTML indicate italics
rather than underline. Lew believes there was a deliberate reason for this
rather than just an oversight, as you would normally expect the output to be
<u>....</u>. Lew wants to know if this would cause a problem to anyone before
he changes it.
The other question Lew has, in that with scripting using the /EI
transaction log there is no simple way to delete all records from a panel or to
empty the database. You can do these with reports, but in comparison to the
inbuit function to do this, reports are very slow. Lew would like to add two
new functions to the transactions logs. #DA =x= to delete all the records in
Panel numbered x, or #DT: , but before he does this he would like to see if
people would find it worthwhile.
Lew is getting very close to having a candidate for release, but if there
are any other bug bears, now would be a good time to air them and I will pass
them on to Lew.
Lew is also working on a Windows version of DP, but it is early days yet.
Regards
Brian
_______________________________________________
Dataperf mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Dataperf mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf
_______________________________________________
Dataperf mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf
