Build 14C1.00 Just Released

Clarion 7 CHT Demos - Build 14C1.00

In this build, all the demos from C6 will be available for C7 with the exception of HNDCMP.APP. I'm still holding off on HNDCMPC7.APP as for the time being we have HNDCOMPILE.EXE which works pretty well as a bulk batch compiler for C7 - better, I think, than trying to construct a solution app that contains 140 individual apps. Any time I've tried to build a multi-app solution and inserted multiple apps other than one at a time, C7 GPFs. HNDCOMPILE dispenses with the need for any of that multiple apps in a solution and, because the batch file it creates runs in a separate DOS window, it time-shares very nicely with other work being done on the machine.

Windowless Services

There are three new Windows Service demos in this build. These are windowless services that can be used as examples for your own windowless services projects - or you're welcome to use the examples as is.

HNDBACKUPSERVICE_A.APP - Backup To ZIP Script Service

HNDBACKUPSERVICE_A.APP - this is a timed backup service that uses a text script called HNDBACKUPSERVICE_A.INI which you can edit and configure to list files (and/or) directories that you want to back up into a zip. Standard file wild cards may be used to describe the files to be backed up from any given directory. Also configured is a target directory to which files to be backed up are first copied before being zipped (once zipped these backup files are deleted again). Also configured is a target zip directory where the time-stamped zips are copied. I've been testing this app for about a month on my own machines here and the backups are reliably happening at the designated backup time. This app uses the global template GLOBALINCLUDEHNDUTILITIESDLL, so this app acts as a further example of what you can do with the HNDUTILITIES.DLL introduced in the last update.

HNDBACKUPSERVICE_B.APP - Backup to HZO Script Service

HNDBACKUPSERVICE_B.APP - this is a timed backup service much like the one just described. It uses a text script called HNDBACKUPSERVICE_B.INI which you can edit and configure to list files and/or directories that you want to back up to a CHT, HZO file. Remember that you can use HNDSETUP.APP to uncompress and restore the contents of an HZO file to disk. Of course you could write your own HZO decompression app based on one of our existing examples. This app does not use HNDUTILITIES.DLL as it is based on CHT classes that we've not yet isolated into a separate DLL as we've done with the HNDUTIL class.

HNDSTARTSERVERSERVICE_A.APP - Start multiple Servers After Machine Reboot

This demo is based on something I built for myself a few years ago to restart my servers after a power failure or server machine reboot. Using this app, rather than making every server a seperate Windows service, I only need one service which restarts and verifies restart of all of my server applications. Once the servers have been successfully started, this service unloads itself from memory. However, it does remain registered as a service and will re-load if the hardware reboots. At which time it will once again restart the servers and make sure they're all running before unloading itself again.

Some CHT Demos Have C7-Specific Names and Usage

When I mentioned that we now have all of the C6 demos converted for C7 I should have mentioned that some of these have been renamed slightly to indicate that they are specific to C7. The apps so designated are as follows:
HNDABCHKC7.APP
HNDAPPSPLASHTOHTMLC7.APP
HNDBACKUPCONFIGC7.APP
HNDCLXHTC7.APP
HNDCOLORC7.APP
HNDFSYNCC7.APP
HNDLNCHC7.APP
HNDSETUPC7.APP
HNDTPXHTC7.APP
HNDZINDEXC7.APP

All of these apps (the C6 versions) contained path settings or lookups that made them C6 specific. These C7.APP versions have specific features referencing C7 path settings and lookups. That is not to say that some of the other apps didn't require some C7-specific changes regarding paths, but the above apps in particular have a Clarion7-related purpose that makes it important to be able to distinguish the C7 app from the C6 version.

Our Report Writer Demo HNDREPORTWRITER.APP wouldn't compile in C7 because there have been some function signature changes in the SV Report-Writer library that our templates and classes latch into. We've added a new file to accompany HNDRWPRLIB.CLW and HNDRWPRLIB.INC called "HNDRWPRLIBC6C7.INC". This file contains the SV report writer library prototypes for both C6 and C7 surrounded by OMIT/COMPILE directives to distinguish at compile time whether you're compiling for C6 or C7 so that the correct report writer interface is linked in. We've tested this here with good success, such that our HNDREPORTWRITER.APP runs identically whether compiled in C6 or C7.

WEBUPDATER FOR Clarion.NET Ready To Test

I have WEBUPDATER For Clarion.NET ready to go but it needs some testing by knowledgeable CHT developers. I am going to post it on our download site this week, but I'm asking for a few volunteers from the group who took the CHT DOT NET SEMINAR to do the testing before we roll out any CHT DOT NET Componentry to the CHT community in general. Volunteer testers, feel free to send me an email or reply to this posting if you've got some time to help test the viability of WEBUPDATER for Clarion.NET.

Cheers...
Gus M. Creces