UpComing Build 12B1.00 - Advance Comments

Things have been a bit quiet here for the last couple of weeks. That's because we've been busy getting ready for an upcoming Build 12B1.00 release, as well as preparing demo apps for a promised series of CHT web-server videos. Not to mention the fact that I've personally been occupied by what's turning out to be a long-term consulting/development project for a multi-national corporation. That work has eaten into some of the time we can devote to moving CHT development along at it's usually brisk pace.

I hope you don't feel too hard done by, given that my consulting/development arrangement seems to be consuming some of our CHT development time. One side benefit of that alternate pre-occupation, is that the contract work subsidizes CHT's cost. With our all-in subscription model, remember that we don't charge you separately for every new feature added to the product. Our financial model is purely based on how many subscribers continue to opt in for renewals. We're well aware of the need to provide, in addition to bug fixes, feature enhancements and ongoing Clarion version compatibility, at least $250.00 (your renewal cost) of brand, spanking new features each year. Don't fret, we're on it.

In fact, one of the things I'm really excited about - and which we'll tell you about in a future posting - is a report feature under consideration for CHT, based on a concept I introduced to my present contract development firm. Nothing proprietary, obviously, or we wouldn't be able to share it with you. But it's truly innovative, since it totally divorces report-writing from the Clarion internal report engine and from that sadly neglected Clarion step-child, Report Writer. It works on the web just as well as locally and it will work equally well in Clarion 6, 7 and Clarion .NET with no changes required on your part. That's all we're going to say about this for now until we get closer to realization.

For 12B1.00, we've made some useful changes to some of the key server demos - the ones used as starting points for your own server development. These changes I'm certain will help to eliminate at least some of the stumbling blocks to getting started with server development. There will be some server configuration impact for those of you with CHT servers already in place, so you'll need to pay attention (and consult with me if you need to) when you recompile your servers using 12B1.0. But once completed with those configurations, you'll agree that these are definite improvements that make your longer-term server deployment tasks easier to accomplish.

For 12B1.00 I wrote here recently about incorporating the Gitano Calculators (haven't even looked at the Calendars yet). Scratch that. I had one of them sort-of-converted to our way of doing things for 11B1.03 but we've decided to throw it out. Instead we've used some of the interface and functionality concepts in these calculators and have created a new calculator procedure from scratch (using CHT's own coding style, considerably more code-reuse and full CHT integration) that we think is better - or will be when you've had a chance to provide some user feedback. There are also some new templates to attach this to your application.

We had planned on posting 12B1.00 this past weekend but have decided against that due to promises made in the last month or so to provide some features that weren't in our 2008 development plans. We also want to get ahead of you a bit on the server videos before letting 12B1.00 out the door. A feasible 12B1.00 release date now looks more like at or near the end of April 2008.

Cheers,
Gus Creces
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