4D V17 R4 Beta starts today

Preemptive processes on 4D remote

With 4D v17 R4, your processes can be run preemptively on 4D Remote. This means taking advantage of the power of multi-core computers by running an operation on all available cores, in parallel, which leads to getting results much faster. And good news! There’s nothing new to be learned if you’re already using preemptive processes on the server. Everything that’s valid on the server, runs the same on the client.

BEGIN / END SQL IN PREEMPTIVE MODE

Beginning with 4D v17 R4, Begin SQL, End SQL, and the associated SQL statements used with an internal database are now preemptive-compliant. For example, if you use these commands to perform a lot of asynchronous activities in your database, requests can be started in parallel, therefore the application’s speed is increased.

SYNCHRONIZE YOUR PROCESSES

4D v17 R4 includes the new command, New signal.You can use this command to – for example – perform long running calculation in parallel, using all your CPU cores, or another scenario when you need to delegate work to a cooperative process in order to use a non-preemptive command.

Convert your documents to Microsoft Word .DOCX Format

Exporting your 4D Write Pro documents to .docx format is now possible with 4D v17 R4. Simply use the new wk docx constant with the existing WP EXPORT DOCUMENT command.

new vertical ruler

Say hello to the new 4D Write Pro vertical ruler. In page mode, the ruler can be displayed on the left side of the document. This lets you graphically manage the vertical margins, as well as easily modify the spaces between headers or footers and the body of your document. A new Show vertical ruler property is available from the Property List to enable the ruler.

GET COORDINATES IN A 4D WRITE PRO DOCUMENT

With 4D v17 R4, you can get coordinates in a 4D Write Pro document. The WP Get position command returns an object describing the current position of either a range, an element reference, or a 4D Write Pro document. Now, it also returns two new attributes: bounds and rangeHeight. This new feature will allow you to easily set up complex page designs.

SUPPORT OF VIRTUAL STRUCTURES

Since creating user-friendly interfaces is a high priority for every application developer, 4D v17 R4 enhances the user experience by supporting virtual structure definitions of the database for table and field expressions in 4D Write Pro documents. This enables easier translating and readability in standard dialogs (query, sort, and formula editors) and filtering out any tables or fields that shouldn’t be viewed by end users. 

SUPPORT OF MULTI-CRITERIA SEARCH

We know you’ve been waiting for this feature… well, the wait is over! With 4D v17 R4, multi-criteria search is now available in 4D for iOS. You’re now able to run search operations based on multiple fields and display filtered content in your generated 4D for iOS app.

RESTRICTED QUERIES

4D for iOS is getting more feature-rich with every R-release. 4D v17 R4 introduces a new concept: restricted queries. They allow you to filter data to be displayed in your mobile app without being limited to just tables and fields., Now you have control over which records are being sent. 

CREATE A CUSTOM DATA FORMATTER

4D for iOS already provides various data formatters for dates, percentages, time, etc. With 4D v17 R4, you can easily create your own data formatters and use them directly from the Project Editor. The data formatter creation process is quite simple and allows you to spice up your apps by using JSON files.

4D Write Pro: use leading characters for tabs >

Send email

4D v17 R4 introduces a new way to send emails. Easy and more powerful than the former way with 4D Internet Commands. Sending eye-catching emails based on HTML, with images, videos, and attachments, can be done with just a few lines of code. Code that is easy to write and understand. New commands are at your disposal to create and send emails. They provide a lot of power hidden beneath a veneer of simplicity. For example, you can easily test the transporter settings (user credentials, server data), or specify enclosures as attachments or inline (displayed in HTML within the message), to name a few. This is the first of several features in the pipeline, more functionality to handle emails will be provided with the coming R-releases.

new server administration commands

4D continues to deliver features to help you create your own applications to monitor your servers. With 4D v17 R4, new commands are available: 

• SEND MESSAGE TO REMOTE USER to send a message from the server to a remote user. 
• Get process activity to retrieve a list of user sessions. 
• DROP REMOTE USER to end a user session. 
• ABORT PROCESS BY ID to stop a specific process by using its unique process number.
• Get process activity or Process properties to retrieve the unique process number.
• REJECT NEW REMOTE CONNECTION to block new remote connections. 
• Get application info to tell if the connections have been accepted or refused.  
• SOAP REJECT REQUESTS to block SOAP requests. 
• WEB Get server info to know if connections have been accepted or refused.  
• Refresh license to update a license.

CODE A RANGE IN 4D VIEW PRO

With 4D v17 R4, you can create ranges with code. New commands are available so you can define a range object to manipulate your cells by programming: VP Cell, VP Cells, VP Column, VP Row, VP All and VP Combine ranges. A range object can define a cell or a group of cells, a column or a group of columns, a row or a group of rows, or all the cells of a sheet.

NAME YOUR RANGES AND FORMULAS

A cool new feature is available with 4D v17 R4: named ranges and formulas. They can be very useful if you need to use formulas with references to cell(s) or constant(s).

Two types of names can be created by programming. The first refers to a range of cells. It lets you apply a readable name to the cells you’re interested in using the VP ADD RANGE NAME command. The second refers to replacing calculations with readable names in your spreadsheets using the VP ADD FORMULA NAME command. It also lets you create a constant and make the calculations in your spreadsheet easier.

GET AND SET CELL CONTENT

With 4D v17 R4, you can fill your documents by programming and set and get data as labels, database fields, or formulas in your documents. You can also retrieve cell formulas or values entered by your end users. For this, 4D provides you the commands: VP SET VALUE, VP SET BOOLEAN VALUE, VP SET DATE TIME VALUE, VP SET DATE VALUE, VP SET TIME VALUE, VP SET NUM VALUE, VP SET TEXT VALUE, VP SET FORMULA, VP SET FIELD, VP Get value, VP Get formula

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