ANN: xHarbour Builder December 2004 Release

Hello,

We are very happy to announce the release of xHarbour Builder December 2004.
This release is centered arround the recently completed xHarbour core
Beta-1.3 with many additional tools, goodies, and add-ons.

This new release of xHarbour Builder includes Preview Release 2 of Visual
xHarbour and its foundation layer the WinAPI library. For more information,
see http://www.xHarbour.com/vxh

Visual xHarbour (VXH), is a complete Visual IDE, including:

- Visual Designer
- Color Editor with unique xHarbour language support
- Object Inspector
- Menu Designer
- Complete set of GUI Classes
- Built-in Project Builder
- MDI support.

VXH is written on top of the new WinAPI.lib standard winapi layer. VXH is
modeled after MS Visual Studio, in terms of visual appearance and class
hierarchy.

WinAPI.lib is a Windows API wrapper library, very similar to What32, except
it is 100% compliant with the MS WinAPI specifications. This means you will
use it EXACTLY as you would use the WinAPI from a C program, including all
Structures, Pointers, and even *direct* support for Windows procedure in
xHarbour code. It's most notable properties are speed, simplicity, and
ability to use the existing and freely available Platform SDK, as a
reference. Please review:

xhb/samples/wintest.prg
http://www.xHarbour.com/downloads/wintest.zip  (1K)

for a small self contained "Hello World" Windows application. You'll find
that this small sample uses direct Windows registration, and a Window
Procedure, in the same exact manner done by C programs.

For a more complete sample of the capabilities and performance of WinAPI you
may review the demo of xEdit:

http://www.xHarbour.com/xaac-2004/Sample.zip

xEdit is a full featured Color Editor, with most of the  features you'd
expect, and then some. It offers a unique fully functional Collapse Mode of
xHarbour code, Real time support for all xHarbour syntax components, code
templates and macros (implemented as scripts written in xbScript), unlimited
Undo/Redo, Square Selections Regular Expressions searches, Workspaces, Block
Indent/Un-Indent, and much more. xEdit is developed in 100% xHarbour prg
code, utilizing the WinAPI library.

This new December 2004 Release includes:

* Updated WinAPI.lib.

* Important improvements in xBuild Wizard. Missing Externals are now
appearing in Grid.

* Many improvements, and enhancements in SQLRDD including:
- Support to newest MySQL 4.1.7
- Support to SQL statements in dbUseArea(), like this:
dbUseArea(.F.,"SQLRDD","SELECT * FROM TEST_TABLE")
This will create a READ ONLY workarea containing query result
set as an ALL_IN_CACHE workarea
- ALL_IN_CACHE workareas now supports scope, sql filter and for clause
- Redesign of Oracle native support.
- Added a record counter per table in Oracle and Postgres
- SET EXACT does not affect SEEK anymore
- Performance improvement in dbUseArea() under MySQL
- Many bug fixes

* Here are some of the fixes, and new features offered by the core xHarbour
at the center of this new release:

- Global optimizations.
- Much improved memory management and GPF traps protection.
- Many fixes and enhancements to DBFCDX and RDDADS
- New Extended Codeblock :
Extended Codeblocks uses the following syntax:

<| [Param1 [,ParamN]]|
[Source...]
>

Source may be any valid code except STATIC variable declaration.

- New INLINE METHOD
Inline Method's uses the following syntax:

INLINE METHOD ( [Param1 [,ParamN ] ] )
[Sources...]
ENDMETHOD

- New low level integration of a much enhanced CT.LIB functionality.

- Added support for new C style #if and #elif directives, and compile
time literal expressions.

- Many fixes and enhancements to the xHarbour Debugger

Needless to say this release was made possible by the awesome Contributions,
provided by the unique group of xHarbour's Developers (now counting 49 and
growing). You can learn more about their contributions and/or how to join at
http://www.xHarbour.org/Developers

xHarbour Builder December 2004, is now available from:

http://www.xHarbour.com

to all current subscribers of xHarbour.com, and for immediate delivery with
new purchases. Free Demo is also immediately available, except for VXH.

Thank you for your continued support!
--
Best Regards,

Patrick Mast
xHarbour.com Inc.
http://www.xHarbour.com