4D v19 beta starts today

Following Apple’s groundbreaking announcement (the new Silicon Macs), we released 4D v19 six months earlier than planned to provide you with a Silicon native version of 4D as soon as possible. With a brand new compiler and notable performance enhancements, you’ll be able to use this LTS earlier than expected.

It’s time to run your 4D application on that shiny new Apple Silicon Mac!

Starting with 4D v19, ORDA makes it possible for you to:

• write business-oriented code to hide complexity, reduce errors, and speed up the development process thanks to high-level class functions above the data model
• expose your project like an API with a REST server
• execute some functions on the client or on the server, and choose which functions to publish (or not) as APIs for REST clients thanks to functions scope
• have an up-to-date datastore automatically without restarting 4D
• anticipate answers for future use cases related to scalability and performance thanks to shareable entity selections
• use ORDA or objects more easily in PROCESS 4D TAGS or SHTML, thanks to the new 4D tag 4DEACH
• extract data from an entity selection with the extract() method, and invalidate the entity selection data in the ORDA cache with refresh()

Projects are a type of architecture that represents a giant step forward for 4D applications. They add the ability to leverage source control tools, collaborative programming, code sharing, modularity, and much, much more. At the time of writing this manual, thanks to the project architecture and the ability to share project application source code via a source control system, we’ve published more than 45 repositories to GitHub. This includes HDIs, components, and full example applications. 

4D v19 brings a whole new set of features that will greatly enhance your programming experience. 

Object-oriented programming (OOP) in 4D

Thanks to project mode, we introduced classes in 4D v19. You can now take advantage of object-oriented programming concepts such as polymorphism and inheritance to write your own class libraries. If you love using objects, you will adore the OOP paradigm where everything is represented simply as an object. 

Save time and effort with direct CSS Preview

In 4D v19, you can preview the final CSS rendering in the Form editor. This feature was the highest voted feature request, and the fastest to become a top-voted feature request on our feature request forum

A new icon in the toolbar allows you to view your form with or without CSS rendering, and even see what it would look like with specific CSS rendering on Mac or Windows.

Macros

Macros are another interesting Form editor feature. They make your daily development easier and automate repetitive tasks. Some macro examples are available on GitHub. Feel free to integrate them into your applications as components to test them out!

AND MUCH MORE…

Thanks to project mode, we’ve introduced more features such as method documentation, server code development, naming parameters, and we’re just getting started!

More mail features

The Mail feature set is still expanding with 4D v19. It’s easier to use and more powerful than 4D Internet Commands. 

Besides enabling email reception either with IMAP or POP3, 4D v19 allows you to create, delete, and rename mailboxes with IMAP, save a copy of your emails after sending them, search and download emails, connect your mail transporters with an OAuth 2.0 token (support for IMAP, SMTP, and POP3 transporters) along with a dozen of new functionalities.

Dark mode support on macOS

4D v19 brings Dark Mode support on macOS, the latest trend in app design that mimics nighttime. This is just the beginning and more will be released in future versions, such as support in all components (e.g. the 4D Write Pro widget), and Design Mode.

Code editor

If “creating my own theme” is on your bucket list, now’s the right time to check it off! 4D v19 comes with basic themes that you can enrich and adapt to your own taste.

Besides theme management support, the new declaration syntax enhances autocompletion, and the display of prototype and short description in the code editor facilitates code writing.

Web-related features

4D v19 is packed with many web-related features: from scalable web sessions that will greatly improve the performance of your web applications, and support for Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS), to security enhancements regarding cookies.

With the new 4D Data Explorer preview version, 4D developers and administrators can explore 4D application data in a web browser (no need for a Web Server license).

List box

We know List boxes are an important element of your 4D applications. With 4D v19 comes footer calculations and time columns, click management in edited cells, improved type ahead, new commands to set up movable rows, and better row selecting.

The cherry on top? You no longer need a 4D View Pro license to automatically adapt the height of each row to its content (so that the full text or picture can be displayed) or use object arrays in columns (to enable entering and displaying various types of values in the rows of a single list box column), these advanced functionalities are free!

AND MUCH MORE…

4D v19 contains over 30 new features to ease your development process, including new options and additional information that will make it easier to trace and debug your code, more commands to search and compare strings, a remote debugger to help you debug if you run your server in headless mode (or as a Windows service), object and collection enhancement, and better XPath support.

Convert your Word documents to 4D Write Pro format

A highly requested feature. You can now import .docx documents into 4D Write Pro. 

Find and replace enhancement

Finding and replacing text inside a 4D Write Pro document was already possible, but a new command makes this process faster than ever.

Locate all the breaks

Sometimes, you need to locate a certain type of break to replace it with another, or simply delete all its occurrences in the document. A new function makes this possible.

AND MUCH MORE…

4D Write Pro features set has grown even more with 4D v19: Without installing any print drivers or additional software, 4D Write Pro documents can be exported directly to PDF format. A new document property defining how carriage returns should be treated is available. There are new standard actions targeting tables, rows, and cells. Support of protected attribute has been added, along with a set of commands that allow you to manage formulas inside your 4D Write Pro documents. The UI got its share of features as well: a new tab is available in the 4D Write Pro interface widget, allowing you to import and export documents in different formats. You can also select which pages to display. We’ve also brought enhancements to both the toolbar and the sidebar. All this and much more awaits you in 4D write pro.

Enhancements with SpreadJS v14

4D v19 comes with a new 4D View Pro ribbon. Besides the fresh look, we’ve added new features to support the new functionalities of SpreadJS v14. This new toolbar brings new functionalities such as:

• Accessibility Support: provides adequate accessibility support for users using assistive technologies such as screen readers.
• Comment Indicator Customization: users can now change the color and size of the indicator.
• Copy Images from Excel: supports copying images from Excel and pasting them into sheets. The pasted image will have the same size, border, and background as it did in Excel.
• Fill Effects and Patterns: enhance cell appearance in a spreadsheet by applying pattern or gradient effects to the cells. 

AND MUCH MORE…

4D v19 also includes support for six languages. In addition to English, we’ve added support for French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese! If you’re a 4D v19 and above user with an operating system matching the supported languages, you’ll notice that all of the 4D View Pro elements are now translated (Ribbon, toolbar, contextual menu, error messages, etc.).

Also, many commands are available to:

• find data, formulas, or tags and replace them in the entire sheet or only a specific part of it
• create custom functions in 4D View Pro to execute a 4D formula
• manipulate 4D View Pro commands and functions in an offscreen area
• merge and unmerge a group of cells
• trigger the calculations of the formulas whenever you wish
• define various sheet options of a 4D View Pro area. For example, you can protect a worksheet by preventing the cells within it from being edited. You can customize the colors of your worksheet’s tabs, frozen lines, gridlines, or a selection’s background and border and manage the visibility of a worksheet’s gridlines and row/column headers.
• manage columns and rows: adapt your documents to your needs. Columns and rows can be added and removed, or have their size, visibility, and header label defined.
• create up to 4 panes in your area: one on the left, one above, one on the right, and one at the bottom
• know when your calculations have completed