BASIS International Ltd. announces the release of BBj® version 6.20. While this maintenance release includes the resolution of over 160 QA memos, it incorporates a preview of BBj 7.0 features.

New features previewed in this release appear in boldface in the following list of BBj 7.0 features:

Language/Interpreter

• _search Utility - supports search and replace
• BBjSlider - provides a GUI slider control and methods for manipulating it
• Print preview enhancement - adds MODAL= to cause print preview to behave as a modal dialog
• Session pinning - ensures that once a program loads into a given session, the contents of that program will not change until the developer explicitly affects a change
• Division performance improvement - executes typical cases approximately 40 times faster
• BBjSysGui::get/setRepaintEnabled - provides control and indication of repaints on the client display
• BBjTemplatedString - provides the functionality of the traditional templated string used throughout BBj
• BBjGridEvent - provides an interface that allows a program to retrieve the grid (either a BBjStandardGrid or a BBjDataAwareGrid) that was the source of the event
• Interface MultiSourceEvent - allows a program to retrieve the source of the event cast to a specified type

• BASIS IDE enhancement - allows user to choose whether to compile the source prior to running the program or debugging it
• FormGen Wizard - allows developers to automatically create customizable data-bound forms based on the contents of a data file or SQL query
• AppBuilder enhancement - introduces the ability to compile and execute projects in Visual PRO/5®

• ESQL (Exclusive SQL) tables - offers true SQL data types, variable length records, and dynamic index creation as well as the following:
  • Column constraint - allows filtering of the data that goes into a particular column
  • Computed column - defines columns in a table to be the result of a computation based on other fields in the same table
  • Default values - allows database administrators to define defaults for columns which will be used if no values are specified for that column.  Default values may be any supported SQL data type or the result of a scalar or custom function.
  • Identity field - generates unique numeric value automatically
  • Row constraint - evaluates multiple columns in the row in order to determine the validity of the entire row
  • Unique constraint - prohibits multiple rows from having the same value for the same column
• SQL - introduces new TimestampAdd scalar function - returns the timestamp calculated by adding various time units (fractional seconds, minutes, days, weeks, years, etc.) to a timestamp value.

• Expanded account management - adds new BBjAdmin methods that include addUser, removeUser, changePassword

Read more detatils about this maintenance release in the BBj Readme and Relnotes.

Review the documentation for these BBj 7.0 features by typing BBj7 in the index tab in the online BASIS documentation or on the product CD at documentation.html. To review the features and enhancements previously introduced in BBj 6.0x, type BBj 6 in the index tab.