4D v16 R2 beta test starts today!

January 11, 2017 4 min read

I am pleased to announce that the beta testing of 4D v16 R2 starts today!

4D v16 R2 delivers the final version of Altura-free 4D Developer Edition Windows 64-bit as well as great improvements, among other things, as listed below:

Better integration into the enterprise with Virtual Machine Snapshots Support
More control and higher flexibility for the developer: Cache Manager priority control, new programmatic possibilities for list boxes, search in array in objects using linked arguments,…
Improved user experience: horizontal ruler in 4D Write Pro, cross table in Quick Report 64-bit editor as well as a revisited Find in Design dialog.

So what is available in 4D v16 R2 beta ?

Altura-free 4D Developer Edition Windows 64-bit (Final)

Similar to Carbon for macOS, 4D used a legacy library named Altura on Windows. While 4D itself does not need Altura anymore, it still supports it for legacy plug-ins and, as a result, uses it in many places to keep old plug-ins working. Altura has now been entirely removed from 4D which is allowing us to use some technologies that were not possible before, such as SDI windows (already in development, stay tuned).

VMWare vSphere (Hypervisor ESXi) and Windows Server 2016 Snapshot Support

4D Server now supports Virtual Machine snapshots based on Volume Shadow Copy Services, as VMWare ESXi and Windows Server 2016 do. When the administrator starts a snapshot, the virtualizer (for instance VMWare) informs the guest (4D Server) that a snapshot is about to happen. Then 4D Server put himself in a “stable” state during the snapshot is done.

Cache Manager priority control

On top of the brand new 64-bit cache manager released with 4D v16, 4D developer now has full control over priority handling of the objects in cache memory allowing advanced fine tuning.

4D Write Pro horizontal ruler

You asked for it, it is finally there! You can now easily position your text, tabs or other elements in your 4D Write Pro documents.

More control over listbox by programming

“Hide system highlight” option so that 4D Developers have full control over how they want to display selected rows. More getters & setters: 20+ new selectors to entirely control the listbox properties by programming.

Even more flexible development using objects

It is now possible to search in array in an object using linked arguments. A new command has also been added to order a selection based on an object attribute.

Cross table in Quick Report editor

Quick Report 64-bit editor now supports cross-table reports: reopen an existing report created with the 32-bit 4D products or enjoy the smooth user experience upon designing a new cross-table report.

Find in design dialog improvement

In addition to a redesign, the dialog has been empowered with a new button to stop an ongoing search as well as a new filter option.

More info in Maintenance and Security Center

New global information on the data has been added. In addition, information about tables are now available in both maintenance and standard modes.

New Timestamp command

New command to get a precise UTC time stamp including milliseconds.

New rendering engine for Web areas (Preview)

4D is updating its internal component for embedded Web Area objects to Blink (also used by Google Chrome).