Because C7 is so different from the standpoint of application-creation-automation than C6, it's taken us weeks of trial and error to get to the point of harnessing the C7 compiler and generator system in a way that appears and operates seamlessly from the compile manager interface. We're nearly there now, and we're impressed both with how it works and how well the app has come together.
In the past, we've always defaulted back to C6 to do any CHT development work since CHT has to be both C6 and C7 compatible. With the C7 compile manager project, we were forced to work entirely in C7 since nothing in the inner workings of C7 Compile Manager works in C6 anyway. C6 uses DDE to communicate to the IDE for compile/generate automation and C7 uses a DOS command-line interface for compile/generate automation.
In the meantime, we're finally getting over our impatience with the "differences" in C7's way of doing things, and have learned to embrace them and accept most of them, bad, good or indifferent. Henceforth, we'll be changing our mode of operation and doing most of our CHT development work using the C7 IDE - all, I suppose, except for the development of C6 demo apps which will have to still be accomplished in C6. Template and class changes and additions, neverthelsess, will be handled from the C7 IDE.
Though it's taken several weeks, C7 Compile Manager has all the features of C6 Compile Manager and then some. See the interface below:
All without opening any application you'll be able to do the following from the C7 Compile Manager Interface:
1) Switch between EXE and DLL compilation of an app
2) Assign a DLL memory load address for your DLL (Optional)
3) Change link mode from Library to DLL (this used to be called LOCAL and STANDALONE in C6)
4) Switch app compilation between Debug and Release mode
5) Switch app compilation between expiration and non-expiration mode
6) Switch from HNDFBACK.TRN (English translation file) to HNDCUSTOM.TRN (user translation file)
7) Adjust processor affinity of the EXE for multi processor machines
8) Assign code signing information into the executable
9) Export the app to TXA
10) Compress the executable
11) Copy the executable to a configured target directory
12) Stop compilation on error or continue to next, useful when making DLLs on which later apps depend
13) Generate app discovery HTML into a configured target directory (this can be served up on the web or on a network if you like)
14) View a compile log for each application giving full details of what happened during compile
All this, without having to open the application to adjust it's internal project settings! All operations default to OFF where relevant (example generating the TXA) and can be switched on individually for any given app. Some operations such as Link mode obviously are toggles (as between Library and DLL mode), so they don't have an
OFF/ON aspect to them, but rather an either/or aspect.
All operations can be pre-configured to be ON or OFF EITHER/OR automatically when a new app is added to the compile list.
We're testing this at the moment and as soon as we're satisfied that it's ready for prime-time it will be released along with the normal template and class changes that happen around here on an on-going basis.
That's all for now. More about this as release-time nears. And a C7 Compile Manager video is slated for production.
Cheers...
Gus Creces
The Clarion Handy Tools Page
www.cwhandy.com
gcreces@gmail.com
September 17, 2010
